25 July 1876. Set a mere 144 by Derbyshire, Hampshire were cruising at 51 for 1, and later, at 89 for 3 at Antelope Ground, Southampton. Then William Mycroft, who had already taken 9 for 25 in the first innings, came to the forefront. He got them one by one, taking Derbyshire to the brink of an improbable victory single-handedly. Abhishek Mukherjee looks back at an astonishing performance by an extraordinary champion.
There was more to William Mycroft than being the inspiration behind the name of Sherlock Holmes elder brother in other words, probably the most remarkable brain in the history of fiction.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle s affinity towards cricket is well-documented. It is also a common hypothesis that he named his the most famous detective after Nottinghamshire cricketers Mordecai Sherwin and Frank Shacklock. The latter moved to Derbyshire, where he bowled alongside Mycroft.
But all that is not relevant to this piece. This is about William Mycroft, the left-arm fast bowler who shouldered the burden of a weak Derbyshire side season after season. A master of both swerve (as swing was referred to those days) and spin, Mycroft in this prime was a nuisance for batsmen across the country.
KS Ranjitsinhji echoed a similar notion in The Jubilee Book of Cricket: He had a high action, got a lot of spin on the ball, varied his pitch, and had a very destructive yorker. Ranji added that Mycroft was beyond all doubt the finest native-born bowler the county [Derbyshire] has ever had .
His action was often questioned, especially when he bowled that yorker that so often turned out to be too good for even the greatest.
Mycroft played for Derbyshire from 1873 to 1885, taking 544 wickets for them at 11.71. In all First-Class cricket his 863 wickets came at 12.09.In none of his first nine seasons did his average go to the wrong side of 13.But perhaps a more telling statistic is the fact that he took 87 five-wicket hauls in 138 matches, or more than once every alternate match.
Mycroft was 35 when he played the match in question. A late bloomer, he was at his prime around this period. In the previous season he had taken 90 wickets at a ridiculous 7.37. With 6 for 18 and 8 for 20 he had helped wreck North of England single-handedly, dismissing them for 38 and 60.
Less than two weeks before the match, Mycroft had taken 3 for 42 and 5 for 78 to give United North of England XI a comfortable win over WG Grace s star-studded United South of England XI. One must remember that this was 1876, a season where Grace could do little wrong.
A word on Conan Doyle and Derbyshire
As several historians have pointed out, Conan Doyle had an almost mysterious (no pun intended) connection with Derbyshire. While almost everyone is aware of his dismissal of WG Grace (of London County) and the poem he composed soon afterwards, not many remember that The Doctor was caught by Bill Storer of Derbyshire, who was Conan Doyle s MCC teammate for the match.
George Newnes was publisher of The Strand when A Scandal of Bohemia and, twelve years later,The Empty House came out in the magazine. Peter Seddon pointed out that Newnes was from Matlock Bath, Derbyshire.
There are other obscure connections as well (for example, did you know that Basil Rathbone went to Repton School?). One can thank Seddon for these. While these delightful bits of information will certainly bring a smile to the lips of Holmes connoisseurs, this is probably not the place for it.
Galpin and Ridley
There was little resistance from Derbyshire on that scorching July day where the mercury reached unusually high levels. The Hampshire bowling attack was as contrasting as they made them: while John Galpin hurled them off a round-arm action at serious pace, Arthur Ridley bowled innocuous-looking underarm lobs. A nearly forgotten man, Ridley, to quote Arunabha Sengupta from these pages, rekindled the spark in the dying art of lob bowling in the 1870s .
When Mycroft the kind of No. 11 you often hear stories about emerged, the score read 94 for 9. The pair added a crucial 21 before Mycroft (who would finish his First-Class career without a fifty and with a batting average of 5.34) perished for 11, caught at slip by Henry Tate (of no known relation to Fred or Maurice) off Ridley.
Bowling unchanged through the innings, Galpin (5 for 42) and Ridley (5 for 70) had skittled Derbyshire out for 115.
The first Mycroft spell
It took Mycroft two balls to strike. Hector Henry Hyslop, a decent wicketkeeper, took first strike. Hyslop would later play for the Australians when they would tour England in 1886, but this is not the time for that story. He played one on to the stumps to give Mycroft his 200th First-Class wicket.
George Longman edged one next ball. Standing behind the stumps was Alfort Smith, who was competent enough to do away with the long-stop while keeping wickets to the likes of Mycroft and Jack Platts.One must remember that their teammate William Rigley was one of the finest long-stops of the era.
This time Smith came up with an excellent catch to send Longman back. George Carter went next, clean bowled in Mycroft s third over. 5 for 3.
There was some resistance from Ridley and Hampshire captain Clement Booth, who took the score to 38. However, Mycroft kept hitting the stumps, dismissing both(the ball that got Ridley pitched on middle and went through the gate to hit leg). After that he carried on with the demolition. He took the first 8 wickets, 7 of them bowled, 1 caught by Smith.
George Hay, who had added 21 for the last wicket with Mycroft, had replaced Platts at the other end. He now induced an edge off Tate. The ball flew to Mycroft at slip who grabbed it, thus ruining his own chance of getting a ten-for.
Debutant Francis Foster was the last to be dismissed (bowled Mycroft, of course), but not before he had added a crucial 10 for the last wicket with Galpin, taking Hampshire to 63.
Mycroft had taken 9 for 25 from 21.3 four-ball overs without being taken off. They would remain the best figures for Derbyshire till Billy Bestwick s 10 for 40 against Glamorgan in 1921.
However, he had just begun.
The Derbyshire collapse
Galpin struck early in the second innings, but Rigley and Platts held fort. They were 52 for 1 at stumps, which meant that they had doubled the lead. When they started Day Two 104 runs ahead, most would have given them a chance to stretch that to 200.
Play started at 11 AM (it had begun at 12.45 PM the previous day). Playing regulations were much laxer in the 1870s! exclaimed Patrick Murphy in Fifty Incredible Cricket Matches.
Unfortunately, those men Galpin and Ridley were at it again. Ridley bowled unchanged again, this time to take 6 for 42, while Galpin had 4 for 39. Not all wickets were earned. Those deceptive lobs of Ridley, for example, induced two stumpings.
From 57 for 1, and later 87 for 6, Derbyshire were bowled out for 91. They had lasted a mere 80 minutes that morning.
Note: Here is one for those who obsess over interesting scorecard entries: Rigley was bowled by Ridley in each innings.
A word on Platts
The target of 143 was not as daunting as 200, but Mycroft and Platts were a difficult proposition on any wicket.
A brief history of Platts is perhaps worth a mention here. Six years before the match in question, George Summers of Nottinghamshire had been hit on the head by Platts, who was playing for MCC on a terrible pitch at Lord s.
It was a sickening blow, and perhaps no one got a closer view than MCC wicketkeeper Bill Yardley, who wrote that he never saw a ball get up with such lightning rapidity. The pitch of the ball and the blow on Summers head appeared to be simultaneous. Charles Thornton, fielding for MCC at that time, recollected that it was a fearful crack on the temple and when struck he jumped up into the air, and then fell all of a heap.
WG Grace, also fielding for MCC, had not got his medical degree yet, but had enough experience to treat the fallen man. He confirmed that Summers was alive. Summers then took an exceptionally bumpy train ride back home, to Nottingham. He passed away four days after the blow, two days before his 26th birthday.
The gruesome incident left a telling impact on Platts. A genuinely quick bowler, he never bowled fast again, and switched between medium-pace and off-breaks. He remained a quality bowler, but was not the bowler he used to be.
The Smith incident
Carter and Hyslop set off at rapid pace. The first 3 overs (4-ball, remember?) went for 13. Then Platts provided a lucky breakthrough: Hyslop cut Platts extremely hard, hitting Derbyshire captain Robert Smith on the head and rebounded twenty yards to cover point . Amos Hind held the catch.
Smith did not take further part in the match, and played only 5 more recorded matches that season.
A note about Smith
Smith had played Derbyshire s first ever First-Class match (in 1871), and would play till 1884, leading them till 1883. At this stage he was a farmer owning a 50-acre land patch and a solitary employee.
Then he inherited a large fortune, following which he changed his name to Robert Posnett Stevens, in September 1885. In 1891 he became Lord of the Manor of Breaston..
The second Mycroft spell
Unfortunately, the Hyslop wicket was all Derbyshire got in the first hour. Carter and Longman took the score to 51 before Mycroft bowled the former for 30. He got Ridley with an encore of the first innings, pitching on middle and pegging leg-stump back.
The teams went to lunch at 75 for 3. Hampshire needed another 69.
Longman and Booth added another 14 after the break, but Mycroft, refreshed by the break, resumed at full steam. With nothing going his way he switched ends. In a short burst he bowled Booth (off-stump), Longman (leg-stump), and Arthur Jeffreys (played-on).
The pendulum had swung. Hampshire now needed 48 with 4 wickets in hand. With 5 wickets under his belt (all bowled), a rejuvenated Mycroft ran in again.
While all this was happening, Reginald Hargreaves stood firm at one end. Now he opened up, and Henry Holmes supported him at the other end, cutting Mycroft for four. The pair added 26.
Then Mycroft struck again, having Holmes caught by Sam Richardson at point. We would pause here again, for Richardson merits more than a passing mention.
A word on Richardson
Richardson had led and kept wickets for Derbyshire in their first ever First-Class match, back in 1871. He would become Assistant Secretary of Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1880 and Secretary of Derby County Football Club in 1884.
So far, so good.The problems began thereafter, when Derbyshire sank into a deep financial crisis. The cricket club incurred a 1,000 loss, and the football club was not financially stable either.
In the interim, Fred Spofforth had settled down in Derbyshire, and qualified to play for the county. Derbyshire appointed Spofforth as captain in 1890.
He also took it upon himself to investigate into the financial matter, and discovered that Richardson had been embezzling money. Richardson confessed to his deeds and fled the county to settle down in Spain.
Richardson assumed the name John Roberts and, if one goes by accounts, became court tailor to Alfonso XII, that famous patron of Spanish football. When Richardson (or Roberts) passed away in 1937, he was the last surviving member of the first Derbyshire side.
Escape to victory
Where were we? Ah, the Antelope Ground, Southampton, with Hampshire 122 for 7 against a rampant Mycroft. They needed requiring another 22.
Foster went 8 runs later. Hyslop (the Hampshire wicketkeeper), acting as substitute for Derbyshire captain Smith, caught him at short-leg.
The drama intensified when Tate holed out to point with 9 runs to score. Mycroft had taken 8 wickets in the second innings to go with his 9-wicket haul in the first, but he still had to put another man out of his way.
Hargreaves was there, of course, playing what was probably the innings of his life. Galpin was no WG, but all Hargreaves needed from the No. 11 was an encore of his first-innings knock of 4 not out.
Runs came in singles. The sensible Galpin stayed away from danger as Hargreaves slowly took Hampshire closer to that 144-mark.
With 6 to be scored, Hargreaves late-cut Mycroft for three, wiping out half the target and retaining strike as well.
With Smith away from the field, the onus was obviously on Mycroft, who was faced with a dilemma.There were two options.
First, he could get Platts or Hind to bowl at Hargreaves at the other end. However, since Hampshire were only one shot away, that would be risky.
He could alternately bowl the over himself. No, this was not illegal. As per the existing laws, a bowler was allowed to bowl two consecutive overs, but not more than twice in an innings. It was perhaps the safer option, but it would also mean that he would have to give up on the end he had taken 8 wickets from.
He opted for the latter: after all, he would get to bowl only if the match lasted another over.
Then, as the clock ticked over to quarter past four, the unthinkable happened: Mycroft bowled a half-volley. Hargreaves s eyes lit up as he dispatched the ball to the cover-point fence, and that was that. The Hantsmen cheered their hero all the way back though they reserved some of it for Mycroft, who had finished with a valiant effort of 17 for 103.
The best bowling figures
Back in 1837, William Lillywhite had taken 8 wickets in the first innings and 10 more in the second, for Players against Gentlemen at Lord s. However, though the match was given First-Class status, it was an odds match where Players went in with 11 men and Gentlemen 16. This meant that Lillywhite took 18 wickets of out of a maximum possible of 30, not 20.
Seven years after the match, Francis Fenner took 8 and 9 wickets for Cambridge Town and County Club against the famous university. This was a proper 11-a-side match, which had made Fenner the first to take 17 wickets in a First-Class match. The runs conceded by the bowlers were not recorded.
That is not, however, Fenner s only contribution to history. He would build a cricket ground on a piece of land he had leased. The first First-Class match on FP Fenner s Ground was played in 1848. Cambridge University still play their home matches there. It also serves as home to Cambridge MCC University.
Playing for his All England Eleven, William Clarke had 8 for 80 and 9 for 80 in 1852 but this was an odds-match as well, where Yorkshire XI fielded 14 men. And Henry Arkwright took 9 for 43 and 9 for 53 for MCC against Gentlemen of Kent in 1861 in a 12-a-side match.
In other words, Mycroft registered the best known figures (if we ignore Fenner) in First-Class cricket. The record would be usurped in a year s time by WG (who else?), who would take 9 for 55 and 8 for 34 (17 for 89 in the match) for Gloucestershire against Nottinghamshire at Cheltenham.
And finally, a word on Hargreaves
On September 15, 1880, Hargreaves married one Alice Pleasance Liddell at Westminster Abbey. She was 28 at this time.
In the mid-1850s, the Liddell family was once befriended by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a man who earned some notoriety for drawing and photographing children in the nude , the most significant being one Beatrice Hatch.There were allegations of Dodgson proposing marriage to an 11-year-old Alice.
Scholars are divided on branding Dodgson as a repressed paedophile . The age-old man-versus-art argument has kept resurfacing.
What most of them agree upon, however, is that Alice was the inspiration behind Dodgson s 1865 book Alice s Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.
Of course, Dodgson wrote these under his pen-name Lewis Carroll.
Brief scores:
Derbyshire 115 (John Galpin 5 for 42, Arthur Ridley 5 for 70) and 91 (John Galpin 4 for 39, Arthur Ridley 6 for 42) lost to Hampshire 63 (William Mycroft 9 for 25) and 145 for 9 (William Mycroft 8 for 78) by 1 wicket.