Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

performances were few and far between, but when they did occur they were little short of sensational. The first was in the match against Lancashire on 3, 4 and 5 June at Burton-on-Trent, when he performed the first hat trick of his career. He sent back Watson, Sibbles and Wilkinson in consecutive balls to restrict the visitors to a narrow first innings lead. Prior to this game he had only taken sixteen wickets in five Championship outings. Apart from a seven-wicket match aggregate against Sussex at Horsham, he had little other success until a knee injury enforced his absence for five matches after 25 June. It was on his return that he accomplished what was, statistically, his best ever feat in first-class cricket. The occasion took place at Derby, Warwickshire being the visitors. Making the ball swing violently either way and bowling extremely fast, he demolished his opponents for 28 runs before lunch on the opening day. All the Warwickshire batsmen were helpless against him. Half the side were dismissed for eighteen runs and Copson dismissed Dollery, Fantham, Mayer and Hollies in four consecutive balls to finish with the astonishing figures of 8.2-2-11-8. 19 Wisden described this performance as ‘Bowling probably better than at any time since his debut in 1932, he maintained great speed and made the ball swing disconcertingly either way. Batsmen compelled to make late defensive strokes were helpless against him.’ Contemporary Press reports suggested that there was little wrong with the pitch to account for Copson’s success. His achievement has remained the best eight-wicket return for Derbyshire in first-class cricket: in the ‘official’ Championship it has been bettered only five times in 108 seasons. 20 In Warwickshire’s second innings he took the wicket of Norman Kilner with his second ball, thus taking five wickets in six balls. This was the first time that this had been done in first-class cricket although three other players have subsequently equalled this feat. 21 His record was seven wickets in 18 balls, eight in 28, nine in 46 Test Cricket, At Last 19 His ball by ball analysis was as follows: ….w./.w…./2..1../1…../1….w/…..1/ 1..w../. .4.ww/ww 20 These are by D.Shackleton, 11.1-7-4-8, for Hampshire v Somerset, Weston-super-Mare, 1955; C.H.Palmer, 14-12-7-8, for Leicestershire v Surrey, Leicester, 1955; E.G.Dennett, 6-1-9-8, for Gloucestershire v Northamptonshire, Gloucester, 1907; G.E.Tribe, 14.2-10-9-8, for Northamptonshire v Yorkshire, Northampton, 1958; and D.L.Underwood, 10.1-6-9-8, for Kent v Sussex, Hastings, 1973. 21 This particular feat has since been achieved by W.A.Henderson for North-East Transvaal v Orange Free State, Bloemfontein, 1937/38; P.I.Pocock for Surrey v Sussex, Eastbourne, 1972, in his last two overs of the match; and Yasir Arafat for Rawalpindi v Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, 2004/05.