CRICKET.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19314, 21 July 1934, Page 20 (Supplement)

CRICKET.

W. G. GRACE. H WONDERFUL BATSMAN. ' MORE THAN A CRICKETER. SOME AMAZING INNINGS. Every day a new "record” Is set tip 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 anti 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 W. G. Grace, cannot overwhelm his stature, cannot hide his ■broad bat, cannot get anywhere near his whiskers. Those whiskers were crucial, they created the sense 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 batmanship. 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 years 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 the enter the pavilion to change and get ready for action. “I-Ie 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 make 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 he 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 in these times. -But for all that he was free to live his life as he would have lived it ba’d 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 ago of “stunt.” But U cannot believe (that even if "W.G.” were alive to-day it. would occur to anybody to think 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 ago 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 J. 570."

No Chance fop Players. When Grace was in his prime for l.Jie '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 J 875 he fell away a little in baiting; six people were above him in the averages. And so lie look 192 wickets at 12 runs each to console himself. Next year lie began badly again and scored only IG3 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. lie began with 3-1-1 against, Kent for the jI.G.C. at Canterbury (his side were ‘.‘following on"!); he broke his bat and borrowed one that was too small in tho handle and hit harder than ever, lie spent the next, day, which was Sunday, travelling in hot weather to Bristol. lie went in first for Gloucestershire in the morning, and for three hours lie Hogged the- bowling of Phaw, Morlcy and Barnes to the tune of I 77. Nottinghamshire were beaten by ten wickets, and ns they were going home they met Yorkshire on the way to play Gloucestershire*’at Cheltenham, and when they told Tim Emmett about “W.G.'s" latest. monstrosity he only laughed and ■said: “Well, the big 'un can’t do it three times running."' Dlshcartonod Bowlers. Next day Yorkshire lost, the loss and Grace went in and did not come out until his score was 318, and then lie came out only because there was nobody left to stay with him. The Yorkshire bowlers were terribly upC Continued In next column.)

set. and some of them 'declined to bowl when Ephraim Lockwood asked them to go on. “Why don’t you make ’em?" exclaimed Tom Emmett to Ephraim, “you’re t’ captain, ain’t you?" And then he seized the ball himself and bowled- three successive and vindicative widcs. In his fortyseventh year Grace -made 1000 runs in May, and his total of runs for the season was 23-40. 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, blit lie 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: "1 shan’t'play anly more." He was 58, and for Hie 'Gentlemen he bad just scored 74, •forty-one years aftc-r tic had first played for Hie Gentlemen. He came hack to the pavilion happy and tired. “I shan’t play any more." But lie did -play again, in 1 908 at the Oval, on a day of hitter weather, when snowllakcs fell from his beard. He made 15 and 25. and bowled two overs for 0 runs and no wickets. Never again did ho trend on a- county cricket Held.