WG Grace - The Champion Cricketer

[SJS]

It would be amusing if it werent so unfortunate and slightly irritating that so few of the modern fans of the game know anything worthwhile about the first and, trust me, the greatest superstar the game has ever seen and that includes your Bradmans, Tendulkars and Warnes.

I am going to devote some time to fish out stuff about WG by his contemporaries - those who played with and against him to paint a verbal picture of the great man. Before I start let me just add a tiny bit from my side. A great sportsman of any era will be a great sportsman in another. The fact that conditions, laws, implements etc have changed is not relevant because if you want to 'implant' a WG at his prime in the year 2000 to compare him with a Tendulkar or a Lara at their prime, you cant do it unless you assume that WG was born in around 1970. You cant implant a WG born in 1848 in 2000. Thats silly.

If you want to know how Sachin would have handled Barnes, you cant assume anything but that Sachin was born in 1880 something. The moment you do that you realise that a Sachin of 1880 would have been different from a Sachin born in 1972. Similarly a WG born in 1970 would be completely different from the WG born circa 1848.

And you can be sure he would have been trimmer and wouldn't have had that beard (at least not that length of it

Okay, watch this space.

 

[Days of Grace]

I have read Simon Rae's book on W.G.

Should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to know not only about W.G., but about 19th century/Victorian era cricket in general. A fantastic read.

 

[SJS]

I have read Simon Rae's book on W.G.

Should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to know not only about W.G., but about 19th century/Victorian era cricket in general. A fantastic read.

Yes I have read it but frankly I prefer reading the first hand accounts. Anything written in a different era is merely a piece of research. I would rather do that research myself if the subject interests me. Of course in some cases their are no great contemporary records available. SF Barnes is a case in point. It is tragic that no book was written about him by those who actually saw him. I spend a lot of time looking for contemporary commentary on Barnes. It is fascinating but unfortunately fragmented.

The same is not true of WG. There are biographies which are contemporary plus the autobiography WG and there are numerous contemporary writings which are very detailed.

 

[fredfertang]

SF Barnes is a case in point. It is tragic that no book was written about him by those who actually saw him. I spend a lot of time looking for contemporary commentary on Barnes. It is fascinating but unfortunately fragmented.

Have you seen that little 1937 biography of Barnes written by Wilfred White?

 

[SJS]

The first word portrait I want to present is from someone who did not just play with, against and under WG but is also, easily, one of the greatest and most erudite students of the game. C. B. Fry was not just one of the finest batsmen of his time he was a dozen prima donnas rolled into one.

Charles Burgess Fry was an extraordinary Englishman. He could not exist today. In fact, his is a story so amazing that it is hard enough to believe he existed at all; you would think twice before having the effrontery to put him into a novel. He possessed an array of talents that have never been equalled, he had sporting achievements that left a whole generation idolatrous and awestruck. He played for England at two sports and was world class in another.
He was academically outstanding, an accomplished writer, one of the most handsome men in England. And, if all that sounds improbable, he was also invited to become king of Albania.
But, as a new biography points out, Fry paid a price for his brilliance. Although he looked like a Greek god and often performed like one, he was a man brought low by his weaknesses. He made a catastrophic marriage, he was prone to nervous breakdowns and had judgement so flawed that he became a devoted admirer of Adolf Hitler.
It was 100 years ago that he made his debut as an England cricketer, opening against Australia with WG Grace. It was the beginning of a great career which made him a player of historic stature, one of those whose name every cricket buff knows. As records go, scoring six first-class centuries in successive innings is not only breathtaking but unique.
He also played football for England and in an FA Cup Final for Southampton. But his talent at athletics was probably more remarkable still. He equalled the world record in the long jump. He was a brilliant sprinter and he would almost certainly have won a gold medal or two at the 1896 Olympic games had he known they were taking place (they were in Athens, the fist games for 2,000 years or so, and very badly publicised). Many thought he would have played for England at rugby as well had it not clashed with soccer commitments.​

Source : David Robson - cricinfo Sept 1999​

Fry's book Cricket (Batsmanship) is a classic and should be essential reading for coaches. If there is any cricket book that is written so methodically, point by point, that you could actually present it in the form of a powerpoint presentaion then it is this masterpiece from Fry and his collaboration with cricketer/photographer George Beldham has left us two volumes of nearly 1000 priceless photographs of the greats of a century ago - the first action photographs available to the cricketing world with photgraphy at its nascent stage.

So here is what he writes of WG.

Appearance - Beard and the Myth of a slow moving giant

WG always reminds me of Henry VIII. Henry VIII solidified himself into a legend when he had already involved himself in several matrimonial tangles and had become overweighted with flesh and religious controversies. Yet Henry VIII in his physical prime had been, even allowing for the adulation of courtiers, the premier athlete of England, a notable wrestler, an accomplished horseman, and a frequent champion in the military tournaments of his time. So it was with WG. He figures in the general mind in the heavy habit of his later years on the cricket fields, a bearded giant, heavy of gait and limb, and wonderful by reason of having outlived his contemporaries as a giant of cricket. Even when disputes in clubs and pavilions canvass the relative merits of WG, Ranji and Don Bradman, the picture in the minds of the disputants is of a big heavy Englishman, a slim, lithe Oriental and a nimble lightweight Australian.

Even those of us who wag our heads and utter the conventional and oracular statement, “Ah,W.G.! There will never be his like again,” do not properly realize who it is who will never be like whom. Incredible as it may appear, I myself never saw WG till I played against him for Sussex at Bristol, at the age of 22 and the great man himself was 46. So my own memory of him begins only five years before he retired from Test match cricket, and he was already corpulent and comparatively inactive, though he was yet to enjoy the most successful season as a batsman and score 1,000 runs in May. But I came into first class cricket soon enough to meet many of the leading cricketers who had played with WG in his prime, and who talked first-hand of the WG we ought to have in mind when we institute comparisons with Don Bradman.​

The only photograph I have ever seen of WG as a young man is an illustration in a book.... of a cricket team which made a tour of Canada. He appears in that group a slim and graceful young man, wearing indeed a beard, but not th unbecoming beard of the better known Greek statues of Hercules. It is curious that most of us think of Hercules as a colossal figure with huge bulging muscles, but if you look at a statue of the Greek God of strength, and subtract his beard with a barber's eye, you will find that the residue might be mistaken for an Achilles or even an Apollo.

I am definite that WG's beard has done definite injustice to his memory. It is difficult to imagine a first rate, large scale athlete with a big beard. But WG for more years than fall to the lot of most of us was just as much a magnificent large natural scale athlete as Don Bradman is in a far lighter vein. WG was a fine runner and hurdler; he made good times and won numerous races at the quarter mile and even over the sticks. He was a quick mover and had quite exceptional stamina. ... None of the English cricketers could Waltz like WG. If you do not happen to have come across Alfred Lubbock's book, I wager that this little piece of information surprises you​

.

I do not have Lubbock's book but here is a picture of young WG for you guys from my inventory to give you an idea of what CB Fry is talking of when he tells of "a slim and graceful young man". Unfortunately photgraphy was rare and frightfully expensive and mostly done in studios or by bringing heavy equipment outdoors. By the time proper photographs were taken more often and on the cricket field, WG had changed is size and shape and that is the image so indelibly etched on our minds and so inextricably linked to the legend of WG Grace

.... to be continued

 

[SJS]

Have you seen that little 1937 biography of Barnes written by Wilfred White?

No !!! I did not even know such a book existed. Can you check if a copy is available. I will do likewise from my sources. Thanks.

 

[SJS]

No !!! I did not even know such a book existed. Can you check if a copy is available. I will do likewise from my sources. Thanks.

Okay. I located one in UK. Am going to place order right away

Thanks once again.

 

[Goughy]

Interesting reading.

'The best' is always a difficult topic to discuss as the game, and times, change but I have little doubt that Grace was by far the most important cricketer to have ever played the game.

I look forward to more contemporary accounts.

 

[fredfertang]

Okay. I located one in UK. Am going to place order right away

Thanks once again.

Don't pay too much for it SJS - it's nothing like as rare as some try to make out

 

[bagapath]

Interesting reading.

'The best' is always a difficult topic to discuss as the game, and times, change but I have little doubt that Grace was by far the most important cricketer to have ever played the game.

I look forward to more contemporary accounts.

quite possibly, yes. i cant believe there is one guy alive in england who had seen grace bat live, and this guy is not a even a cricket fan! how much i would love to have seen the gentleman vs players game in lords in summer of 1908!!!

 

[SJS]

Don't pay too much for it SJS - it's nothing like as rare as some try to make out

No no. Nott too much at all. pretty cheap actually.

 

[SJS]

WG Grace ...Continued...

Not an Overgrown School Boy Either

There is another illusion quite common about WG. People have talked so much about him that they have manufactured a species of second-hand familiarity with him. ….such familiarity has … has induced the error that WG was (someone) whom anyone could smack on the back and address as Gilbert. I would have you know that WG was hearty, but not that sort of hearty, and I do not know that I have ever met a man… with whom it would have been more dangerous to take a liberty. The idea that WG was a prodigiously overgrown schoolboy who might be inclined to elephantine foolery is about as true as that Lord Nelson’s column is made of putty…. He knew who he was and he knew who you were, and he possessed, when it came to it, an Olympian dignity.​

WG’s Batting

One saw him at his best against fast bowling. In the days of Richardson, Mold, Lockwood and Kortright, I once asked him who was the fastest bowler he had played. He answered without hesitation, “George Freeman.” If WG in his youth treated George Freeman as I saw him in his middle age treat Tom Richardson, all I can say is that George Freeman went home a wiser if not a better bowler. There were no fireworks or extravagances. WG just stood at the crease to his full height (and everyone who wishes to play fast bowling should so stand) and proceeded to lean against the ball in all directions and send it scudding along the turf between the fielders. No visible effort, no hurry; just rough-hewn precision. He was not a graceful bat and he was not ungraceful; just powerfully efficient.

For a very big man specially addicted to driving he was cautiously adept at cutting fast bowlers very late. He did not cut with a flick like Ranji or a swish like Trumper. Before the stroke was played he seemed to be about to play the ball with his ordinary back stroke. But at the last moment he pressed down quickly with his wrists, with an almost vertical swing and away sped the ball past all catching just clear of second or third slip. I remember seeing him make about 80 at the Oval against Richardson and Lockwood at their best; he scored at least half the runs with this late cut peculiar to himself, and eventually he was caught in the slips off it. When he came up to the dressing room, hugely hot and happy, he sat down and addressed us, ”Oughtn’t to have done it. . . . Dangerous stroke. . . . But shan’t give it up. . . . Get too many runs with it.”

In later years, when he was handicapped by his weight, he went in for one orthodox stroke. WG never played the glance to leg or the modern diversionary strokes in that direction. The ball outside the leg stump, if he could reach it, he hit with a plain variant of his great on drive, and the ball went square with the wicket a litlle in front of the umpire. If the ball pitched on his legs, he played an old fashioned leg hit with an almost horizontal sweeping swing – but with his weight fully on his front foot. This was the stroke with which in his later years he hit the ball from outside the off stump round to square leg. The young Gloucestershire ‘bloods’ used to call this the “Old Man’s cow shot.” What actually WG did was to throw his left leg across the wicket to the off ball and treat it as if it were a ball to leg bowled to him from the direction of mid off or extra cover.

I fancy that he introduced this stroke to himself in his great year of revival in the latter part of some of his big innings. The original exponent was the Surrey batsman WW Read, who used it with much effect on fast wickets against accurate slow bowlers such as Peat, Peel and Briggs. In fact the stroke is the genuine leg hit. Ranji told me that Walter Read had shown him how to do iy at the nets and that it was an easy stroke, but I never saw Ranji try it in a match; he had plenty of strokes without it.

I am wondering whether I have succeeded in conveying the individuality of WG's batsmanship, his tremendous physique, his indomitable precision, and the masterful power of his strokes. At any rate there they were, these characters, and no one who ever saw him play and near equality of any other batsman, even though he thought, as I do, that in pure technique Ranji was a better.​

CB Fry in Life Worth Living - 1939​

 

[SJS]

Another picture of a "young WG" and at right "WG at forty" still not bulkier than some modern day Test stars.

So clearly all these big guy with big beard pictures we are used to seeing so often are of a WG in his late forties and fifties. Its just that there are so many of them around that the mental picture we have is of a guy who was, kind of, born fat with a yard long beard

 

[steve132]

It would be amusing if it werent so unfortunate and slightly irritating that so few of the modern fans of the game know anything worthwhile about the first and, trust me, the greatest superstar the game has ever seen and that includes your Bradmans, Tendulkars and Warnes.

I am going to devote some time to fish out stuff about WG by his contemporaries - those who played with and against him to paint a verbal picture of the great man. Before I start let me just add a tiny bit from my side. A great sportsman of any era will be a great sportsman in another. The fact that conditions, laws, implements etc have changed is not relevant because if you want to 'implant' a WG at his prime in the year 2000 to compare him with a Tendulkar or a Lara at their prime, you cant do it unless you assume that WG was born in around 1970. You cant implant a WG born in 1848 in 2000. Thats silly.

If you want to know how Sachin would have handled Barnes, you cant assume anything but that Sachin was born in 1880 something. The moment you do that you realise that a Sachin of 1880 would have been different from a Sachin born in 1972. Similarly a WG born in 1970 would be completely different from the WG born circa 1848.

And you can be sure he would have been trimmer and wouldn't have had that beard (at least not that length of it

Okay, watch this space.

SJS:

Great post.

The problem, of course, is that no one alive saw him play, and a surprising number of people don't know cricket history very well. Even the ESPN Legends of Cricket poll ranked W.G. only fourteenth, although he is almost certainly the most important cricketer of all time - the man who essentially made the game a mass spectator sport.

John Woodcock ranked W.G first in his list of the 100 greatest players in history, with Bradman second and Sobers third. (Some of his later choices were much more eccentric). This ranking is much closer to the truth, although I'll say that I do not lose any sleep considering the ranking of the top three.

 

[bagapath]

The problem, of course, is that no one alive saw him play

Henry Allingham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

look under the heading "Pre-World War I"

 

[pasag]

I have read Simon Rae's book on W.G.

Should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to know not only about W.G., but about 19th century/Victorian era cricket in general. A fantastic read.

Yeah, top book.

 

[steve132]

Henry Allingham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

look under the heading "Pre-World War I"

You're right, of course. According to one of the linked articles.he actually saw W.G. make some runs. Keep in mind, though, that in 1903-05 W.G. was already 55-57 years old - roughly as old as Graham Gooch or Viv Richards is today.

 

[SJS]

SJS:

Great post.

The problem, of course, is that no one alive saw him play, and a surprising number of people don't know cricket history very well. Even the ESPN Legends of Cricket poll ranked W.G. only fourteenth, although he is almost certainly the most important cricketer of all time - the man who essentially made the game a mass spectator sport.

John Woodcock ranked W.G first in his list of the 100 greatest players in history, with Bradman second and Sobers third. (Some of his later choices were much more eccentric). This ranking is much closer to the truth, although I'll say that I do not lose any sleep considering the ranking of the top three.

Thats true I suppose but the problem goes beyond that. In twenty years time there will be one left who saw Hobbs play even as an infant. That should not make us deny the greatness of our sportsmen. We dont deny history in other contexts. In most of which the written history is sometimes of doubtful pedigree. Even in sports, the kind of denials that we see in cricket do not exist in other team or individual sports. The great boxers, the great sprinters, even the great footballers are not denied their pedestal because we never saw them even if we disagree whether Pele or Maradonna was the greatest. No one brings out the statistics of Jesse Owens feats and compare them with today's athletes to run him down.

In cricket there is a tendency to disparage the older cricketers which is amazing since there is no sport on the planet with a greater amount of literature.

I think it has at least something to do with the kind of statistics that cricket generates and the increasing fascination of the cricketing fan with these statistics which has finally reached a stage where for most of the modern followers of the game, statistics have become the only criteria to evaluate a cricketer - almost so. This is tragic in more ways than one. For one it makes people run down players of a different (earlier) era purely on the basis of statistics without trying to understand anything else about their cricket and their time. Whats worse, statistics have become a substitute for understanding the game. Cricket's beauty lies in the multifaceted aspects of this unique sport where 22 individuals with completely different skill sets play individual roles in a team sport. The nuances of the game are zillions and a the delight of watching the game (and discussing it afterwards) is greatly enhanced if one understands them. Yet those who truly understand or even show the slightest inclination to understand these is dwindling rapidly and may soon be extinct. Surely this cant be good for the game.

 

[Goughy]

Football isnt a stats generating sport and it is hard to seperate the individual from the team.

Sports where the individual can be statistically assessed in the team framework (American football, and baseball especially) use massive amounts of statistics.

Cricket isnt nearly at the point of statitstics use as baseball is. There is an entire baseball statistics industry. And very valuable it is as well. Gives good insight.

However, you are right. The cricketers of previous generations should be more than a set of numbers. The stories flesh out the individual and make them more accessable.

 

[SJS]

Football isnt a stats generating sport and it is hard to seperate the individual from the team.

.

Exactly my point. Is it because of stats that we disparage our oldies?

Then again where they have good stats we still run down the bowlers by saying the wickets were poor and the batsmen by saying the fielding standards were not good enough or their were no tear away fast bowlers etc.