The greatest spell in cricket history
Hedley Verity's 10 for 10 will likely never be beaten and carves his name in the record books as immutably as upon his grave.
The bullet hit Hedley Verity in the chest. That's what his batman said, and he knew. The next day, his first as a prisoner-of-war, Tom Rennoldson returned to the battlefield with a "nice young German officer" who spoke English, and together they lifted Verity's limp body into a piece of broken mortar carrier which they had padded with sheaves of corn, then took him away to a field hospital. As the doctor prepared to operate, a grenade fell out of Verity's shirt pocket. "The Germans told me to unprime it," Rennoldson remembered, "and there, in the improvised operating theatre, I removed the detonator and made the grenade safe." Afterwards, Rennoldson and the ailing Verity shared a last tin of soup together. That afternoon the Germans parted them, sending Rennoldson away with the other fit men to a POW camp in Austria and Verity on to Naples, and eventually the town of Caserta, where he would die of his injuries.
A 79-year anniversary seems an odd one to mark, but a story like Verity's needs only the slenderest of excuses to be retold. It was on this day in 1932 that he produced the best bowling performance in the history of first class cricket, taking 10 wickets for 10 runs in a single innings against Nottinghamshire.
Ten for 10. Or in full: 19.4-16-10-10. You'd guess that is a record which will never be beaten. "The match will always be remembered for the bowling of Verity" wrote Dudley Carew in The Times the next day.
The greatest spell in cricket history | The Spin | Andy Bull | Sport | The Guardian
