Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/249

 little escaped his large and capable hands. As a captain, though he lacked the special gifts of a man like [q.v.], he was a keen leader and inspired his side with much of his own spirit.

It was in 1866, when he made 224, not out, for England against Surrey, and 173, not out, for Gentlemen of the South against Players of the South, that Grace opened the long series of extraordinary scores, which gave him an unchallenged position in cricket history. Between 1868 and 1876, judged by the evidence of statistics, he stood out by himself as a run-getter. Indeed, he completely altered the standard of scoring. Before his day a score of 50 on the rough wickets of the time was noteworthy, and a century the rarest event. In 1871, one of his best seasons, Grace, in addition to other substantial scores, made over 200 twice, and over 100 eight times. To cite one or two of many remarkable performances: on 29 June 1868, playing for the Gentlemen at Lord’s, Grace went in first wicket down, and made, not out, 134, out of a total of 201; the next highest score in the match was 29; the ground was difficult, and he had to meet some of the best professional bowlers, but this youth of nineteen was master of the attack throughout, and hardly a ball passed his bat. In 1871, for South v. North at the Oval, and for the Gentlemen v. the Players at Brighton, he had each time the unusual experience of losing his wicket in the first over of the match, once bowled by, and once leg before to the Nottinghamshire professional, J. C. Shaw: in the second innings at the Oval he made 268 and at Brighton 217. To Shaw is ascribed an epigrammatic description (divested of some adverbial adornment) of Grace’s batting: ‘I puts the ball where I likes, and Grace, he puts it where he likes.’.

Batting so far in advance of anything yet seen created a sensation in cricket circles. In the North there was intense eagerness to see Grace play. He paid his first visit to Sheffield in July 1869, when he made 122 for the South against the North. In July 1872 he came again, with the Gloucestershire eleven, and an enormous crowd packed the ground. Yorkshire, always one of the strongest counties, had some of the best bowlers of the day, but the first Gloucestershire wicket did not fall till 238, when Grace was out for 150. His success was continuous until 1874, and, though he was not so fortunate in the wet summer of 1875, in the following season he reached what was perhaps the zenith of his form. He made, not out, 400 in a match against odds at Grimsby, and in August he scored in three consecutive first-class matches, 344, 177, and, not out, 318.

During this, the first period of his career, Grace played in all sorts of cricket, and as a match-winner he was certainly worth half a side. His name is seldom to be found in a losing team. The Gentlemen could now almost always defeat the Players, and the Marylebone Club, of which Grace became a member in 1869, was, when he played, a formidable combination. In 1870, with two of his brothers, Edward Mills Grace and George Frederick Grace, he started the Gloucestershire county eleven, which, relying entirely upon amateur talent, was for some seasons one of the strongest county sides. Grace and his brother, E. M., were long associated with Gloucestershire cricket, but the youngest brother, G. F. Grace, an accomplished and popular player, died in 1880.

After 1877, though he remained the best batsman in England, Grace’s supremacy was not so clearly marked. With improved wickets batting improved generally, and other experts came into prominence, such as [q.v.],  [q.v.],  [q.v.], and  [q.v.]. The position of English cricket was now disputed by powerful elevens from Australia. Grace made, in 1880, 152 in the first match played in this country between England and Australia, and he was a member of the side which lost to Australia in 1882 at the Oval by 7 runs. He visited Australia twice, once in the winter of 1873, when Australian cricket was still in the stage of development, and eighteen years afterwards with the team taken out by the [q.v.] in the winter of 1891. Though he was over forty the trip was for him a personal success. He also went to the United States and Canada with a team of amateurs in 1872.

In 1895, thirty years after his entry into first-class cricket, Grace made a striking return to the form of his best days. At the beginning of the season he scored 288 for Gloucestershire. against Somerset, his hundredth century in first-class cricket, and a few days later 257 and, not out, 73 against Kent. On the latter occasion he opened the first innings and was out last, and so was in the field during all three days of the match, a feat of endurance remarkable for a man who was nearly forty-seven years 223