Rain on the second evening had left the Headingley pitch damp and unpredictable. Notts, set 139 in the fourth innings, started solidly enough — Walter Keeton and Charlie Harris took the score to 38 before Verity began to spin the ball sharply off the wet surface. From there it became one of the most concentrated destructions in cricket's recorded history.
Verity took seven wickets in 15 deliveries, including the hat-trick of Walker, Voce and Larwood — yes, those Larwood and Voce, by then the most feared opening fast attack in England, both castled by a spinner with the ball turning square. His final analysis, 19.4 (six-ball) overs, 16 maidens, 10 wickets for 10 runs, set a record that has now stood for over nine decades. The previous best — Ted Tyler 10/49 in 1895 — was halved.
The figures alone do not capture the precision: 16 maidens means roughly 80 per cent of his deliveries were left alone or defended, and the average runs conceded per wicket was a single. Notts were all out 67. Yorkshire knocked off 139 for the loss of no wicket; Sutcliffe finished with an unbeaten fifty.
The spell more or less guaranteed Verity's selection for the 1932-33 Ashes tour. Nine months later he would be in Australia under Jardine, picked up 11 wickets in the series including the dismissal of Bradman, and return as the spinning conscience of an attack defined by its quicks. He died in Italy in 1943, aged 38, leading his Green Howards regiment in the assault on the Salerno beachhead. His best figures will probably never be beaten.