At least two theories and several collapses

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< 1 minute read

That’s what you can expect from our latest knock for All Out Cricket.

In the preamble, All Out Cricket have accused us of having a ‘beady eye’ which is pretty much libel – we have two beady eyes and we make use of both of them.

We’ve decided not to take this to court because they could quite easily change it to ‘Alex Bowden takes a sideways look at cricket’ if they were to lose the case.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

8 comments

  1. The sad thing about Batty’s feat is that he took the first eight wickets, but couldn’t snaffle the other two. The tenfer is one of those feats that every “servant of the game” deserves a shot at, at least in the tail end of their career. Richard Johnson’s problem was getting his tenfer in right at the start of it. Bowling requires more patience than that.

  2. If Batty wants to play for England, he might want to be a bit more ambitious than hoping he gets to play a few games for Surrey.

    A ninefer’s worse than an eightfer. Back when the da captained our club’s third team, one of the lads took 9-11. The da spoiled his tenfer by getting the other wicket for him…

    1. Gilbert Laird Jessop is one of my all-time “wish I’d been able to see him” players, but I have found to my disappointment that he too party-pooped a tenfer. His Gloucestershire opening partner was Edward Dennett, a slow-left armer (yes, spinner as opening bowler circa 1907, eat your heart out “revolutionary” Dipak Patel) and Scotland international (taking 2/98 against Bart King’s Philadelphians).

      Dennett took 8/9 before Jessop picked up the final two wickets for no runs conceded, and Northants were all out for 12. On an absolutely excellent pitch, Jessop re-earned my respect by top-scoring in both innings (22 runs out of a team effort of 60 in the first innings, 24 out of 88 in the second, so single-handedly scoring 31% of his team’s tally, though presumably using both hands to do so). And generously Jessop allowed Dennett to pick up all the wickets in the second innings, including a middle-order hat-trick that reduced Northants to 31/6. Sadly “all” of the wickets amounted to merely seven of them. No play was possible on the final day, Northants escaped with 40/7 and the draw, and Dennett finished with an unfulfilled 7/12.

      Two bona fide chances at a tenfer in the same match, spoiled by a legendary all-rounder teammate and the Great British Weather. Q: How cricket is that? A: Very cricket.

      Just so I do not spoil anyone’s day, the good news is that Dennett did fulfil his potential, and emulate the great John Wisden, by taking a first-class tenfer. In fact he’d already managed it the previous season, taking 10-40 against Essex. Unlike Wisden, he didn’t manage ten clean bowleds, but those figures still leave him clinging on in the Top Twenty Bowling Analyses Of All Time. Jessop didn’t bowl in that match, though he did make 35% of his team’s runs.

    2. Glad someone enjoyed it … there are some pretty bizarre things on that list! Can’t see 10-175 being “broken” as a record for some time….

  3. Tredwell plays for England and he aspires to the occasional first class game for Kent.

    Are England really considering playing Moeen Ali in the “Ray-Illingworth-like-bat-six-and-provide-albeit-only-slightly-better-than-part-time-spin” role, when Scott Borthwick might surely fulfil same role better and is more a pick for the future?

    1. Was Ray Illingworth really only slightly better than part time spin?

      2000 wickets at 20?

  4. You’ve linked to some nice pieces on cricket over the last year in patches, KC! #justsaying

    Does that work? Am I understanding this hashtag thing correctly?

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