Albert Trott — Pavilion Six, Two Hat-tricks in an Innings, and a Sad End

Trott played five Tests for Australia in 1894-95 v Stoddart's tourists, taking 8 for 43 on debut and averaging 102.50 with the bat. Inexplicably he was not selected for the 1896 tour of England, prompting him to emigrate. He qualified for Middlesex by residence and made his county debut in 1898. By 1899 he was the most prolific Middlesex bowler since the club's first-class beginnings.

The new Lord's pavilion, designed by Thomas Verity, had opened in 1890. It was widely regarded as un-clearable by a struck cricket ball. Trott's 1899 hit — off the second ball of an over from Noble — went over the highest pinnacle and into the garden behind.

By 1907 Trott was 34 and past his best. The Middlesex committee allotted him a benefit match v Somerset starting 20 May 1907 at Lord's; benefit collections then could be substantial — Wilfred Rhodes' 1911 benefit raised £2,202 — but only if the match ran the full three days.

Albert Edwin Trott was an Australian and English Test all-rounder whose career produced three of the strangest entries in cricket's record book. On 31 July 1899, playing for MCC against the touring Australians at Lord's, he hit a delivery from his fellow Australian Monty Noble high over the new pavilion (opened in 1890), the ball striking a chimney and falling into the garden of the pavilion attendant Philip Need. No batsman has cleared the pavilion before or since.

Eight years later, in his benefit match for Middlesex v Somerset at Lord's beginning 20 May 1907, Trott took 7 wickets for 20 in Somerset's second innings — including a hat-trick (Lewis, Poyntz, Woods) and, four overs later, four wickets in four balls (Robson, Wickham, Bailey, Mordaunt). The final spell counted as a second hat-trick within the same innings. He is one of only two cricketers ever to do so. He famously remarked that he had 'bowled himself out of his benefit', as a longer match would have meant a bigger collection.

His Test career was short — five for Australia in 1894-95, two for England in South Africa in 1898-99, eleven Tests in total — but his county figures were vast: in 1899 he scored 1,175 first-class runs and took 239 wickets, the high-water mark of a Middlesex career that ran from 1898 to 1910. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1899.

Final years were grim. Heavy drinking, a failed umpiring spell and chronic dropsy reduced him to penury. On 30 July 1914 — one day before the fifteenth anniversary of the pavilion six — he shot himself in his lodgings at 39 Denbigh Road, Willesden Green. He was 41. His will, scribbled on the back of a laundry bill, left his wardrobe to his landlady.

“I have bowled myself out of my benefit.”

“He hit Noble over the highest part of the pavilion. Such a thing has not been done before or since.”

Middlesex held a second collection for Trott's widow but the family's circumstances remained desperate. He was buried in Willesden New Cemetery, the grave initially unmarked. A headstone was erected by friends and Middlesex CCC supporters years later.

The pavilion-six remains a pilgrimage point at Lord's: a brass plaque on the Father Time Wall records the date and the bowler, and the spot where the ball cleared the building is sometimes pointed out by guides during tours.