had given the match up. Peel, the other spinner in the side got very drunk. Overnight however it rained and in the morning the sun was shining. A wet wicket drying under a hot sun would soon become a sticky wicket. Peel was put under a shower to sober up. He and Briggs were unplayable and the match was won by 10 runs. In the Second Test at Melbourne Briggs equalled Fred Spofforth’s record of 94 Test wickets on 29 December 1894, as did Charles Turner two days later. The three men briefly held the record together, but Turner missed the Third Test at Adelaide and Briggs overtook them both. Briggs became the first man to claim 100 Test wickets in the Fourth Test at Sydney on 1 February 1895, Turner being the second on 4 February in his last Test match. With the controversial speedster Arthur Mold, Briggs formed a strong bowling combination for Lancashire from 1889 onwards: both bowlers took over 100 wickets every year from 1889 to 1896, frequently bowling almost unchanged through an innings and keeping Lancashire near the top of the Championship table despite poor performance from support bowlers. His batting remained useful until 1894, after which his impatience tended to get the better of him and, despite rapidly improving pitches, he played few significant innings in his later years. CB Fry described his trademark shot as a “whizzing uppercut that travels over third man’s head”, a thoroughly modern sounding stroke. Nonetheless, Briggs's superb bowling — though aided by a number of sticky wickets — won Lancashire their first official County Championship in 1897, but he was a disappointment in Australia the following winter and suffered a severe decline in his bowling the following year. In 1899, Briggs was still thought good enough to play for England at Headingley, but before that he had suffered a blow over the heart from Tom Hayward. Though this injury was not thought severe, Briggs collapsed during the match and did not play for the rest of the season. He was one of the first patients to receive an X Ray examination and it was found that a rib had damaged his heart. In 1900, he made a comeback, taking all ten wickets for 55 against Worcestershire and scoring over 800 runs, but soon afterwards it became clear he was suffering severely from mental illness. Confined to an asylum,