Lives in Cricket No 52 - Schooled in Cricket (2nd edition)

116 McCool himself was an ageing star – at 39, he was five years Johnny’s junior. How much it was this, how much the personal issues were contributed to by a sense of tiredness of spending all summer away from home and family – or whether he felt obliged to return home – or how much his appetite for the demands of first-class cricket at the age of 44 had temporarily at least diminished – or indeed how much it was a case of him going before he was pushed – is all still the subject of conjecture – and much of this is probably lost in the mists of time. But he had had such a good season that – if there was any loss of confidence in him from Somerset’s side or lack of belief that he had more seasons yet in him – it would have surely been misplaced. Whatever the matrix of reasons why this retirement occurred when it did, we soon see however that Johnny had not lost – and was never to lose – his insatiable appetite for the game of cricket, nor his skill level nor his ability to compete. Though he no longer would have the status of playing first-class cricket from hereon and though by next season he would be 45, his entries into cricket’s record books and cricket’s history were to continue without any let up – for another 20 years and more. His time at Somerset – a statistical view To sum up Johnny’s first-class career – though he was always the bowler all-rounder, he had scored fifties against every first-class county of the day. His bowling was a phenomenon; he had been unlucky not to have been in a position to represent his country when asked; and the effectiveness of his bowling – especially from 1949 onwards – was a great feature of his career. He also took five wickets in an innings against all the first class county opponents. He played in 283 matches which in itself shows a remarkable freeness from injury for most of his ten years at Somerset. He scored 9,185 runs at an average of 20.5 with three A first class career with Somerset