by Low, Robert
In a desperately tense finale – one spectator died of a heart attack and another one gnawed anxiously through his umbrella handle – Australia winkled the last man out at 77 to win by seven runs. Spofforth took fourteen wickets in the match and was carried shoulder-high from the pitch.
This was the match which prompted the newspaper obituary notice lamenting the death of English cricket, the body to be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia. It is one of the great might-have-beens of sport. If Grace had not fatally lifted that drive, surely England would have won, their supporters would have been satisfied, and the Ashes would never have been invented. But, as Grace gruffly reflected: ‘I left six men to get 32 runs, and they couldn’t get ’em.’
There was a growing feeling that it was not only English cricket that was washed up. So too was its champion. In 1883 Grace was thirty-five years old, perceptibly thicker round the waist, a portly paterfamilias rather than the lean, tigerish figure of his twenties, streaks of grey in the once jet-black beard, his hair thinning on top, noticeably less agile in the field and between the wickets, bowling more slowly than before and with less menace, still dangerous with the bat but less often.
To offset his increasing physical difficulties, pitches were at last improving in quality, which made life easier for batsmen. In 1883 W.G. made just one first-class century, 112 against Lancashire at Clifton, described as ‘a grand display of cricket’, and the other highlights were few and far between: a bright 89 and 12 wickets against Middlesex at Lord’s, exactly half of the South’s 128 against the North, also at Lord’s. He still managed to amass 1,352 first-class runs, the third highest aggregate, and took 94 wickets, a respectable figure if at the expensive average of 22 (perhaps partly attributable to those improved wickets). However, for the first time in sixteen years, he missed the Gentlemen v Players game at The Oval because of his medical duties. (It managed quite well without him, ending in a dramatic tie.) Many thought the writing was on the wall and the Leviathan was at last laid low.
At the beginning of the 1884 season it seemed as if the critics were right. Grace found time to play first-class cricket throughout May but he managed only 70 runs in his first seven innings and had many low scores throughout the summer, but he balanced them with some innings which showed him back to his best, and he reserved most of them for the Australian visitors to England.
The Australians had settled into an English tour every two years, and many of the triumphant 1882 party were back. They had a much tougher itinerary and a fine record, but were rated as not quite up to the standard of their immediate predecessors. They brought with them a slow bowler in whom they invested great hopes, W.H. Cooper. In one of W.G.’s blandly-ghosted autobiographies, notable for their lack of revelation and insight, W.G. remarked that the tourists were ‘hampered by the failure of … Cooper, who had to stand out from most of their matches’. He entirely neglected to mention that it was because of his own demolition of Cooper’s bowling in his first match on English soil, v MCC Club & Ground at Lord’s in late May, that the poor man was dropped and never recovered.
‘Everybody was eager to see what he [Cooper] would do,’ wrote Lord Harris, ‘but never will [I] forget how W.G. pulverized him. Before lunch the bowling of the new-comer was virtually finished …’ Grace went on to make a superb 101, Cooper to take only seven wickets on the entire tour, at 46 each.
Next month Grace made his second century of the summer against the Australians, 107 for Gentlemen of England at The Oval, and his third, 116 not out, for Gloucestershire at Clifton in August. In brilliant sunshine, he made an uncertain start, treating ‘some of the earlier balls in rather queer form’, according to the Bristol Evening News, before he opened his shoulders to play ‘several magnificent strokes’. It was a patient, chanceless innings, lasting three-and-a-quarter hours. When Australia batted, replying to Gloucestershire’s 301, Woof bowled eighty-three overs, taking 6–82, and W.G. fifty-three overs, for figures of 2–96. No one else bowled more than sixteen overs. When the great hitter George Bonnor came in, ‘W.G. tried [him] with the usual bait but three consecutive boundaries outside the ropes was the result’.
W.G. was not so commanding with the bat in the Tests. The first Test, at Old Trafford, 10–12 July, was abandoned because of rain. England were dismissed for only 95 in their first innings, but W.G. scored an invaluable 31 as England reached 180–9 and safety after Australia had made 182. England won the second Test at Lord’s, thanks largely to a sterling 148 by A.G. Steel. One oddity was that Australia’s first-innings top scorer ‘Tup’ Scott was caught for 75 by his own captain, Billy Murdoch, on the field as substitute for W.G., who had injured a finger.
The third match at The Oval, featuring Murdoch’s double century, was drawn, to give England the rubber 1–0. W.G.’s most notable contribution was to take over the wicket-keeper’s gloves – which he loved to do – during Australia’s mammoth first innings of 551 to enable the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton to bowl under-arm lobs, with which he contrived to bag four wickets. To his huge delight – and that of the crowd – W.G. caught Midwinter in Lyttelton’s first over, the makeshift bowler and wicket-keeper shaking hands in mid-wicket to celebrate the event. The hotelier and sporting man-about-town, Harry Preston, who eighteen years later gave W.G. his first ride in a motor-car, was a spectator and described how W.G. fielded in every position while the Australians flogged the English bowlers all over the ground. All eleven England players had a turn with the ball.
W.G. returned to Old Trafford later in July for Gloucestershire’s match against Lancashire. Twenty minutes after lunch on the second day, he was at the crease, having just embarked on his second innings (he was 1 not out, having made 53 out of 119 in the first innings) when news arrived that his mother had died unexpectedly. ‘Monkey’ Hornby, the Lancashire captain, immediately offered to abandon the game so that W.G. and E.M. could return to Downend, an invitation they gratefully accepted. It remains the only first-class match to be abandoned for such a reason, which is faithfully recorded in the Gloucestershire scorebook in the immaculate handwriting of the county scorer, J.J. Smith: ‘Drawn owing to the death of Mrs Grace – the Mother of the famous cricketers.’ The Bristol Evening News reported: ‘The utmost sympathy was expressed both in the pavilion and amongst the crowd.’ The funeral took place on 29 July, in much the same fashion as poor Fred’s four years earlier, but with less of a crush. Most of the village turned out to follow the cortege from The Chestnuts to the churchyard, where Mrs Grace was laid to rest beside her husband and son, from whose death she had never really recovered. She remains the only woman whose details are recorded in the ‘Births and Deaths of Cricketers’ section of Wisden.
W.G. made a few other good scores that summer – a big-hitting 66 in the first Gentlemen v Players game, 89 in the return, and 94 v Middlesex at Lord’s. He ended with 1,361 runs, at 34.1, and was second in the averages to A.G. Steel, with whom he had put on an attractive 137 partnership in the first Gentlemen v Players game. But again the rumour surfaced that he was on the point of retiring from the first-class game. In consequence, the Pall Mall Gazette sent a journalist, M.H. Spielmann, to Lord’s – where Grace was playing in a jokey end-of-season game between Smokers and Non-Smokers – to find out if it were true. (W.G. played for the Non-Smokers although he assured his inquisitor, ‘In moderation, tobacco certainly does no harm.’ Although he is normally described as a lifelong abstainer from tobacco, there is a certain amount of anecdotal evidence that he enjoyed the occasional good cigar.)
Spielmann set the scene:
All the time he was talking his head was turned towards where the cricket was going forward. His love for the game is intense. His enthusiasm is still like that of a schoolboy, and his happy delight when his side is winning is a pleasure to see. Gunn … fielding on the other side of the ground, effected a marvellous catch which dismissed Mr Christopherson. ‘Was that really out, Christopherson?’ Dr Grace cried, as that batsman came in. ‘It’s the most wonderful c
atch I’ve ever seen in my life – there’s not another man in England could do it!’
Spielmann enquired whether he thought he was playing as well as ever.
My defence is as good, but I can’t punish the bowling as I used to, and, besides, as you get older you lose your activity and can’t field as well. I shall only play for the county next year, as my professional duties will keep me at home. I really mean it this time. I shall only take about three weeks’ holiday next year.
Did cricket interfere with his medical practice?
A great deal; patients don’t like an assistant, never mind how good he is. You see, I have a good practice which increases every winter when I am at home, and decreases in the summer when I am away from home. This is the real reason I shall not play much away from home next season.
12 · QUEEN AND COUNTRY
1885–1889
IN 1885, at the age of thirty-seven, W.G. confounded the critics and rediscovered his best form, being the only English cricketer to do the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets. It was no flash in the pan either. He batted in his old dominant style for the following three seasons too, in each of them topping the first-class aggregates and producing some spectacular individual innings. This wave of good form ebbed, as it was bound to do, and the end of the decade and the early 1890s resembled the early 1880s. Even then he was not done.
Let us return to 1885. Perhaps the key to his revival was that he felt more at ease with his medical duties, despite the misgivings he had expressed the previous autumn to the Pall Mall Gazette. He may have restricted his appearances outside county cricket but when he played for Gloucestershire he displayed much of his old form, as he showed in his finest innings that summer – his best, indeed, for many years. On 24 August, while the newspapers debated a suitable memorial to General Gordon, cut down in Khartoum at the beginning of the year, Gloucestershire entertained Middlesex at Clifton. Grace won the toss and batted. He was irresistible, toying with the bowling all day, although he was becalmed for a while in the nineties until he reached his century with a delicate late-cut for 3. He ended the day on 163 not out and next day continued in the same vein until he ran out of partners, to finish on 221 not out made out of 348 in six and a half hours, his first double century since 1877. His only chance was an easy catch dropped by third man as he took the total past 300. His first biographer, W. Methven Brownlee, was present at the College ground. He described it as a
… wonderful innings, in which timing, placement, and clean, powerful hitting were so prominent, but all through admiration for the phenomenal endurance of the man was greater than love of the dazzling scientific display … His hitting at the end [was] as clean, severe, and dashing as at the beginning, looking as if he could stay for the week if somebody were strong enough and patient enough to keep him company.
The reason for Brownlee’s praise was that either on the previous evening or between the first and second days of the match (contemporary accounts differ) Grace was called away to a difficult confinement and stayed up all night trying to save the mother and her baby. He went straight to the Clifton ground and, legend has it, reported on his night’s work: ‘The child died and the mother died, but I saved the father.’ W.G. rounded off his astonishing performance by taking 11–120 in the match, and never once showed the slightest sign of fatigue, despite being on the field of play for the whole match. He was still a physical phenomenon, despite appearances to the contrary.
His form continued when he moved on to Scarborough for the Festival, a week he loved, and the Gentlemen v Players. He hit 174 out of 247 while he was at the wicket, a display which revived memories of his greatest days. Brownlee called it ‘a magnificent innings, scientifically played and cleanly hit’.
He also made two centuries for Gloucestershire, helping his county’s fortunes revive somewhat after a lean spell – 132 v Yorkshire at Bradford in late July, and 104 v Surrey at Cheltenham in late August, which set him up for his double century a few days later. His most dashing feat of the summer, however, was reserved for the game between an England XI and the team led by Alfred Shaw (which had returned from a tour of Australia in the spring) at Harrogate in September: he raced to 51 out of 53, with two sixes out of the ground.
His season’s total was 1,688 runs at 43.28, an aggregate bettered only by Surrey’s Walter Read (1,880), and took 117 wickets at 18.79 each. Lillywhite’s Annual recorded reverentially: ‘He is still, after nearly a quarter-of-a-century’s hard work, the noblest Roman of them all.’
The following season, 1886, he continued to rule the game as surely as any Roman emperor his dominion. The students of Oxford University thought the only way to dethrone him was by getting him drunk, so arranged a dinner at Oxford after the first day of their match against MCC in June, which W.G. ended on 50 not out. At dinner, they plied him with champagne and looked forward to dismissing him early the following day. Practising in the nets before play began, he was bowled by a fizzing leg-break by an undergraduate named E.A. Nepean, who was to make a name for himself in the first-class game. Thinking their ploy was working, the students took the field in excellent spirits, which were somewhat deflated when W.G., showing no sign of a hangover, proceeded to a chanceless century, then took all ten Oxford wickets in MCC’s innings victory.
Another Australian tour party arrived, of distinctly inferior standard to their two immediate predecessors. They had one thing in common, however: they frequently felt the lash of W.G. at his finest. He repeated his achievement of three centuries against them, but was not at his best in the three Test matches until the final one at The Oval. In the first, at Old Trafford, he was out cheaply (8 and 4) in both innings, but England still managed to win by four wickets. In the second Test, at Lord’s, W.G. and everyone else on either side was overshadowed by Arthur Shrewsbury. England won the toss and batted first, but W.G. again failed to make an impact, being caught at slip for 18. Shrewsbury more than compensated with a magnificent 164, the highest score recorded until then against Australia in England, taking the distinction away from W.G.’s 152 in 1880. Thanks largely to Briggs’s bowling (he took 11–74 in the match), the Australian batting collapsed again, England won by an innings and 106 runs, and took the rubber.
Shrewsbury’s record stood for less than a month. When the teams reassembled at The Oval in mid-August, W.G. made up for his two earlier failures with 170, the highest score he ever made against Australia. Indeed, it was the highest score by an Englishman in a home Test match until Phil Mead’s 182 not out against Australia in 1921. W.G. was a little fortunate in that his great adversary Spofforth injured his bowling hand early in the tour, had missed a month, and never quite recaptured his form of old, but it was none the less a determined display, if not by any means chanceless. In fact, he was dropped five times: at slip when he had scored only 6, by Giffen off his own bowling on 23, at long-off – another easy one – when 60, in the slips again off Giffen on 93, and finally another return catch just before Blackham finally held on to a catch, off the persevering Spofforth.
Unusually for him, W.G. was the soul of caution early on, perhaps influenced by his opening partner, William Scotton, the Nottinghamshire left-hander who was a byword for slow play. Here Scotton excelled himself, taking eighteen overs to get off the mark, and remaining on 24 for sixty-seven minutes, while W.G. added 63 at the other end. Of their opening partnership of 170, Scotton’s share was 34 in three and three-quarter hours (‘a fine defensive innings’, The Times called it). W.G.’s innings was oddly uneven – his first 50 took 130 minutes, an eternity by his standards and on a blameless pitch, his second 50 came up in only forty-five minutes, and the third in seventy. He certainly dominated the day – when he departed for 170, the score was only 216–2. The Times was moved to consider the day’s play in its leader columns and clearly did not think the Champion had attained his (and its) usual Olympian levels:
W.G. fell to a magnificent catch which ended a performance which was a great deal longer than it should hav
e been and in which fortune and skill may claim about an equal share.
Having dealt with him, the paper went on to loftier things:
Cricket, Lord Hawke is reputed to have said, is doing more to consolidate the Empire than any other influence. This may be an over-statement of a good case, but it is at least certain that cricket is doing something to promote mutual respect and good will between England and her chief colony.
Whether the Australians felt the same way after being thrashed by an innings and 217 runs a couple of days later must have been open to question.
W.G.’s other centuries against them were even more memorable. For Gentlemen of England, also at The Oval, in mid-June, his performance could not have been more dissimilar. There was no Spofforth to discomfit him and he and his fellow amateurs took full advantage, making 350 on the first day, of which Grace’s contribution was a blistering 148 on a fast and helpful track, his cutting being especially eye-catching. He was finally caught at cover point by Trumble off Garrett. ‘The Champion, it is almost superfluous to record, met with a most enthusiastic reception on returning to the pavilion,’ went one report, ‘umpires and Colonists alike sharing in applauding a contribution that proves that though close upon forty his power with the willow is still indisputable.’