Anonymous 1925 English cricket poem

A poem I found while researching the Christchurch Star newspaper was an anonymous poem on raising the seam of the ball in England. It was published during the 1925 season. A county team was skittled.

I sent it to The Cricket Society News Bulletin in 2018. It was particularly topical that year with three Australians serving out their sentences for ball tampering. Cameron Bancroft had been caught by TV cameras trying to rough up a side of the ball with sandpaper. Captain Steve Smith and David Warner were also involved. The match was the Third Test, Australia v South Africa, in Cape Town, March 2018.

I’ve found no details on the match in England the 1925 poem refers to.

ANON

Cricket Magic

English bowlers are alleged to have “skittled” out a county team by raising the seam of the ball.

Now, did the bowlers raise the seam,
  Or make it seem to rise,
And foozle with a magic gleam
  The luckless batsman’s eyes,
As, sharply spinning from the pitches
  The leather shot or skied,
How have the batsman wished those stitches
  Were in the bowler’s side.

But since the art of tit for tat
  Is every batsman’s cue,
Perchance to herringbone the bat
  Might pull the striker through;
If cricket hangs upon a thread,
  Perhaps ’twere not in vain
To knit and purl the splice instead
  Of promptly raising Cain.

(From the Christchurch Star, c1925)