Derek Shackleton was one of the last of a great line of English medium-pacers. Shack was an easy-going man who took one hundred wickets in a season twenty times, a number exceeded only by Wilfred Rhodes and matched by no one else in the game’s long history. During his twenty-one-year Hampshire career, Shackleton played seven Tests for England, but they were contained in two separate series a decade apart. In 1963 he took seven wickets in the Lord’s Test against the West Indies but will be remembered for his run-out which brought the injured Colin Cowdrey to the crease to see out a draw.
It is fashionable now to dismiss men like Shackleton as ‘automatic bowlers’. So ‘automatic’ was Shack that he bowled as perfect a length, too. Shack’s movement through the air was generally away from the right-hander, though he occasionally bowled an inswinger. And so perfect was his action, it hit the bat near the splice.
During my chequered career I made two ‘pairs’, one against Shack at Old Trafford in 1962. First innings: nip-backer caught at short leg. Second innings: bounced and left me, caught off the bat’s shoulder by second slip running back. Helpless both times. Ted Dexter told me how Sussex, wearying of blocking Shack, decided to slog him. ‘We were all caught off strange parts of the bat,’ he said. ‘Shack still got six-for, but in twelve overs rather than the usual twenty-eight.’
About 1,200 overs a season was routine for him and I can’t remember him breaking down. He was slim and lithe and his action was easy, which enabled him to get through an immense amount of work. In 1961, when Hampshire won the championship for the first time, he bowled 1,501.5 overs, taking 158 wickets at 19. All done without breaking sweat.
Derek Shackleton: b Todmorden, West Yorkshire, 12 August 1924; d 28 September 2007