by Sumit Gangopadhyay

15 August 1929. Glamorgan needed 84 runs to win. The opponents were Leicestershire. The target was small, but 30 wickets had already fallen during the course of two days.

In these circumstances, fast medium bowler George Geary became devastating. He captured 10 wickets for just 18 and bowled Glamorgan out for 68 runs. It was then the best bowling figures of all time.

Till this day it stands as the second best bowling figures of all time. Geary’s match haul was 18 for 96.

He used to enjoy himself against Glamorgan, taking 138 wickets against them in 27 matches.

In 1926-27 Geary visited India as member of Arthur Gilligan’s MCC side. He scored over 600 runs at an average of 35 and captured 81 wickets. This included 11 wickets in the match against Central India.

He played four private ‘Tests’ during the tour. (two against India, one against Sinhala and one against Burma).

Apart from that he played 54 matches in the Lancashire League, 53 of them for Nelson, and captured 189 wickets.

In between 1924 and 1934, Geary managed to play only 14 Test matches. With Tate, Larwood, Voce, Bowes and Allen around, apart from Gilligan in the first few seasons, it was difficult to break through into the top eleven.
However, he did manage 46 Test wickets at 29.41. This included 12 at the Old Wanderers in Johannesburg in December 1927. He and Hammond routed South Africa in the second innings, reducing them to 38 for 7.
In March 1929, he finished the first innings at Melbourne with the figures 81-36-105-5. That stands as the record for the highest number of balls by an England bowler in a Test innings.

2063 wickets in first-class cricket, 125 five wicket hauls, 30 ten-fors. From 1912 to 1936, he took 100 wickets 11 times in 26 championship seasons.

Batting in the lower order, Geary hit hard and scored 13,501 runs at an average of 19.89 with six centuries. In 1938, in his final summer, he scored 873 runs with 3 hundreds and attained the best season average of his career.

George Gary was almost killed in the First World War, but then carried Leicestershire on his shoulders for the next two decades.
He later mentored renowned names of English cricket, such as Alec Bedser and Peter May.
He was born on 9 July 1893.

Translated from Bengali by Arunabha Sengupta