by Arunabha Sengupta
In Swoop!, the 1909 comic novel by the young PG Wodehouse, the English obsession with cricket was satirised. There was the depiction of a giant headline “Surrey Doing Badly” relegating the rather prosaic news item “German Army Lands in England” to an obscure corner of the page.
Some 17 years after the publication of the book, one saw Arthur Gilligan lead MCC on a tour of India during the 1926-27 winter. And one also witnessed life imitating art in that corner of the Empire. The November 27 edition of The Times of India announced Tate in Deadly Form—billed above the next important story of the day: German Plot Revealed.
When he went to India with Gilligan’s men in 1926-27, Maurice Tate took pleasant rides in Rolls Royces, enjoyed strolls in Ranji’s private zoo, shot a buck some 9000 yards away, and yet had enough time and energy left over to score 1249 runs at 34.69 and capture 128 wickets at 13.45.
Perhaps the first great all-round tourist to visit the land. A cricketing hero to whom the very palpable German threats of the Inter-bellum years took the backseat.
Two years before that his Indian odyssey, Tate had made his Test debut by capturing 4 for 12 in 6 overs. At the other end his county captain Gilligan had talen 6 for 7 in 6.3. South Africa 30 all out in 12.3 overs.
Two years before his debut, in 1922, he had switched to fast medium bowling—as many as10 years after his first-class debut. His batting had remained the exciting, explosive and erratic. It is said that his off-spinning legacy had helped him with his balance and economy of action. The result—27 wickets in his first Test series. A half-century to go with it.
Next there was Australia in 1924-25, where he carried the attack of the England side. 38 wickets in the series, an Ashes record beating Arthur Mailey’s 36. It was Mailey whose stumps he rearranged to get his 37th.
Through the English summers of the 1920s he was either destroying batting line ups or peppering the pavilion roofs with big hits.
There were unplayable spells. 5 wickets for none for England against Rest in 1923. At Hove in 1925 Glamorgan were demolished for 41, Tate 7 for 23, two run outs. An unnamed journalist, in the midst of a sober and factual account, broke off to summarise: “Then came massacre.”
That season he captured 228 wickets at 14.97. Also got 1290 runs with two hundreds. In 1927 he scored 1713 runs with 5 hundreds and captured 147 wickets.
When Gerald Brodribb visited the Hastings cricket ground for the first time, Tate was in the midst of scoring 164 in two and a half hours with 21 fours and four sixes. “Just like Jessop,” he heard over and over again. Brodribb ended up penning biographies of both Tate and Jessop as well as writing Cricket at Hastings.
In 1928-29, Tate visited Australia for the second time. Not as successful as the first time, he nevertheless played a role in England’s series win, not least with a splendid catch in that close Adelaide Test. In his pub, father Fred could breathe easy, at last getting over that Darling drop had cost England The Ashes in 1902.
In 1930, South Australia’s Register News-Pictorial printed a letter written by 16-year-old Gladys Boorman from Port Willunga: “We have a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Maurice (after Maurice Tate)”
Tate was supposedly just as chatty as the cockatoo. And, as the thus-named bird indicated, his genial fame extended way beyond cricket.
In the summer of 1929, at Lord’s against South Africa, Tate joined Maurice Leyland at 117 for 5 and thrashed his way to his only hundred in Test cricket. This is how his batting was recorded in The Times: “Tate is like an Epstein statue, not constructed according to the generally accepted standards of physical beauty.”
2784 wickets at 18.16 and 21717 runs at 25.04 with 23 hundreds. In 39 Tests he had 155 wickets at 26.16 and scored 1198 runs at 25.48. One of the fastest scoring batsmen ever. One of the greatest medium pacers of England. An early all-round great.
For a decade and a half one of the most famous men of the country. Not too many remember him today.
The Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company named a route after him. No 46 ran from Coldean to Southwick. A route Tate himself often covered, mostly on foot, during his cricketing days.
Maurice Tate was born on 30 May 1895.
