Lives in Cricket No 43 - John Jackson

76 Injury Strikes 25, 26 and 27 June where the AEE met XXII of Seaforth and lost in a close finish by 4 runs. Haygarth’s comment that ‘the ground broke up fearfully and the bowlers had it all their own way’ seems fully justified given the low scores. Seaforth made 85 and 68, and the AEE scores were 109 and 40. Only seven double figure scores were recorded. There were 17 zeros in Seaforth’s second innings and three other men were written down as ‘absent’. Jackson took five first innings wickets. On 28 June Jackson was back where it had all begun, when the AEE met XVIII of Newark at the Kelham Road Ground and won by ten wickets, with Carpenter batting for five hours and twenty minutes to score 34*, a fine example of how difficult it was for even the best batsmen to score swiftly against multiple fielders. Jackson took ten wickets in the match, and Tarrant, J.C.Shaw and Tinley shared the others. Newark made 96 in both innings, the AEE making 168 and 28 for nought. Jackson remained in his home area for his next AEE match which was against XXII of Retford on 9, 10 and 11 July. They beat the AEE by ten wickets with their two given men, Luke Greenwood, again, and G.Howitt, who took seventeen wickets between them. Greenwood must have loved playing against the AEE by this time! For his part John Jackson bowled the first three Retford batsmen for 0, 10 and 0 respectively. The next AEE game was at Oldham on 12, 13 and 14 July where Jackson took a wicket with his second ball against the local XXII and went on to take another five as Oldham collapsed to 50 all out. AEE made 171 with John Smith scoring 56, Tom Hayward 47 and George Anderson 32. Oldham were then dismissed for 119 to give the AEE victory by an innings and 2 runs. Jackson took one wicket. The bands of the Lancashire Rifle Volunteers and the Blue Coat Boys were on hand to cheer the local spectators with their lively music. The AEE were at Dudley on 16 July where a XXII of Dudley defeated them by seven wickets. Jackson took only one wicket, but Tinley created havoc with his lobs, taking nineteen wickets. On the last day of the game one of the local players, J.S.Wainwright, backed himself to throw the cricket ball 110 yards. He did it too, throwing the ball 112 yards at his third attempt. Moving to the NorthWest on 23 and 24 July, the AEE played their first match at Whitehaven, Cumberland since 1856. Jackson, Parr and Greenwood had all played for the AEE on that occasion and then, as now, the AEE won the match, this time by 144 runs. Jackson made an unbeaten 26, besides taking 11 Whitehaven wickets in the first innings. At the conclusion of the game a single-wicket match took place between three AEE players – Oscroft, Smith and Jackson - and eleven of Whitehaven. Jackson took seven wickets – all bowled as Whitehaven were dismissed for 13. The AEE scored 16 (Jackson 3). Over in the North East XXII of Darlington were beaten on 26, 27 and 28 July by an innings and 20 runs. Jackson was wicketless but perhaps he did not bowl after his efforts at Whitehaven. Although defeated they were happy to have made a handsome profit from the match to put towards