GLOUCESTERSHIRE v NORTHANTS

 The Spa Ground, Gloucester
10 – 12 June 1907

 

 

THE INSCRIPTION ON THE BALL READS:  WITH THIS BALL NORTHANTS WERE DISMISSED FOR TWELVE RUNS AT GLOUCESTER
ON 11 JUNE 1907

G DENNETT   6   1   9   8

GL JESSOP   5.3   4   3   2

 

Anyone familiar with Wisden over many years will know of the line that appears regularly in the Records Section that lists the Lowest Totals in First-Class cricket.

12 Northamptonshire v Gloucestershire at Gloucester 1907.

Northants had become a first class county in 1905, the year that they joined the County Championship. Their first meeting with Gloucestershire was in 1907 in Gloucester at the Spa Ground.

On the morning of June 10 1907, after a delayed start due to rain, in front of “a mere handful of spectators” and with further rain extending their innings well into the second morning, Gloucestershire were bowled out for 60 with Jessop, the captain scoring 22 and being the only man to reach double figures.

Then came Dennett!

The Northants innings began at 1.15pm and when the players took lunch forty minutes later they had been bowled out for 12 runs with Dennett, bowling from the Park end taking the first eight wickets for nine runs, having at one time taken three wickets in four balls and twice been on a hat-trick. Bowling from the other end, Jessop in a much more miserly spell took the final two wickets at a cost of three runs!

Gloucestershire’s second innings lasted for an hour and three quarters, and when they were all out for eighty eight runs, Northants had just over an hour in the evening and the whole of the final day to score 137 to win the match. It was a task that was proving beyond them and with Dennett again to the fore, taking the first seven wickets for twelve runs, the Gloucester Citizen report on the second day’s play concluded with the paragraph:

 

Mr Crosse clearly turned out to be an excellent weather prophet for with more rain on the final day, there was never a chance that play would resume and Northants escaped with a draw.

As with the game at Cheltenham, Dennett bowled unchanged through both Northants innings and finished the game with 15 wickets for 21 runs in a period of less than two hours and The Citizen noted that