There were a lot of things WG Grace was capable of, but declaring his team innings closed in a ‘dead match’ because he had never made a certain score was fantastic even by his outrageous track record. However, he did exactly that on August 3, 1898.Abhishek Mukherjee looks back.
Of the many anecdotes that revolve around WG Grace, many were, in all likelihood, made up. For example, we cannot say for sure whether he made a boy bat at No. 11 just because he had bragged about the fact that he had never made a duck (“not enough experience”). We also do not know whether he haughtily told the umpire that the crowd had come to watch him bat, not the other man officiate.
On the other hand, some of them were true: for example, he held the wound together for half an hour when Gloucestershire cricketer Arthur Croome gashed his throat against a spiked railing in front of the Old Trafford pavilion — till surgical needles were found — this, after his fingers and thumb were numb from a day’s bowling.
This is one of those true stories. When I first came across the anecdote I found it so fantastic that I found it difficult to believe. Jonathan Rice wrote in Wisden on Grace that “in 1898 he declared an innings closed when he was on 93 not out, as 93 was the only score between nought and 100 on which he had never finished an innings.”
1898. WG was just past his fiftieth birthday. Obviously he was well past his halcyon days of the 1870s: he bowled less and less; the beard grew in volume and cult status; and his girth hardly made him look like the greatest cricketer of the 19th century. Over a century after his death, there is not much claim otherwise.
Then came that Indian summer of 1895 when he rediscovered his form. He scored 2,346 runs at 51. He got 9 hundreds, a number he had surpassed only in 1871. One of these 9 hundreds was the hundredth of his career: he was the first to reach that figure. This was two years afterhis son (named William Gilbert, just like his father) had made his First-Class debut.
He bowled with renewed vigour from the next season, taking 52 wickets at 24 and 56 at 22 in the following one. He also averaged 43 and 39 with bat. For a man in his twenties these would have splendid numbers: for one approaching fifty these were almost out of the world.
He had taken 12 wickets against Somerset just before he had turned fifty. Playing for Gentlemen against Players in the next match (that began on his birthday) he scored 43 and 31*; and in the next match, against Nottinghamshire, he amassed 168 and 38*. Then came the Sussex match at Ashley Down Road, Bristol.
The match was unremarkable in itself. Gloucestershire were bowled out for 244 (Cyril Bland and Walter Humphreys took 4 wickets each while neither Gilbert Jessop nor father and son WG Grace delivered). Sussex responded with 364, riding on an opening stand of 131 between CB Fry and Billy Murdoch. Neither Grace Sr nor Jessop got a wicket.
Fry scored 93 in that innings. However, it would not be the most-remembered 93 of the match.
Grace dropped himself down the order in the second innings. Cyril Sewell and Reginald Rice wiped out the 80-run deficit. The great man finally emerged at 189 for 4 on the third (and final) afternoon. Two more wickets fell quickly (including Jessop for a duck), and Gloucestershire suddenly were left with a 112-run lead with 4 wickets in hand.
However, Grace made sure the crowd had something to cheer about. He was not going to play for time. He took his time, allowing wicketkeeper Jack Board to play his strokes before Board and Harry Wrathall fell within quick succession. Gloucestershire led by 168 with 2 wickets in hand…
But then, there was no bowler in the world who could dislodge Grace that day. The more he played his shots and got his runs, the further the target moved away from Sussex. Stanley Brown played a good hand (Grace Jr was scheduled at No. 11), but he did not need.
The pair added 93. Almost coincidentally, Grace reached 93 as well. Then — out of nowhere — he walked away: he had declared the innings closed.
Was there a chance of a result? The lead was 261, but there was little time left, so it could not have been that. Sussex batted for only 10 overs. It was clear that victory was not in Grace’s mind: he was after something completely different.
He had, you see, never scored 93, which meant he did not have the ‘full set’ between 0 and 100: how could he allow such anomaly in his career? Surely acquiring the entire set was more important than a, er, hundred? That was almost certainly how Grace saw things…
It was indeed the case. After making a duck in his first First-Class innings, WG was done with all but 11 of his ‘set’ by 1880. Three of these — 64, 80, and exactly 100 — were done in 1881, while 56 and 86 were taken care of in 1882.
Did WG think of the ‘set’ seriously at this point? Probably not. His golden days were past him, and he was not likely to throw away a hundred for a ‘set’. In all likelihood he also had his eyes on his hundredth hundred, and all six numbers were close to hundred (including four in the nineties).
Thus, the next four came in a trickle: 76 in 1885, 74 in 1886, 97 in 1887, and 95 in 1888.
That left him with only two. When Gloucestershire followed on against Sussex (who else?) at Spa Ground, Gloucester, in 1892, he hit medium-pacer George Bean back to him. It was the first 99 for The Doctor in First-Class cricket.
And then, once the hundredth hundred was done away with and he had that one last hurrah in 1895, there was little Grace had to play for: so why not go for that ‘set’, then?
Was this a good enough reason? If not, let me ask two simple questions:
1. WG’s fondness for numbers, especially ones pertaining to his own career, is well-documented. If he did not notice that 93 was ‘missing’, who did? Who maintained data of a nature this obscure?
2. Even if one assumes it was a coincidence, why would a run-glutton like WG declare with no result in sight but a century 7 runs away?
I leave these questions to the reader.
Brief scores:
Gloucestershire 244 (Reginald Rice 61; Cyril Bland 4 for 97, Walter Humphreys 4 for 91) and 341 for 8 decl. (Cyril Sewell 67, Reginald Rice 63, WG Grace 93*; Walter Humphreys 3 for 80) drew with Sussex 364 (CB Fry 93, Billy Murdoch 60, Francis Marlow 77; Stanley Brown 4 for 100) and 20 for no loss.