There’s a common element that binds Pierre de Coubertin, James Naismith and Henry Chadwick. All three were proclaimed “fathers” of a sport or a sporting movement that they either invented or helped propel.
If Pierre de Coubertin was the founder of the International Olympic Committee, James Naismith created basketball. Similarly, Henry Chadwick was a sportswriter who made contributions so significant to the development of baseball that he earned the moniker – “Father of Baseball”.
With the honour in sports seemingly conferred upon individuals that played a stellar role in either the creation or development of a game, one would imagine the trend to follow suit in Cricket as well.
But as it turns out, the “Father of Cricket” had nothing to do with the creation of the game, nor did he play a hand in its refinement or development the way Henry Chadwick did. Instead, the history books speak of the “Father of Cricket” simply as a proud practitioner of the game.
International cricket is commonly held as the yardstick for player evaluation. While only a select few continue to hold Test Cricket as the pinnacle in the sport today, connoisseurs from the bygone era of pre-ODIs always rated players based on achievements in the Test arena.
Under those circumstances and amidst all the popular stalwarts that played Test Cricket, you would wonder just how an uncharacteristically bulky man with an awkward wide-toe stance possibly stake the claim for the hallowed honour in Cricket.
The question seems all the more pertinent given that the man scored just a little over a thousand Test runs at 32.29.
But when the man in question is WG Grace, Test cricket takes a back seat.
Cricket’s history books are peppered with stories of his achievements. And the achievements are truly astronomical by any standards - a first-class career that spanned an incredible 43 years, 54,211 runs, 124 hundreds, 251 fifties, 2,809 wickets, 240 five-fors and 64 ten-fors.
While the records amassed in a stellar career alone would propel the man to the upper echelons of the game, the manner in which he played the game and the popularity that he attained in the process precedes all subsequent rhetoric.
The Pioneer
The pre-test Cricket era of the 19th century witnessed notorious uncovered pitches. Yet, when all others chose to stick to convention, Grace chose to revolutionize batting in many ways.
Unlike the present day batsman, those at the time choose to solely play either back or forward regardless of where the ball was pitched. WG Grace holds the distinction of pioneering a style of play that included playing both forward and back as warranted by the ball being delivered. The footwork notwithstanding, he could play the pull shot just as well as a cut shot or hold a drive with a straight bat.
Grace’s batting stance was unconventional – his feet pointed in opposite directions and his left toe pointed towards the bowler. If the stance alone was an indication of aggression, his approach to batting was akin to that of the present day Twenty20 player.
Grace loved scoring. He often tried to inspire school kids by saying, “When you block, do not be content to stop the ball by simply putting the bat in its way - anyone can do that – but try and score off it too”.
H. E. Roslyn, a Cricket correspondent for the Bristol Times and Mirror in 1887 wrote – “His feet came together as he drew himself up and there was little space for the bat to swing. Yet so much wrist power was employed that mid-on had little chance of stopping the ball, and long-on experienced considerable difficulty in saving a four.”
While there are several versions of Grace’s career span, 1865 to 1908 is widely believed to be the period that witnessed the Englishman’s exploits in first-class Cricket. From making his first-class debut at 16, Grace, fondly called “The Doctor”, played first-class Cricket for some 29 teams.
Prominent amongst these were Gentlemen (1865–1906), All-England aka England (i.e., non-international; 1865–99), Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC; 1869–1904), Gloucestershire (1870–99), the United South of England Eleven (USEE; 1870–76) and London County (1900–04).
Prior to the commencement of Test Cricket in 1877, the Gentlemen v Players fixture was an esteemed occasion. The match was the pinnacle for an amateur given that professionals played for the Players team. When Grace played his first game of the fixture for the Gentlemen, the team was condemned to 19 straight defeats. Grace’s arrival turned the amateur Gentlemen’s fortunes around. In the 39 matches featuring Grace, the Gentlemen lost only 4 while winning 27.
Cricket’s first superstar
Grace made his Test debut in 1880 against Australia at The Oval and duly hammered his maiden hundred – a 152. By that stage, his career was a record breaking one already. In 1873, The Oval was witness to The Doctor scoring a hundred before lunch – the first of its kind in a first-class match.
He registered another “first” the same year. This time, it was the “double” of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a single season. He would go on to repeat that feat on seven other occasions.
Always the lover of good food and fine wine, Grace’s girth grew with age. But that didn’t keep him from playing the game. In 1895 and at the age of 47, he posted 2,346 runs with 9 hundreds. And in the subsequent year, he notched up another 2,135 while defying all logic surrounding age.
Standing atop the leaderboard season after season was a given for Grace. On 28 occasions, he scored 1,000 runs and on 5 occasions, he went past 2,000. And it just wasn’t his bat that was doing all the talking, he was taking wickets when at it as well - an astonishing 100 wickets a season on nine separate instances.
If his cricketing brilliance alone was worthy of attention, his ominous bulk and a beard hitherto unseen in the game made for an unparalleled spectacle on the ground. And for this very reason, Cricket grounds displayed notices that read, “Admission three pence. If Dr. WG Grace plays, admission six pence.”
When Richard Tomlinson wrote the cricketer’s biography Amazing Grace, he depicted WG Grace as a revolutionary and an outsider who in stark contrast to the gentlemanly code of Cricket in the 19th century, chose winning as the only thing that mattered.
Such was his love for the game that at 60 years of age, he walked out to play his final first-class game. And at 66, he played his final competitive game scoring a 69 not out. If the estimates are to be believed, Grace scored a mind-numbing 101,000 runs across all forms of Cricket and claimed over 7,500 wickets.
Tomlinson called him the sport’s “first truly modern international sports star". Speaking of Grace, Ranjitsinhji said that “he turned the old one-stringed instrument (i.e., the cricket bat) into a many-chorded lyre”.
For someone that was a qualified Doctor and treated the poor for free, WG Grace unquestionably devoted an entire lifetime to playing competitive Cricket. If the stature of his accomplishments don’t warrant the tag of a true colossus of the game, nothing else truly will.
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