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A sign of things to come: Jim Laker takes his tenth wicket at The Oval © The Cricketer International
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1956
Jim Laker
took all ten wickets for Surrey in a tour match against the Australians, a feat he
would famously repeat in the Old Trafford Test later that summer. Here Laker took 10 for 88 and his spin partner Tony Lock 0 for 100 on a turner so raging that Ray Lindwall bowled only two out of 133 overs in Surrey's first innings. Ten weeks later Laker took 10 for 53 in the second innings of the fourth Test, to make it 19 for 90 in that match. Poor Lock was again the bridesmaid,
with 1 for 116. Here, though, he at least cleaned up in the second innings, taking seven wickets to Laker's two. Lock himself also took all ten that summer, for Surrey against Kent at Blackheath, and 16 in the match. Laker wasn't playing, mind you.
1953
More remarkable events at The Oval where Surrey bowled out Warwickshire for 45 and 52 to win by an innings and 49 runs - and all inside a day, and one which started late because of overnight rain. Alec Bedser took 8 for 18 and 4 for 17, Laker a hat-trick and in all ten Warwickshire batsmen recorded ducks. The Warwickshire innings lasted 75 minutes and 70 minutes.
1906
Birth of the Australian fast bowler Ernie McCormick, who played
12 Tests just before the Second World War. At his best McCormick was
genuinely quick, but he was constantly plagued by back trouble. Like Shane Warne, he took a wicket with his first ball
in Ashes Tests: Stan Worthington, caught behind off the first delivery of
the 1936-37 Brisbane Test, and in the same match
he inflicted Wally Hammond's first Ashes duck. In his opening
match in England, at Worcester in 1938, McCormick was no-balled for
overstepping no fewer than 35 times, 19 of them in his first three
overs. He died in Tweed Heads, New South Wales, in 1991.
1938
Don Bradman continued his amazing start to
Australia's England tour with a massive 278 against MCC at Lord's. It
came in only 349 minutes and included 35 fours and a six. His run of
scores prior to the Test series were: 258, 58, 137, 278, 2, 143, 145*,
5, 30*. He didn't do too badly when the real action started either.
Bradman cracked 434 runs at an average of 108 in the Tests.
1972
When left-arm spinner Matthew Hart, who was born today, made his New
Zealand debut as a 21-year-old against Pakistan at Wellington in 1993-94, he was talked up as the
next big thing. As it turned out, that was Daniel Vettori, and Hart's 12-Test career was a
disappointment. He did play one match-winning hand, however, when he
took eight South African wickets at Johannesburg in 1994-95. But too often Hart
was anodyne: his strike rate was a wicket every 106 balls.
Other birthdays
1962 Gary Crocker (Zimbabwe)
1975 Niroshan Bandaratilleke (Sri Lanka)
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Bumble Logs In: Starring in a Sky promo, watching Trueman on Dad's Army, looking ahead to Barbados
