W. G." T HE late Dr. W. Q. Grace' had become
in his lifetime a legend, and he is likely to remain a legend as long as Englishmen play games. Never was such a cricketer; and it is almost safe to say that there will never be such a cricketer again, for the perfection of pitches and the high organization of the game have left less scope than there used to be for a man to achieve so great a mastery over his fellows. In this respect cricket is like war; in first-class cricket, as in war among first-class Powers, there is the same human material for personal ascendancy, but there is less opportunity for ascendancy to be practised. To the boys of two generations " W. G." was a hero. He was more than that; for thirty or forty years he was perhaps the best-known and most popular Englishman in the British Empire. The writer can remember the thrill with which he saw " W. G." at the wicket for the first time. It was indeed an experience to behold the genius of the cricket field, and the original of countless portraits in the illustrated papers, suddenly come to life before one's eyes. It was as though a figure of one's dreams' had stepped into the daylight. Bat the reality in this cage was better than the dream—which does not generally happen with dreams. " W. G." was even more of a " character " at the wicket than all the accounts and pictures had led one to suppose. His burly form; his great strength, which was never supple or gainly enough to make one unconscious of the existence of it behind his drives; . his bearded face, like that of an Assyrian King; his way of holding his bat so that it seemed like a cudgel and not a thing to be rested on the ground, though, to be sure, it was more like a bat than a cudgel, judged by the correctness and straightness with which it was held, even though it did not touch the earth ; the sort of loose lolloping way in which "W. G." covered the ground when fielding, so that one compared him with some animal which moves incredibly faster than its gait would at first let you think—all these things remain in the memory. The writer had the happiness to see n W. G." try various methods out of his immense repertory in breaking up the bowling. He hit one man all over the field—and that, as the result proved, was the best treatment for him, though scarcely another batsman would have had the daring to think so of that particular bowler. He treated another differently, and, for no obvious reason, with much more caution. Yet that proved the best treatment for him also. If "W. G." had not been himself, he would have stonewalled him—such was his carefulness—but " W. G." was incapable of killing the game by the arid arts of the stonewaller. He disheartened the bowler in a more effectual manner. Ho never hit him, but he took run after run off his bowling by gentle pushing strokes which placed the ball just a few yards wide of a fielder. Ile seemed to look into the heart of every opponent. He told himself instinctively the way to deal with him, and he broke up the bowling either by slogging or nibbling.
At bowling he was perhaps as successful as he was because he never looked like a bowler, and players generally mistook a good ball for a sort of Clumsy forlorn effort. The wonder is that his undoubted power of deluding did not frighten batsmen more in advance; but the fact was that as each ball came along it seemed much easier than it was. He would amble up to the wicket, and then, either from an overhand or round-arm delivery, the ball would seem to descend slowly from its lofty parabola towards the batsman. Surely, thought the batsman, that particular ball could be treated with disrespect! But disrespect was the last thing that was effectual against "W. G.'s" " donkey drops," as he called them. He always bowled a good length, and he main- tained on principle that any man who did not try to exaggerate his break, bowled straight, and never failed of a good length was bound to find the chinks in his enemy's armour and have a good average at the end of a season. He was old-fashioned, if you like to say so. He probably never tried to howl a " googlie" in his life. He had not the finesse to emulate the glancing strokes of the Ranjitsinhji school of batsmen. He had been taught by his uncle, and his father, and some say by his cricket-loving mother, to play with an upright bat; and be was at least forty years old before he condescended to pull a straight ball to leg. Probably such a manceuvre was a costly act on the indifferent pitches on which he learned to play in the "fifties" and "sixties," and he could not lend himself to the habit for years after fine turf, beautifully rolled, had made it comparatively safe. But to say that " W. G." was in some sense old-fashioned is only to say that he was orthodox, and the orthodox player is the greatest of cricketing heroes because he sets an example which can be, and ought to be, followed by every one who has not the whimsicality of some personal and private accomplishment. For all-round mastery of the game " W. G." was quite un- rivalled. Though he was a conservative player, he kept paoe with all the changes in the game, and easily held his own. A brilliant and powerful batsman, and an extremely useful bowler, he would have won his place in any representative eleven as a field—at least, on his own principle that a first-rate field was worth his place in any team, even if he could do nothing but field. The place in the field at which most of us will remember " W. G." was at point. How many hard and con- fident cuts ended in disaster in those spacious and confident hands I A few figures will show that ." W. G.," for all his fame, was not rated an inch above his performances. The most brilliant batsmen are apt to have their off seasons. The steadiness with which" W. G.'s " brilliance glowed was its chief marvel. From 1868 to 1880 he headed the batting averages with the exception of two years. In 1871, during which season he played thirty-five innings in first-class cricket, his average was no less than 78.9. In 1895, during which he played forty-eight innings, his average was still 51. Before the year 1868 (when " W. G." was twenty years old) the Gentlemen had hardly ever beaten the Players. During the next thirteen years the Players hardly ever won. His average against them was 42'74. No other player on either aide had anything like such a record. Altogether, in the course of his career, he scored nearly fifty-four thousand runs in first-class cricket. His best bowling year was 1875, when he took one hundred and ninety-two wickets, with an average of 12. This amazing player was still good enough to take the field against the Players on his fifty-eighth birthday, when he scored seventy- four.
A writer in the Westminster Gasette, who collaborated with ,,w. G." in his reminiscences, has indicated the great man's simplicity and modesty. He would praise all his men in a team, and then remember as an after-thought that he himself had made, for example, two hundred and thirteen. His diction was monosyllabic. His collaborator made him use the word " inimical" in the reminiscences. " W. G." would not have it—"the fellows would want to know where I got it from."' We are told that he had no great interests outside cricket. In his study he sat among up-to-date " Wisdens " and out-of-date medical books. Stories, true and untrue, have clustered round him, and more will be added. Let us add . one trifle which we believe to have the merit of truth. Long ago he went to play against Marlborough for the Lansdowne Club of Bath. To the enormous delight of the schoolboys, the giant was dismissed for a very small score, if not for a "blob." That evening in chapel the hymn contained the appealingly appropriate line, " The scanty triumphs grace hath won," It is not stretching the fancy too far to trace the effects of " W. G.'e" example in the battlefields of Flanders. A generation reared on his exploits and trained to bowl and "throw in" hard and accurately are the best bombers the world can produce, and boat the Germans easily in length and precision. We shall have statues of " W. G." But we also hope for a statue of a bomber hurling the missile with the overhand delivery that has come most quickly and most naturally to a nation of cricketers.
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