Jack Cowie - The 1937 England Tour

The 1937 England Tour

Cowie was, in the words of Wisden's report, "the outstanding player of the team" on the 1937 tour. Having taken previously only 45 first-class wickets, he took 114 in England and Ireland, at an average of 19.95, heading the touring team's bowling figures for both average and aggregate. Wisden said that not only was he "a first-rate fast-medium bowler, but a bowler equal to anyone of his type in present-day cricket." It went on: "Some of Cowie's colleagues who had played with or against him in New Zealand were surprised at the pace off the pitch which he obtained on English wickets. A player with an enormous capacity for work, who seemed impervious to fatigue and was accurate in length and direction, he often bowled a vicious off-break and, as he could also make the ball 'lift' and swing away, he was a bowler to be feared."

Cowie hit form in England very quickly, taking five wickets in the first tour match, against Surrey. Against Oxford University, his first innings figures of six for 50 were the best so far in his career, and included four wickets for five runs in 21 balls. By the time of the first Test at the end of June, Cowie had 32 first-class wickets.

His Test debut, at Lord's, saw him take the wickets of England debutant openers, Leonard Hutton and Jim Parks, Sr., in both innings. Hutton made only one run in the two innings. Cowie also took the wickets of Charles Barnett and Bill Voce in the first innings to finish with four for 118 in the innings; his second innings figures, when England lost only four wickets before declaring, were two for 49. The match was drawn.

Immediately after the Lord's Test, Cowie took eight wickets, including a second innings five for 60, in the match against Somerset at Taunton. But he was less successful in other matches in mid-season and was given what Wisden termed "a well-earned rest" during the side's visit to Scotland in July.

The second Test of the series, at Manchester, was played in cold weather with frequent showers, and England won the match by, according to Wisden, "a comfortable margin". But the match was a triumph for Cowie, who took four England wickets for 73 in the first innings and six for 67 in the second to finish with match figures of 10 for 140. This was the first time a New Zealand bowler had achieved 10 wickets in a Test match, and the feat would not be equalled for 38 years. Wisden wrote: "He always bowled at the stumps and considering he was sometimes handicapped by the slow pitch and wet ball, his was a masterly performance."

Cowie picked up an injury in the next match against Surrey, and then missed a week's cricket.". He returned to the team for the match with Essex and took three for 56 and five for 66, though he was overshadowed by Jack Dunning, who took 10 wickets in the game. In the two-day non-first-class match against Sir Julien Cahn's XI which followed, Cowie himself took 10 wickets, with five in each innings.

The third Test match at The Oval was badly affected by rain and was Cowie's least successful of the summer. Nevertheless he took three of the seven England wickets to fall in the first innings, finishing the series with 19 wickets at an average of 20.78 runs per wicket. The second most successful New Zealand bowler was Giff Vivian, and he took only eight wickets, and this was also the tally for the highest England wicket-takers in the series.

Cowie maintained his good form through the remaining first-class matches of the tour. He took eight wickets in the match, including five for 36 in the second innings, against Combined Services; then five in the game with Hampshire and seven in both the Kent and Sussex matches. There were seven further wickets in the Folkestone festival match against "An England XI", the first of which was Cowie's 100th wicket of the season. And in the final game in England, against H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI at Scarborough, he made 36 out of a ninth wicket stand of 74 with Tom Lowry, the highest score of his career so far.

There was a (very) short codicil to the New Zealanders tour of England: a first-class match against Ireland in Dublin. The match lasted only a single day, the first one-day finish in a first-class game for 12 years. Cowie took no wickets in the first Irish innings, when the home side was all out for 79; the New Zealanders replied with just 64. Ireland's second innings was disastrous: only three batsmen made any runs at all and of the total of 30, 10 were extras. Cowie bowled eight overs, conceded only three singles in them, and finished with figures of six wickets for three runs, which proved the best of his whole first-class career. He was, said Wisden, "well-nigh unplayable".