An early finish

Posted by John Winn

In my blog posted earlier today I said that the game at Edgbaston could be over in as few as two deliveries this morning. For this to occur Somerset would have needed to lose their last wicket to the first ball of the day and Warwickshire's opening batsman to hit a six off the first ball of their innings. In the end neither of these two unlikely events came about for Compton and Willoughby survived a further thirty eight deliveries extending Somerset's lead to twenty two before Compton was out for 95. The Bears knocked these off in 20 balls to win by ten wickets.
This may have set some of you wondering if two teams have ever had to return next morning when just one ball was required to complete a match. Quite by chance one occasion came to my notice this afternoon while reading from the delightful Nico Craven's book, 'Playing A Supporting Role' in which he describes how in 1961 when Gloucestershire were playing Yorkshire at Bristol, the West Country men claimed the extra half hour on the second day. They were successful in capturing Yorkshire's last wicket (M. Ryan bowled D.Allen 0) which left them needing 26 runs in 17 minutes. All was going well until off the fifth ball of the last over Barrie Meyer was bowled by a long hop(conspiracy theorists say a deliberate long hop)and umpires Arnold and Price duly removed the bails in accordance with Law 18.
Wisden recalls that next morning all the players changed into 'flannels' and Brian Bainbridge completed his over and the match, when Bernard, whose name had been drawn from a hat, drove the first ball of the morning to the boundary.In Craven's version 'the match was won and the field deserted by the time the pavilion clock had stopped striking eleven'.The pedant in me says play began at 11:30 in those days, but what the heck.
In the match, which was Arthur Milton's benefit, only two batsmen scored fifties, John Mortimore for Gloucestershire and Vic Wilson for Yorkshire.Also of interest is thatt Ken Taylor bagged a pair, as did Mel Ryan, and Kevin Gillhouley took six wickets in the match. West Yorkshire readers might recall that all three were Huddersfield born. The date of all this? June 23rd 1961.