"W.G."

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 15

"W.G."

GREATEST CRICKETER

HIS WONDERFUL INNINGS

AND FORM AS BOWLER

Every day a new "record" is set up in cricket. Batsmen are the darlings of the hour; the groundsmen nurse them solicitously; they are securely rocked to sleep in the cradle of a perfect wicket, writes Neville Cardus in the "Manchester Guardian." The imagination sees , the daily store of runs mounting higher and higher, like a dump. The shovel of Bradman is perpetually casting its load. But imagination also sees a mighty figure which no amount of digging and heaving can conceal. The pile of contemporary cricket, the heaping together of all the booty of many a year, cannot submerge AV. G. Grace, cannot overwhelm his stature, cannot hide his broad bat,' cannot get anywhere near his whiskers. Those whiskers were crucial, they created the sensV of authority. The present age has yielded much by taking to the razor; heavens, what a colossus Bradman would seem to us now if he wore the whiskers of a Grace! "

"W.G." was more than a cricketer, though, more than the father of all modern batsmanship. In a delightful little book, "W. G. Grace," Mr. Bernard Darwin says, '' In point of his personality, as it will be handed on by tradition for v,ears to come, W. G. Grace towers as high above them as he towered above them in stature when he was alive. If this is not greatness it is something for which it is hard to find another name." Mr. Darwin tells us of a photograph once taken of "W.G." not in flannels but as a "private person." It shows him in ordinary clothes just before the beginning of the Oval Test match of 1896; he' is about to enter the pavilion to change and \ get ready for action.

"He wears a black tail-coat," Mr. Darwin tells us, "and waistcoat built on easy-going lines with an expanse of watch-chain, dark trousers, a little baggy at the knee, and boots made for muddy lanes. In one hand is a solid blackthorn stick with a silver band round it." And this was the greatest cricketer of all time; with humour does Mr. Darwin mal* the remark that future generations who see that photograph will protest that this cannot be a mighty athlete about to lead the chosen of England to victory. It must be, they will say, a jovial, middle-aged doctor discussing the price of oats with a patient or neighbour ho has met in the market place. , . . CLOSE TO NATURE. The old cricketers were able to keep close to nature; the game had not yet been divorced by excessive specialism from the ordinary life of the country in the summer time; they were first of all players of a game in the fields; it was only by accident that they found themselves not only ■ sportsmen but items in the public news and fit subjects for the'public gaze, simply because in their gusto for cricket they acquired abnormal skill. W. G. Grace enjoyed a renown far beyond anything achieved by the organised genius for publicity of these times. But for all that he was free to live his life as he would have lived it had he played cricket only on Saturday afternoons: on the village green. It is not Larwood's fault, of course, if one of his big toes has become a matter for special editions of the evening papers; Larwood has the bad luck to be living in the age of "stunt." But I cannot believo that even if "AV.G." were alive today it would occur to anybody to think1 of his big toe. Contemplating "W. G. Grace, we should think : that, his big toe was a small matter, dwelling at-the periphery of things. ■ . . .

At the age of sixteen he stood more than six feet high and weighed eleven stone "with no premonition of the massive splendour to come"; he played for England against Surrey at the age of eighteen and carried out his bat for 224, his first century in first-class cricket, and he felt nervous at the beginning of it. In 1870, when he was twenty-two, he scored 66 at Lord's against George Freeman and Tom Emmett; and Freeman, years afterwards, said "it was a marvel the doctor was not either maimed or killed outright. I often think of his pluck when I watch a modern batsman scared if a medium-paced ball hits him on the hand; he should have seen our expresses flying about 'W.G.'s' ribs, shoulders, and head in 1870." NO CHANCE FOR PLAYERS. When Grace was in his prime for the Gentlemen the Players were for years vanquished; "W.G." and. ten other cricketers, no matter what their names, were equal to challenging the world. In 1875 ha fell away a little in batting; sis people were above him in the averages. And so he took 192 wickets, at 12 runs each to console himself. Next year he' began badly, again and scored only 163 runs in eight innings; the Players smiled and said, "The old devil's gone off at last." Heaven probably helped their ignorance; he scored his annual century ,against them at Lord's, and then in three innings he amassed 839. He began with 344 against Kent for the M.C.C. at Canterbury (his side were "following on"!); he broke his bat and borrowed one that was too small in the handle and hit harder than ever. He spent the nest day, which was Sunday, travelling in hot weather to Bristol. Ho went in first for Gloucestershire in the morning, and for three hours he flogged the bowling of Shaw, Morley, and Barnes to the tune of 177. Nottinghamshire were beaten by ten wickets, and as they were going home they met Yorkshire on the way to play Gloucestershire at Cheltenham, and when they told Tom Emmett about "W.G.'s" latest monstrosity he only laughed and said: "Well, the big 'un can't do it three times running." DISHEARTENED BOWLERS. Next day Yorkshire lost the toss and Grace went inland did not come out until his score was 318, and then he came out only because there was nobody left to stay with him. The Yorkshire bowlers "were terribly upset, and some of them declined to bowl when Ephraim Lockwood asked them to go on. "Why don't you make them?"; exclaimed Tom Emmett to Ephraim, "you're t' captain, ain't you?" And then he seized the ball himself and bowled three successive and vindictive wides. In his forty-seventh year Grace made 1000 runs in May, and his total of runs for the season was 2346. But his most wonderful deed of all, unparalleled yet, was done in 1871, when he scored 2390 runs, average 78.90. The next best average of the year was Daft's 37.10. . Mr. Darwin tells us all these matters of fact, but he tells them in their place and only as symbols of a full life. The day came when "W:G." threw his bat on the table of the dressing-room and said: "I shan't play any more." He was fifty-eight and for the Gentlemen he had just scored 74, forty-one years after ho had first played for the Gentlemen. He came back to the pavilion happy and tired. "I shan't play any more." But .he did play again, in 1908 at the Oval, on a day of bitter weather, -when snowflakes fell from his beard. He made 15 and 25, and bowled two overs for 5 runs and no wickets. Never again did he tread on a county, cricket fleW