The dominance of cricket by Dr WG Grace in the 19th century was documented in Part 1.
This instalment discusses his performances in his twilight years, his influence on cricket and his being the most professional amateur who reportedly cheated on occasions is featured in the concluding episode of a cricketing immortal.
In a county match against Essex he was dismissed three times in three balls by fast medium bowler Charles Kortright. The first time he was leg before wicket and the second time he was caught behind. But Grace stood his ground and the umpire dared not give him out. The third ball he was clean bowled.
And Kortright offered a sarcastic send-off by saying, “Surely you’re not leaving us, Doctor? There’s one stump still standing!”
Once when given out, WG was quoted to tell off the umpire, “Spectators have come to see me bat; not to see you raise your finger!”
Author and social historian Eric Midwinter pointed out some years ago that on Grace’s first tour of Australia in 1873-74 (when he was a medical student simultaneously enjoying his honeymoon) he extracted a fee of £1500 from the organisers, which would be well over £100,000 at present value.
On his second tour in 1891-92, one-fifth of the entire cost of transporting 13 English cricketers across the world, supporting them in Australia and paying them for what they did there, went into Grace’s pocket, added Midwinter.
WG regularly collected testimonials – one, worth £1458, was organised by MCC so that he might buy a medical practice – and overall probably took something like £1 million in today’s currency out of the game.
And bear in mind there was no sponsorship and no endorsements in those days to inflate a cricketer’s income.
It seems he would have been ideal in IPL and BBL, auctioned for almost a billion dollars!
Call it paradoxical but perhaps he was the highest-paid amateur in cricket history.
His earnings were in a period when the prosperous middle class was earning no more than £1000 a year, a highly skilled artisan £200 and a labourer half as much if lucky.
A good professional county cricketer in the second half of the 19th century saw his wages rise from £100 to £250. No wonder it cost twice as much to get into some English grounds when Grace was playing than when he was not.
Apart from finances, WG was a prolific run-getter from when he was 16 until he was 60. When only 18 he hit an unbeaten 224 for an England team against Surrey at The Oval. From then on, his supremacy was unchallenged.
The bearded champion went on belting centuries and setting new landmarks for the next 42 years.
When 47 and grossly overweight, WG astounded even his admirers by recording 1000 runs in the month of May. He achieved his 1000 runs in May in only 22 days – the quickest ever.
Another English great Wally Hammond took 25 days to reach this target in May 1927 for Gloucestershire and Charlie Hallows in 27 days in May 1928 for Lancashire.
Not until the days of Bradman did a batsman show figures so far ahead of his contemporaries as WG did.
In 870 first-class matches for Gloucestershire, MCC and England, WG scored 54,211 runs at 39.45 hitting 124 centuries (highest score 344) and took 2809 wickets at 18.14 (best 10/49) as an effective fast-medium round-arm bowler. An excellent fielder at any position he took 876 catches.
These figures have been improved upon but when one considers the condition of pitches he played on, his achievements are staggering. He completed 1000 runs in a season 28 times – a record equalled by Frank Woolley – and in 1871 he became the first to complete 2000 runs in a season.
A quirky stat which few of us know – WG was proud to score all scores from 0 to 100.
He officially retired in 1908 aged 60 but six years later agreed to play in a match to raise money for a school ground.
On a shockingly uneven pitch, the 66 year-old ‘Grand Old Man of Cricket’ was badly bruised but still managed to score an unbeaten 69, hitting one five and six fours.
He passed away a year later on 23 October 1915.
Sadly, his eldest son WG junior (1874–1905) died aged 31 after an appendicitis operation. He was a promising all-rounder having scored 1324 runs at 15.21 (highest score 79) and took 42 wickets at 39.45 (best 6/79) and 43 catches in 57 first-class matches for Cambridge University and Gloucestershire.
WG junior’s first pronounced success was gained in the Reigate Festival of 1894, when he played an unbeaten innings of 148 for his father’s XI against W. W. Read’s XI.
Adds Wisden, “At Cambridge on June first, 1896, he and G. S. Graham-Smith made 337 together for the first wicket of Pembroke College v. Caius College, and at the Crystal Palace on September 16, 1901, he and W. L. Murdoch (who carried out his bat for 200) put up 355 for the first wicket of London County v Erratics. In these matches his scores were respectively 213 and 150.”
“As a bowler he (WG junior) frequently did well, and for London County v. Bromley Town, at the Crystal Palace, on August 25, 1902, he obtained all ten wickets in an innings.”
Let’s go back to the legendary Dr WG Grace. Today we remember him for his flowing beard and a wide girth kept in check by a black belt.
But he was the first superstar of cricket, his towering presence transformed cricket into a spectator sport in England and subsequently in other lands spread widely across the world.
Let us wish the contradicting genius Dr WG a happy hundredth on Friday the 23rd October.
While a premature retirement isn’t the solution, he or England want, he may be forced into it if he can’t maintain a long run of matches.
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