by Arunabha Sengupta
Early May 1903.
The previous summer, he had walked in at 48 for 5 with England requiring 263 to win at The Oval and had hit that famous 104 from 77 minutes and 80 balls. Hirst and Rhodes had thereafter got the runs to clinch a one wicket victory. When he had ‘let himself loose like a catapult at the bowling and shattered it to smithereens,’ as CB Fry put it.
Now, he was practising on George Beldam’s private cricket pitch with Fry’s great friend Ranji. During the session, the Sussex captain confided to Beldam that he knew how to get the hitter out. “All you have to do is to place all your men except for silly-point on the leg-side and invite Jessop to have a go! He will surely be caught sooner or later.”
When Gloucestershire faced Sussex at Hove, Ranji put his plans into motion. It was Ranji who caught him, at long-off, just in front of the south stand. A magnificent catch with his left hand, off a Killick leg-break, the ball coming in his direction in the shape of a low skimmer. Only, by then Gilbert Jessop had scored 286 out of 355 in just 175 minutes.
When Gerald Brodribb went to his first ever cricket match, Maurice Tate was sending the ball crashing on to the Town Hall. All that he heard was “Just like Jessop, sonny, just like Jessop.” That would happen every time he went to Hastings and the ball was sent hard and high.
By then Jessop had long retired. Brodribb, however, became obsessed with the man who seemed a patron saint of big hits. He read all that he could about him. 191 at Hastings in the hour and a half between 2.15 and 3.45 in 1907. That Harrogate hurricane, 101 in 40 minutes versus Yorkshire in 1897. The 233 in two and a half hours for Rest of England vs Yorkshire at Lord’s in 1901. And many, many more.
He scored as many as 53 centuries, and only four were at less than a run a minute. The hundreds hurtled along at 82.7 runs per hour. 153 of his 180 fifty-plus innings were at more than a run-a-minute.
When he scored 61 against Somerset at Bristol in 1904, he hit Len Braund for 4,4,6,4,4,6 in an over. He got 28 off a Burrows over at Stourbridge in 1910, 26 off Relf at Hastings in 1907 and 26 off Carr at Scarborough in 1913. 61 off four consecutive overs from Llewellyn at Bristol 1909.
Those were the days when the ball had to be hit out of the ground for six. When he hit Howell three times over the ropes off consecutive balls against Australia at Hastings in 1899, they counted as three fours.
Brodribb found more and more of these facts as he scoured the country researching big hits. The legend of Jessop reverberated with the gigantic hits ricocheting from the chambers of memory.The maddening thing was that Jessop never spoke about himself. His excellent A Cricketer’s Log is full of pleasant information about his contemporary cricketers, but little about his own feats. When Nigel Haig asked him to write a few lines about his 191 at Hastings, Jessop did oblige with a few sentences before adding, “I apologise for talking about my own past deeds.”
When Brodribb finally contacted him through an uncle who had played alongside Jessop for the county, the former cricketer promptly replied. “Drop in by all means if you care to next time you are in the neighbourhood. Ask Uncle Arthur how his old college friend Richards—the umpire—is, and give him my kind regards.”
But when Brodribb did meet him and ask about his big hits, Jessop promptly told him all about one made by Warwick Armstrong.
It was only after Jessop’s death that his son Rev GLO Jessop loaned Brodribb family newspaper archives and conversed freely about his father to enable him write his gem of a biography.
The rate of scoring managed by Jessop has seldom been matched but by some tail-end sloggers with brief forays to the wicket. Not by someone who piled up 26,698 runs and, as mentioned, 53 hundreds. “Cyclone of batsmanship,” mused Neville Cardus. “No man has ever driven a cricket ball so hard, so high, and so often in so many different directions,“ wrote CB Fry.
The average of 32.63 does not really read impressive to the modern eye, but he batted from 1894 to 1914, often on poor wickets. Besides, for much of his early days he was better known as a bowler. Indeed, he captured 873 wickets at 22.79, and could be quick. That Harrogate hundred of 1897 was complemented by nine wickets in the match.
Add to that he was one of the greatest cover fielders of all time.
Archie MacLaren wanted him to play in every Test match he captained because of the likelihood of his running out one or two top Australians, apart from the runs he saved—as much by his fielding as by the fear of batsmen in chancing his arm.
At The Oval in 1905, as Surrey played the Australians, a big hit by Tom Hayward went into the crowds. When the ball was sent back into the ground in a fierce low arc into the wicketkeeper’s gloves, WG Grace divined from the pavilion that Middlesex had lost their match with Gloucestershire. “Only Jessopus could have thrown that ball.” Indeed, having left his men to get the 14 runs for victory, Jessop had left Lord’s for The Oval and his cab had set him down at the Vauxhall corner gate. He had walked in to find Hayward’s hit zooming towards him.
A most extraordinary little demon, as a fellow player called him. Nicknamed ‘Croucher’ because of his curious prowling stance.
Gilbert Jessop was born on 19 May 1874.
Illustration: Maha