Some Famous Cricket Feats Recalled By Hat-Trick At Hagley Park

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 6 (Supplement)

Some Famous Cricket Feats Recalled By Hat-Trick At Hagley Park

A ISOTABLE cricket feat at Hagley Park last Saturday, when a West Christchurch senior bowler, M. Johnston. secured three wickets with successive balls, has awakened some interest in the term hat-trick, one of the most familiar expressions in the cricketer's vocabulary • — though Jew possibly have even a hazy notion of ivhence it springs or how long it has been in use. According to various standard books on the game, the hat-trick is the "getting of three wickets by a bowler with three consecutive balls, whether in the same over or not. The term derives from a ivhite hat which used to be given to a bowler who performed the feat. ,.

How rare the achievement is can be seen from glancing at the records of big cricket in New Zealand. Thus, over a period of seventy odd years of inter provincial cricket, bowlers have performed the feat only seven times. And only once since, the war, by Ted Mulcock for Canterbury against Otago, three seasons back.

It was at Lancaster Park during the Christmas holidays of 1937 that Mulcuck secured the hat-trick. The tall easv-actioned in-swerve bowler had just bagged the wickets of RobertSon and ("hettleburgh, and the success put him on his mettle. Working up more fire and deceptive swing to his tightly-placed leg field, Mulcock proceeded to send Elmes, Howden, and Mills back to the pavilion off successive balls, while the crowd roared. It was the last ball of the twelfth over that took Elmes's ■wicket; and the first and second of the thirteenth over that settled the hopes of Howden and Mills. Sad to relate, after all this, Canterbury lost the match, mainly because of good work with the ball later by

Jack Dunning, now in Queensland, and Robertson, backed up by some amazingly line 'keeping on the part of Mills. Otago won by 89 runs, their skipper, K. F. M. Uttlev, making 45 and 88. Grimmett Among Victims. The previous occasion, when a hattrick came to be recorded in a Plunket Shield match, was in the 1912-13 season, when C. Oliff, playing for Auckland against Wellington, secured as his successive victims, C. V. Grimmett, J. V. Saunders, and T. R. Southall. Yes, the famous Grimmett was playing for Wellington then, and he made 25 and 28. You would scarcely believe his own bowling figures: One for 57 in eighteen overs, and none for 8 in two overs. Oliff, described by Mr Torn Reese as a " midget of a chap," sent down a crafty slow, spinning ball and could break both ways. His figures for the match were notable: Six for 62 and seven for 42. . Other performers of the hat-trick in New Zealand interprovincial cricket history are: A. Downes, four in succession for Otago against Auckland, in 1893; C. Frith, for Otago against Canterbury, in 1885: W. Barclay, for Auckland against Canterbury, in 1903; S. Orchard, for Canterbury against Auckland, in 1910; and J. H. Bennett, for Canterbury against Wellington, in 1910. Sid Orchard, incidentally, was New Zealand full-back on the Australian Rugby tour of 1897. His hat-trick victims were L. G. Hemus, E. V. Sale, and Alf Haddon. Three New Zealand cricket teams have toured England, but it was only on the last tour, in 1937, that a Dominion bowler succeeded in gaining

fame by performing the hat-trick. Playing against Sir Julien Cahn's team at Nottingham in August, A. \V. Roberts, of Canterbury, took three wickets with successive balls. His victims were Butterworth, Maxwell, and Hall. New Zealand won the match by " nine wickets.

Lancaster Park saw one of the moy* sensational starts to a big cricket match in January, 1930, \ihen New Zealand were playing M.C.C. in the

first test. New Zealand opened with Dempster and Foley to the bowling of M. S. Nichols and M. J. Allom. Nichols immediately took three wickets, and three were down for .'ls. That was bad enough. Worse was to follow. Allom then routed New Zealand by securing four victims in five balls, including the hat-trick. His victims were T. C. Lowry, K. C. James, and F. T. Badcock. A test match record that may stand for all time is this one. For Australia v. South Africa at Manchester in 1912, T. J. Matthews took three wickets with successive balls in each innings! Feats such as these will be talked of wherever cricketers gather. It is a coincidence that a London contributor to "The Times" has recently been delving into the cricket history of the hat-trick. "The Oxford Dictionary

(says the writer) can And no mention of the hat trick earlier than 18S2. It would seem, therefore, that the term came into use as a concise way of describing a bo*;ling feat already recognised in a practical, if playful, manner with the presentation of a white hat. Why a hat was chosen, or when it was first chosen, or to whose lively wit we owe the custom and the phrase, are questions upon which further light would be welcome. "In the 'Country Life' exhibition this summer of objects connected with old country life and sports, there was, among many attractive exhibits, a white beaver hat sent by Lord Saye and Sale. This bore the following inscription: This hat was presented by his Excellency the Earl of Carlisle, K.G., at the Phosnix Lodge, on behalf of I. Zingari, to the Honble. Cecil Fiennes for having bowled out three opponents in succession, 1859. "It is mere conjecture, but it appears not unlikely that this may have been the first occasion 011 which a bowler's success and the reward of a hat appear in connection. "Why a hat should have been thought an appropriate gift is also a mystery. The fashion of cricketers taking the field in hats was obsolete, so as an item of costume a hat would have no special significance. The only association that I can call to mind between a hat and a bowler is that there is such a thing as a bowler hat. Can this have any bearing on the subject, or is it merely a coincidence? 1 had always supposed that a bowler, meaning a hat, was the most modern of slang terms : but I find from tlie dictionary that it is as old as 1861, so that there is no discrepancy of dates to rule out the connection." Three Famous Wickets. ' A most opportune hat trick as regards the class of batsmen dismissed was J. T. Hearne's for England in the test against Australia in 1899. He got rid ot Noble, S. E. Gregory, and Clem Hill, the first two caught in the slips and the third clean bowled, soon after the start of the Australian second innings. A curious hat trick was done by Charles Townsend when playing for Gloucestershire against Somersetshire. Bowling slow leg-

breaks of an accurate length, he had three men stumped off three consecutive balls. With the passage of years the hat trick has accumulated problem and legend. One tale that used to go the rounds concerned a bowler who had done it with three batsmen, each of whom had scored 15, and asked how he managed it. The answer was that the first man, who had made 15, was caught off a big hit. The batsmen had crossed, and the last ball of the over bowled the other man, who had also scored 15. One of the new batsmen then made three fours and a. three off the bowling at the other end, and fell to the opening ball of the next over. There was also a story that a bowler had done the hat-trick with three generations, a son,, a father and a grandfather all being caught off him at silly point. The family name Was quoted in order to encourage belief.