Cricket (Lyttelton, 1898)/Chapter 7
VII
GIANTS OF THE GAME
There have, of course, been giants from the early ages of cricket to the present day. The academic question as to who were the giants till the days of William Lillywhite, Cobbett, and Jem Broadbridge is interesting only to antiquarians. I have my opinions and my interests on the subject, but my readers are not all enthusiasts, and few of them can be expected to enter into my tastes. William Lambert, the hero of a double century in one match, the conqueror single-handed at single wicket of the famous Squire Osbaldeston and T. C. Howard, is commonly reckoned to have been the champion up to the year 1827; but I propose to begin from the year 1827, the date of the introduction of round-hand bowling, as a starting-point for our calculations. As William Lillywhite was the first round-hand bowler of any note, so may he be considered our first hero. What his prowess may have been if he had played on our wickets it is impossible to say, but he must have been a bowler of great accuracy, not because he was hardly ever known to have bowled a wide (for this might have been said of Alfred Shaw and many others), but because of the amazing number of wickets which he got. It is difficult to take up any score of a match in which he took part without observing at least eight wickets falling to his share, often more. Everybody knows the figure of the old man in the engraving of the Sussex and Kent match, five feet four inches in height, wearing a tall hat, and apparently about to deliver the ball straight through the body of the famous E. G. Wenham. He was, if tradition is to be believed, a strictly fair round-arm bowler, and what we should call slow. In 1829, on one of the few occasions when the Gentlemen beat the Players, they had Lillywhite and Broadbridge to help them. These two got the Players out for 24 and 37, eight of the Players getting nought in the first innings, and four in the second, and old Lillywhite got fourteen wickets. His great feats are far too many to enumerate, so I will content myself with saying that the man who introduced, or at any rate was the first scientific exponent of round-arm bowling is clearly destined for a niche in the temple of the immortals.
The next hero we will take will be the renowned Alfred Mynn. I have had many a talk with old Martingell, whom I believe to be the last survivor of the days of William Clarke, Alfred Mynn, and Fuller Pilch, and he has told me several times, what a careful perusal of cricket scores made me suspect, that, as a bat, Mynn was in the main a hitter, with a somewhat faulty defence. He was perhaps the champion single-wicket player, a hard hitter and a very fast bowler constituting the most valuable gifts for play of this description; but as a bowler he must have been excelled by few. Like all the bowlers of that date, he was, strictly speaking, round-hand, the arm being delivered a little below the shoulder, and he used to walk up to the wicket; and we read that it was one of the grand sights of cricket to see Alfred Mynn deliver the ball. He was only fifty-four when he died in 1861, but he played his first match at Lord's in 1832.
Up to the time of George Parr, Fuller Pilch was the champion batsman; and there is strong evidence to support the conclusion that he was the originator of what we understand as forward play. Old Clarke used to say that Pilch was the man who played him best, for he used not to leave his ground for every ball, or stand fast, but he watched and observed the length, and suited his play accordingly. Greater praise than this cannot be given, and old Clarke's lobs in those days appeared to be the terror of most batsmen. Pilch was one of the immortal five who made Kent the great cricket county. And with five such mighty cricketers
As Felix Wenman, Hillyer, Fuller Pilch, and Alfred Mynn,
Was but natural to win.
As may be inferred from his forward play, Pilch was a tall man, and he was a most consistent scorer. Like Alfred Mynn, he was famous in single-wicket matches; but while both were very ready to play anybody in England, I suspect each was afraid of the other, for no match was ever played between these Kentish heroes. Pilch was a fair bowler, but nothing like the same class as Mynn, and, as cutting is no good in single-wicket matches, a very fast bowler like Mynn is hard to score against, being difficult to drive: so Pilch would probably have not been quite a match at single-wicket for Mynn, but as a bat he stood far higher: in an age, as compared with the present, of small scores and rough wickets, his runs were of far more credit to him than centuries are to many cricketers now.
I come now to George Parr, a great Nottingham batsman. The very name Nottingham strikes an old cricketer of my age with wonder, respect, and awe. I am often thinking to myself, when I see ignorant critics and journalists inclined to jeer at Nottingham cricket, how little do those people remember of cricket history. I say that if not another cricketer was ever born in Nottingham, it would still take years for any other country to come up to Notts. Yorkshire and Surrey are the two nearest; the first, however, is the only real rival. Surrey has a fine record, but so many of her latest cricketers are, and have been, importations, that it is doubtful how they would have stood since Jupp left off play with only genuine natives. Surrey's great lights in the days when only natives represented counties, that is, between the years 1858 and 1870, were a grand lot. Caffyn, Caesar, Mortlock, Humphrey, Jupp, Stephenson, Lockyer, Griffith, Sewell, Pooley, Southerton, and, in later days, Maurice Read, Abel, and Richardson, no doubt make a grand lot; but how few real Surrey men there have been since Jupp retired. Lohmann was Middlesex, Sharpe and Lockwood Notts, Beaumont Yorkshire, Hayward Cambridge, Henderson Monmouth, Bowley Northampton, Wood Kent, and Barratt Durham. I think that in batting the Surrey men are a little better, perhaps, than Yorkshire; in bowling they are far inferior. Caffyn, Griffith, Sewell, Southerton, and Richardson do not come up to Atkinson, Hodgson, Slinn, Freeman, Emmett, Peate, Allan Hill, Peel, and Ulyett. But to compare either with Notts, with a smaller population to draw from, is childish, as can be seen when one begins to go through the names. George Parr, Daft, Barnes, Shrewsbury, and Gunn, as I have said before, are five unique batsmen, far ahead of any five from any other county. I suppose Surrey would come next, after a long interval, with Caffyn, Mortlock, Stephenson, Jupp, and Abel, but there is a wide difference between them. Notts can add to these Oscroft, Brampton, Summers, Selby, Wild, and Flowers; while such a lot of bowlers have never been seen, and probably never will be again, as Grundy, Wootton, Tinley, J. C. Shaw, A. Shaw, Morley, William and Martin M'Intyre, Flowers, Briggs, Barnes, Lockwood, and Attewell.
George Parr is dimly known to this generation as the great leg-hitter, but he had also one of the soundest of defences, and was a most consistent scorer on all wickets. From the year 1850 to about 1863 he was about the best bat in the world. He watched the ball well, and though not a big hitter except to leg, scored fast. His leg-hitting was of a kind that is not common: he did not hit square with a vertical bat, like Barnes, but swept the ball with a horizontal bat, sharp, and not square, and he was great at this hit off shortish leg-balls. The famous R. A. H. Mitchell could do this stroke as well as the square leg. Parr could throw the cricket ball more than 100 yards, which in those days was useful where there were no boundaries; he was a first-rate judge of a run; and, lastly, he understood the game thoroughly, and was, perhaps, the best professional captain who ever lived. He also could bowl lobs fairly.
Mr. Mitchell had a short life in first-class cricket: in fact, it corresponded almost exactly with his Oxford career; so it happens to be difficult to exactly estimate his powers. But I have talked with several of his contemporaries and have seen him myself, and I have found several who agree with me that if Mitchell had been able to devote himself to the game in the way that Jackson, Stoddart, and others do now, he would have been the second batsman of the world, next, in fact, to Grace. With great height, strength of arm and wrist, punishing powers all round the wicket, a temperament that made him equal to a supreme effort when it was wanted, and great patience and knowledge of the game, Mitchell was a terror to his opponents. He could play well on bad wickets and was a tremendous leg-hitter. Slow bowling was not so common in his days, and if he had a weak spot, it was that when he first went in he was apt to get out to slows, often caught at deep square leg. The modern batsman, sooner than run the chance of being caught in this way, leaves leg-balls alone or pushes them along the ground. Mitchell used to say, and I agree with him, that if leg-balls were not to be hit, cricket was not worth playing.
Readers of cricket literature may think they have had enough put before them about W. G. Grace, but in a chapter about heroes of the game he must be written about again. Grace has played first-class cricket for thirty-two years, and amidst all the changes of styles of bowling, vicissitudes of wickets, for twenty-five years of that time he has stood alone: no rival could be reckoned in the same class with him. From 1866 to 1876 he scored hundreds as often as the next bats scored fifties; his presence made a weak eleven strong, and after half-an-hour of his batting the other side was demoralised. He never flinched from the fast bowling on rough wickets, and yet such was his resource and quickness of eye, that it is astonishing to remember how few times he has ever been hit by the ball. He has a bat in his hands, and with that he hits the ball, and there is no more to be said. To fast bowling he never looked as if any ball presented any difficulty whatever to him; he would place good length balls somewhere past short leg, place that field where you liked. He was a fast or medium-pace bowler, bowling for the Gentlemen against the Players before most first-class cricketers had cut their first tooth; and, to this day, notwithstanding his age and weight, you could hardly leave him out of your first eleven. So prodigious has been his batting, that people forget that for several years he was one of the most successful bowlers in England, and one of the best fields. For ten years or thereabouts he got more than a hundred wickets in the season; while in 1875 and 1877 he got more wickets than any one else in England. Grace had no objection to being hit (the greatest bowlers never have), but he would bowl half volleys to some batsmen for a catch at deep square leg, and many a wicket has he got in this way. In the ten years between 1870 and 1880 Grace scored twice as many runs as any other cricketer; and in the same period only Alfred Shaw had bowled more wickets, while his batting average was 18 points per innings higher than the second man's. Between 1880 and 1890 Shrewsbury has a slightly higher average, but Grace is second in the list; while in bowling only Lohmann, Peate, and Watson got more wickets, though he was more knocked about. The main element of Grace's batting was that he could score off balls that most batsmen would be content merely to stop; he never let balls alone, he always hit them. He did not appear even to play forward or back; he played over the crease, and it seemed as if his gigantic size and weight made the ball to go, and not wrist and forearm.
If one were asked to name three players of to-day who would be described as stylists (I apologise for the word), one would select Palairet, A. P. Lucas, and N. F. Druce. Grace never was a stylist in this sense. Effectiveness is the word in batting and bowling; there is style in bowling as well as batting—in fact, the poetry of motion is as conspicuous in one as in the other. Johnny Wisden and Allan Hill are typical of the first, and Palairet and A. P. Lucas of the last. Grace while bowling used to slouch up to the wicket with an ungainly movement of the arm stretched out at full length, and in a stooping posture; but it was a ball very difficult to judge the length of as well as the direction; a ball you thought you could hit to leg you missed and were given out l.b.w. Lastly, to write about Grace is merely to say that in the world of cricket he stands alone—he has never been approached, and in his prime he occupied a class by himself. For some time, Grace with ten third-class players would probably have beaten the best eleven you could choose: more cannot be said.
I have stated elsewhere that Spofforth is the greatest bowler the world has ever seen, and so he may be discussed here. Spofforth is a tall man and bowled with arm high above the shoulder. Originally he was a very fast bowler with a natural break, but after he had been in England, without losing his break he became master of that supreme art of varying his pace without alteration of action. He studied the art of bowling, and very quickly found out a spot on the wicket. He had two styles—one a grand fast bowler with great accuracy, the other a head-bowler of all paces, possessing the power of close concentration on his work and great determination. Space does not allow me to go fully into his performances, but my opinion is that in games Grace among batsmen and Spofforth among bowlers are unrivalled in their different lines. I should like to speak of many more cricketers, like A. G. Steel, most fascinating of amateurs; George Ulyett, and others, but space does not permit.
The last hero must be George Lohmann. No greater tragedy has ever been seen in cricket than the breakdown in health of this player in the autumn of 1892, which illness has practically finished his cricket career. This may be said to have lasted eight seasons, though in 1896 he was still a good bowler. Lohmann, I think, was one of the greatest cricketers that ever lived. He was chiefly known as a bowler, but he was a determined hitter, who often came off when runs were most wanted; and in the slips, most important of all places, he has never been excelled, or even equalled, in his power of catching. Of all the players I have seen, I reckon Lohmann to have been the best slip, second only to Spofforth as a bowler, and a most useful bat. Lohmann bowls with high delivery, medium pace, with that sort of action that produces a dropping ball most difficult to judge the length of. They appear to be half volleys, but as a matter of fact they are of good length, and they break back very quickly; but he could bowl a fast ball that came in from leg, and, like all other bowlers who break, he got a lot of wickets with plain straight balls that went straight from the pitch. He never minded being hit, and in the six years beginning in 1885 he actually got 1087 wickets, an average of 161 a year, at a cost of about 14 runs a wicket. Surrey had been under a cloud from about 1870 till Lohmann came out in 1884 and 1885, and mainly by his efforts she rushed to the top of the tree: in fact, Surrey owes nearly as much to Lohmann as Gloucestershire does to W. G. Grace. There was a sparkle about Lohmann's play in every way: he made matches interesting; he did not bowl maidens, so the batting did not become dull. His fielding was fascinating in its quickness and brilliancy; his hitting was sometimes severe, and his whole play was charged with pluck. Take him altogether, in any representative eleven to play against the immortals, I should, I think, after Grace, select Lohmann.