by Abhishek Mukherjee
Let me talk about Gilbert Jessop today.
Charles Davis has compiled a list of fastest-scoring batsmen in Test cricket. Shahid Afridi (87) tops the list, while Virender Sehwag (82.2), Adam Gilchrist (82), and Kapil Dev (80.5) have also topped the 80-run mark.
Jessop does not feature in the list, for his career was not long enough to meet the cut-off. However, he finds a mention in the footnote: “GL Jessop (Eng 1899-1912) scored at about 112 r/100b, but scored only 569 runs in Tests.”
That is about 29% quicker than Afridi.
But that is not all. Of his 26 Test innings, 23 were before 1910 – the year when they changed the sixes rule. Till 1910, you needed to clear the ground (not merely the ropes) for a six.
Consider his most famous innings – the 75-ball 104 at The Oval in the 1902 Ashes. Jessop hit 17 fours during the course of the innings. At least two of these – the ones that took him from 88 to 96 – landed in the pavilion and were awarded four apiece. Both were hit off Hugh Trumble.
So yes, the actual strike rate in Test cricket might have been faster than even that 112-mark.
What about First-Class cricket? Gerald Brodribb did some calculations based on only fifty-plus scores of champion batsmen over a course of well over half a century. At one end of the spectrum was Shrewsbury (28 runs an hour); Grace had 36, Hutton 36, Hobbs 37, Hammond 43, Bradman 47, Ranji 50, Duleep 52, Trumper 55, Tate just above 60.
Jessop scored at 79 an hour.
They used to bowl about 22 six-ball overs an hour about a hundred years ago. Let us assume Jessop faced half of these, which makes it 11 overs an hour. In other words, he scored 79 in 11 overs – for his bigger scores. If we assume 20 overs an hour the strike rate will increase.
He also scored at a rate Hutton and Hammond managed between them.
Let us take a minute to understand what this means. Consider a double-wicket match, between Hutton and Hammond on one side and Jessop and X on the other.
If Hutton and Hammond batted together and got equal share of strike, their team would get 79 an hour. Jessop would do the same on his own even if X played out 66 dot balls at the other end
When he scored a hundred, Jessop scored at 82.7 an hour.
Cricket has seen bigger hitters (not many, but some, like CI Thornton), but probably not another who can hit them as frequently.
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For more perspective, let us delve deep into one of Jessop’s most famous innings, against Yorkshire at Bradford in 1900. I am choosing this one because there is some (but not all) ball-by-ball data available.
There are a few things worth a mention before I go into details. First, Yorkshire won the Championship that season (they won 16 of their 28 matches and lost none). Secondly, the Yorkshire attack consisted of Rhodes, Hirst, and Haigh, all of them all-time greats at this level. Rhodes finished with 206 wickets in that edition (52 more than anyone else) while Haigh was third, with 145.
Yorkshire scored 409. Jessop came out at 77/5 and slammed 104 (in 70 minutes) to take Gloucestershire to 269. This included a four off Hirst that landed on the stands, though he got a six when he lofted Rhodes over the football stand.
Requiring 327 in the fourth innings, Gloucestershire were 105/5 when Jessop walked out.
He hit the second and fourth balls he faced, both off Rhodes, over the football stand. Yet another landed at the bottom of the Horton Park wall, and a fourth went over the football stand. All of these landed outside the ground.
He reached fifty in 25 minutes and hundred in 59. One shot off Haigh hit the roof of the football stand but did not cross the ground, so he was awarded a four. He finally fell for a 95-minute 139 (14 fours, 7 sixes). Of these 95, about ten are estimated to be spent to recover the ball
During this innings Jessop singled out Rhodes for special treatment. I have already mentioned that Rhodes was the outstanding bowler of the season, and is still renowned for his parsimonious bowling performances. Over years Jessop would score off Rhodes time and again, but Rhodes would pay back by claiming Jessop 31 times in 89 innings – the most by any bowler by some distance.
But let us return to the match. Jessop faced 27 balls from Rhodes in the match and scored 76 (8 fours, 7 sixes). This seems incredible hitting even by today’s standards.
Six of these seven sixes went over the football stand. This is in addition to one more he had hit off Rhodes in the first innings. Brodribb dug up two fours off Hirst that crossed the boundary in the first innings, while in the second innings there was one off Haigh that hit the roof but did not clear the ground, and one off Rhodes that was caught by a spectator.
So, Jessop had cleared the ropes at least 12 times in the match. Jessop’s personal recollection to Brodribb is “some fifteen or sixteen times,” while Wisden mentions that “he cleared the ropes more than twenty times.”
How many shall we assume? 15? 16? Only three other men – Jim Stewart (17), John R Reid (15), and Andrew Symonds (20) – hit 15 or more sixes in the 20th century, and none of them before 1959. Had he been rewarded six runs every time he crossed the ground, Jessop would have held the record till 1959. For all you know, he might have held the record till 1995 (Symonds).
Jessop scored five double-hundreds in First-Class cricket. Even today, four of them (120, 130, 135, and 140 minutes) appear in the top ten entries in the list of fastest double-hundreds. The fifth (240 in 200 minutes) was a “slow” effort. And these are five of his ten innings where he batted for over two hours.
Only one of the other six took place before 1910, when you needed to clear the ground for a six. Jessop’s entries are all from that period.
Short bursts of big hitting are easier to achieve; hundreds and double hundreds are not.
He also had a 90-minute 191, where he hit 5 sixes and 30 fours. How many of these fours crossed the ropes, I wonder
Jessop made 53 First-Class hundreds. Brodribb estimated that he scored 72% of his team runs during his stay at the crease during these innings. This includes 66 out of 66 (Bristol 1901), 63 of 65 (Cheltenham 1908), etc. He even had a 286 out of 355 (Hove 1903).
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Jessop was also one of the best fielders (probably the best of the era) at cover-point. He enjoyed fielding, by his own admission. He could be quick in his early days, and was good enough to finish with 873 wickets at under 23. He also led Gloucestershire from 1900 to 1912.
His writings on cricket were insightful; he was gifted with a terrific sense of humour; and he was more aware of his shortcomings than anyone else.
But when his name comes up, discussions inevitably switch to his big hitting, to that Oval hundred of 1902, and most annoyingly, that sixes law that took a toll on his aggregate, probably ripped him off fifties and hundreds, and prevented him from setting more, and steeper, records.
Gilbert Jessop was born on 19 May 1874.