Jack Cowie - The 1949 England Tour

The 1949 England Tour

As in 1937, Cowie was one of the key players on the 1949 tour of England, though age – he was 37 – and a warm and dry summer did not help his figures. Wisden said that they did him "far less than justice". It went on: "For a bowler of his pace his consistency was remarkable... Another 25 or 30 wickets for the same number of runs would have given him an analysis more in keeping with his value."

For the first time in his cricket career, Cowie was affected by injuries during the tour. Wisden noted "minor strains" and he missed three weeks of the tour between the third and fourth Tests. The injuries meant that he played in only 18 of the 32 first-class matches of the tour, and he finished with 59 wickets at an average of 27.13 runs apiece. As ever, his batting was mostly negligible, though he made 47 in the first-class match against Scotland, a match in which he also took six Scottish wickets in the second innings at a cost of 66 runs, all six batsmen being bowled. His best bowling on the tour was in an early match against Leicestershire when he took six wickets for 54 runs.

Cowie played in all four Tests of the summer, all four matches being drawn. In the first game, he bowled 36 overs on the first day of the match and he was, said Wisden, "the only bowler who presented England with any serious problem". He took five wickets in the England first innings for 127 runs, but pulled a muscle in his leg so that he needed a runner while batting and was unable to bowl in England's second innings.

Fit again for the second Test, though he played in neither of the first-class matches in between, Cowie bowled a long spell in which he "maintained a perfect length at a fast pace and several times.. made the ball lift nastily". He tired in the heat, however, and finished with only two wickets for 64 runs. In the third match, he was part of an accurate New Zealand attack that had England struggling for runs, and took three for 98. In the fourth and final Test, again played in hot conditions, he shared the England wickets with Fen Cresswell, though his four wickets cost 123 runs and he was most effective late in the innings.

Cowie finished the Test series at the head of the New Zealand bowlers by average, his 14 Test wickets costing 32.21 runs each. The slow left-arm bowler Tom Burtt took 17 wickets, but they cost more than 33 runs each.

Towards the end of the tour, there was one more five-wicket innings for Cowie in the match against Middlesex. That proved to be his last significant bowling achievement in first-class cricket. He moved in his job in insurance to Wellington on his return from England and he appeared in the 1949-50 New Zealand domestic season in just one match for Auckland against a non-Test-playing Australian side, and then retired.