disquiet. He had toured Australia in 1891-92 for a fee of £3,000 that was ten times the amount paid to the professionals; partly as a result Shrewsbury and Gunn [1890] declined to go. Grace’s testimonial riches may have encouraged five professionals – with Gunn again to the fore – to threaten not to play in the Oval Test of 1896 unless their fees were raised from £10 to £20. Grace, it emerged, was receiving as much as them to cover his expenses. Writing in the 1897 Wisden, Pardon defended Grace, arguing that as cricket’s great populariser he was entitled to such special treatment: “Nice customs curtsey to great kings.” Grace, a qualified but hardly overworked medical practitioner, gave up playing Test cricket in 1899 aged 50, played his last first-class match at 59 and was still playing club cricket a year before his death in 1915 aged 67. In all recorded matches he scored more than 80,000 runs and over 7,000 wickets. His extraordinary year helped cement the idea that Wisden’s feature should recognize those who had enjoyed an outstanding season; distinguished past service, or the promise of future greatness, alone was not enough. Had five Cricketers of the Year been chosen in 1896, the ill-fated George Davidson of Derbyshire, the only player to do the double in 1895, who died of pneumonia in 1899 aged 32, would surely have been chosen. Harry Baldwin took 114 wickets in his first full season aged 34 as Hampshire returned to first-class status. Middlesex’s Timothy O’Brien, who would captain Ireland and England at cricket, scored 1,079 runs and Warwickshire captain Herbert Bainbridge 1,162.
1897
WG Grace
KS Ranjitsinhji (Sussex and England) Syd Gregory (Australians) Dick Lilley (Warwickshire and England) Tom Richardson (Surrey and England) Hugh Trumble (Australians)
HEADLINE EVENTS FROM 1896 • County champions – Yorkshire
WG Grace: “The greatest cricketer the world has ever seen.”
• England retain the Ashes, beating Australia 1-0 in a three-match series • England win all three Tests in South Africa in 1895-96
CRICKETER OF THE YEAR 1896 – Performances in the English season 1895 Name
Age*
WG Grace
47
Matches Runs First-class 29
2346
Bat ave
Wickets Bowl ave Catches (/st)
51.00
16
32.93
31 * as at 1/4/1896
6
Wisden Cricketers of the Year 1896
Five Cricketers of the Season
This proved the most illustrious selection yet, just shading 1889 and 1895. All five shone in the Ashes series of 1896 and all five enjoyed illustrious careers: had Wisden chosen a World XI from the pre-1914 era, each would have been a strong contender for inclusion. Armed with quick feet and a good batting technique, the diminutive Syd Gregory – whose family provided Australia with four cricketers – played Tests for 22 years and his 58 caps remained a record until 1930. He was the first man to score a Test double-century in Australia (in defeat at Sydney in 1894-95), his average of 31.82 in 1896 was the highest achieved on a tour of England so far, and he was, at cover point, the finest fieldsman Test cricket had yet seen. He played for so long in part because business ventures fared poorly, ending on a low note in 1912 as captain of a weakened and ill-disciplined Australia team in England. Gregory’s Australia team-mate Hugh Trumble – who stood 6ft 5in to Gregory’s 5ft 4in – got through more bowling than anyone in Tests up to 1914, by which time his 141 wickets had been bettered only by Barnes [1910]. His selection for the 1896 tour was queried but it proved a
turning point in his career; he got the ball to lift off an immaculate length and spin just enough to beat the stroke. At the Oval, he showed how good he could be on a rain-affected surface. “He convinced Englishmen he was entitled to rank among the great bowlers of Australia,” Wisden said. He quit Tests after taking a second hat-trick against England in 1904. Having worked in banking during his playing days, he later became a long-serving secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club. Dick Lilley, with 70 catches and 22 stumpings, stood as the most successful Test keeper until 1933. The first player chosen by Wisden from among 1895’s new first-class counties, he was a natural gloveman whose hands remained undamaged by his craft, but his batting took time to develop and benefited from the coaching of Shrewsbury [1890]. Wisden frowned on his method of standing back to the pace-men but maybe the reality was that bowlers were becoming quicker. He remained England’s first-choice keeper until 1909 and Warwickshire’s until 1911 when he fell out with Frank Foster [1912]. Sydney Pardon wrote that “as a matter of absolute justice” Storer [1899] ought to have Wisden Cricketers of the Year 1897
7