Lives in Cricket No 43 - John Jackson

92 Family Life and Decline 1880 to 1901 before the advent of W.G.Grace. In Volume VIII of Scores and Biographies Haygarth reproduced a lengthy piece of verse about the members of the team which visited Australia in 1863/64. It had this to say about Jackson: Jackson comes next: the ball’s his special care His pace is awful, and e’en those that dare To stand against him, and their wicket shield, Are to his trundling often made to yield: ‘Tis said that when he’s really on the spot, To play those breakbacks and those shooters hot, A Pilch, a Mynn, a Daft combined ‘twould take His balls to conquer and his bowling break. What must it have been like for a batsman representing one of the XXIIs to stand at the crease watching this big 6 feet 4 inch man – and nasty with it – pacing out his run prior to bowling a ball faster than anything seen since the AEE’s last visit? Nor was Jackson too particular about where he did some damage. Listen to his part of his interview with Old Ebor in Talks with Old England Cricketers . Jackson agrees that that he never took all 10 wickets in an innings, but ‘I took nine once and lamed John Wisden so that he could not bat so that was as good as all 10, wasn’t it?’ This was the Jackson philosophy writ large. That said, he took many, many wickets bowled, caught, lbw and otherwise legitimately dismissed at a pace described by Prowse as ‘fearful’. None of which, sadly, equipped him for what would happen when he could play no longer. Peter and Tony Collins, two of John Jackson’s great-grandsons. [Nottinghamshire CCC]