We are trying to compile a list of curiosities and oddities of cricket in Kent. It cannot possibly be comprehensive, but it ought to be truthful, with every entry checked for accuracy.

Cricket is not, and never has been, a game where things run smoothly all the time. It is also a game where if something unusual can happen, it will. If people say a record can’t be broken, it will be, and if extreme brilliance or extreme incompetence can be displayed, it will be. I thought it might be worth trying to compile a list of cricketing oddities in Kent, just to show that we in the Garden of England are just as strange as folk elsewhere.

It would be foolish to limit ourselves to first-class cricket. As every club, village and wandering cricketer knows, the greater the level of skill on display, the less likely it is that curiosities will present themselves. Let’s start with teams being all out for 0. My village club, Saltwood CC, dismissed Martin Walters’ XI for 0 in May 1964, the two opening bowlers, Bob Chappell and Geoff Cooke, taking 7 for 0 and 3 for 0 respectively. The scorecard is framed on the pavilion wall, and although Bob has gone to meet the Great Umpire in the sky, Geoff will still tell you all about it if you give him half a chance.

I happen to know that this is not the only case of a Kent team being all out for 0. In 1825, when Five of Kent played Five of Sussex, both sides were all out for 0, the game thus ending in a tie. I realise this was only a five a side game, but still the spectators must have felt rather short-changed, even though the bowlers would have been pretty happy – and an early tea to boot. Have there been many other matches in Kent in which one team has been all out for 0? Let us know if you have the details.

Brian Luckhurst, caught by John Prodger

Five a side would have seemed a positive throng compared with the 1963 game between Middlesex and Kent at Tunbridge Wells on Monday 17th June, when only three Middlesex players made it to the ground in time for the start of the second day’s play. As they were batting at the time, this proved to be a problem.  One of the overnight not out batsmen, Bob White, was at the ground, but his batting partner Ron Hooker, and all of the next six in the batting order were among those held up in traffic. Nobody had told them how impossible it was and still is to get into Tunbridge Wells by car unless you have at least half a day to spare. What to do? The Middlesex captain, Colin Drybrough, was not there so there was nobody to declare the innings closed, and Colin Cowdrey, captaining Kent, was unwilling to claim the match by default, so the umpires took the view that the innings must be officially closed at 121 for 3, still 29 runs behind Kent’s rather feeble 150. Kent then batted, and the innings was three overs old before all the rest of the Middlesex players arrived. During those three overs, Brian Luckhurst managed to get himself out, brilliantly caught by his team-mate John Prodger fielding as a substitute. It was very generous of Cowdrey to allow Prodger to field as one of the many substitutes, as he was not only a goalkeeper who had played for several non-league clubs and was briefly on Charlton Athletic’s books, but also Kent’s record holder for most outfield catches in a match, set in 1961 against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham. Once the full Middlesex eleven turned up, the fielding standard declined and Kent went on to score 341 for 7 declared. Middlesex then made 82 for 3 before rain caused the match to finish prematurely in a draw. Prodger’s catch, incidentally, makes him possibly the only player to have held a catch and scored a fifty in the same innings in first class cricket, although I expect it’s been done often enough at village level. More research needed on this one!

The umpires in this match, Lofty Herman and Dusty Rhodes, did an excellent job under difficult circumstances, but other umpires in Kent have been less lucky. One unnamed umpire, officiating at the Benenden v Penshurst match in 1892, so upset the players of both sides that he was carried from the pitch and thrown unceremoniously into a nearby duckpond. Not quite the spirit of cricket maybe, but all those of us who have had to deal with village umpires can sympathise with the emotions involved. It is to be hoped that this action can still be classified as a curiosity, but if you have any other examples of umpirical failings, let us know.

Oddities and curiosities can take very many forms. In June 1912, one W. Clarke, playing for St. Augustine’s College against Ashford Church Choir, took three hat-tricks in the Choir’s first innings and two more in the second innings. We have to assume that St. Augustine’s won handsomely, and that W. Clarke, with five hat-tricks in the same afternoon, was duly chosen as Man of the Match. Not even Doug Wright could rival that. Hat-tricks by fielders and wicket-keepers are also unusual enough to be on a list of oddities. I know of two or three – does anybody know of more?

Great pieces of batting, like Percy Chapman’s 183 out of 201 for Mackeson’s Brewery against the Elham Division of Kent County Constabulary, at Hythe on 8 September 1925, would qualify as curiosities. Chapman actually scored all of the first 150 runs scored, having come in at number 4. Batsmen numbers 1 to 3 and 4 to 7 all made ducks.

Graham Cowdrey – who ate my lenses?

I’m not sure how to list Steve Marsh swallowing Graham Cowdrey’s contact lenses during a championship match, but that’s an odd thing to do, and it’s cricket related, so it goes into the collection. So is playing cricket on the Goodwin Sands, which used to be a regular occurrence while the hovercraft was in operation from Folkestone, but is now a thing of the past, at least until global warming dries up the Channel. The main problem for batsmen was always seals moving behind the bowler’s arm.

Curiosities and oddities are still cropping up: Sean Dickson’s ‘handled the ball’ dismissal last season was only the second time a Kent batsman had been given out this way, and the first instance was in 1872. Dickson also became the first player ever to score a hundred, a double hundred and a triple hundred as his first three first-class centuries, so it was a great disappointment that when he reached his fourth century, against the West Indians in Canterbury Week this year, he did not go on to get to 400.

Let us know your curiosities and oddities. We hope to compile a long and bizarre list.

Jonathan Rice

jnhrice@googlemail.com