Cricketing contexts are boundless means — not arbitrary constructions. They are, in more ways than one, nestled truths anchored in wide and deep realities, where each of such truths is a part of other wholes. In other words — a myriad artwork that more than highlights, or celebrates, a particular context.
This also means that the interpretation of a cricketing artwork is not only evocation, but also the illumination of a certain accentuated, necessary link and a sublime, subconscious interpretation — one that involves a careful look at the total web of evidence.
The understanding of a cricketing artwork, therefore, would intrinsically, or compositely, mean to enter, as far as possible, the contents determining the art. In simple terms, it is the fusion of the horizons — the emergence of cricket as ‘one whole’ — in which the understanding of every work of art, of every great player, is a process of self-understanding and expansively invigorating in its final effect.
Not so simple, though. Because, to understand such a temple of art and science, one must, to a certain degree, enter its inner precincts, stretch its boundaries and, thus, grow in the process. Reason: the fusion of such horizons is the broadening, or expansion, of the self itself.
The orientation is obvious. When one connects with a legend called Dr W G Grace [born, July 18, 1848], one is consciously reminded of what superior art has in common — the capacity to, quite simply, take your breath away. It is something that makes you inwardly gasp, for a few seconds, when the ‘art’ first hits you, or enters your being. More so, because Grace lived in a different time capsule — one that did not belong to TV glitz. Result: you are lured, and yet flummoxed, to connecting picture frames of the old with the modern. Yet, what is remarkable is — you are now open to perceptions that you had not seen before.
This was Grace’s magic — his cricket seeps into your pores gently. Also, slowly. Maybe, just a little; maybe, a great deal. But, the effect is hypnotic. You are changed, thanks to the game’s own breadth of awareness — call it a wholeheartedly accepted existence of not just figures in terms of runs scored, but also its soul and spirit.
Grace was the creator of modern batting. A revolutionary, Grace held conventional wisdom by the beard. His own. He turned batting into an art — an accomplishment into a science. He developed the all-important criterion of style.
In so doing, he also founded the refined theory of forward- and back-play, where both were equally important. Yet, he placed dependence on neither. He was, at his peak, the finest player born, or unborn. As the immortal K S Ranjitsinhji, the prince of batting, put it, “He [Grace] turned the old one-string instrument into a many-chorded lyre.”
For more than 40 years, Grace was the greatest player. He was also the most dominant force in 30 of them. He still is — thanks to the extent of his long career, and strong pre-eminence in his time, and beyond — as Grace, the physician, who used the willow with as much skill as the stethoscope. While it’s true that several batsmen have surpassed his total of 126 first-class centuries, none of them has been so revered from his playing days till today — the age of instant cricket and technological nirvana.
When Grace entered first-class cricket, in 1865, the game was a ‘vague’ pursuit for the ‘best’ players, who had enough ‘brand equity,’ for getting as much money as possible from and out of it. What’s more, cricket was just a provincial game — not a prospect with international reach. However, by the time Grace hung up his boots, in 1908, the year the one and the only Sir Don Bradman was born, it was a national sport in the UK — a sport that also brought people together.
Grace scored runs on every imaginable type of wicket, including a host of varying surfaces. Well, the wickets, in Grace’s early days, were dangerous. Not for Grace, who faced the roughest of pace bowlers, and the highly skilled of spin bowlers, with nonchalant élan and efficiency. As he moved up his own ladder of cricketing success, Grace amassed seasonal figures of rare consistency — with as much ease as a virtuoso violinist.
In the decade between 1871 and 1880, for instance, Grace averaged 49. That his nearest ‘rival’ averaged just 26 wasn’t passé; it was a powerful statement on Grace’s consummate finesse and run-making ability. Not only that. Grace also scalped 1,174 wickets. What’s most amazing, the bearded giant topped the batting averages — for 11 out of the 14 seasons betwixt 1866 and 1879. In 1871, Grace compiled 2,739 runs, at a remarkable average of 78.25; his runner-up totalled 1,068 at a measly 25.
What made Grace a distinguished batsman was his mighty faith in the basics of the game. The virtue of a straight bat, for him, was akin to the purity of every musical note to Mozart, or the precise, correct word to Shakespeare. He played the right stroke to the right ball — in a manner born.
Grace’s stance was upright. His back-lift was high, and he brought into every stroke an astonishingly quick response. The quicker the bowler, the more delighted he was. Grace loved to smash the ball to pulp through the covers, or straight drive it past the hapless bowler. No shot is as disheartening for a bowler as the drive — and, Grace cultivated the stroke to perfection.
Grace often said that games weren’t won by leaving the ball alone. He hated defensive strokes, because he thought “you can only get three off ’em.” So he hit the ball as powerfully as he possibly could, with stunning effect. His mercurial stroke-play was also an extension of his personality — full of zest and qualified self-assurance. When he advanced in age, Grace developed a thickening waistline, all right. But, when it came to sheer footwork he was nimble and all-powerful. His placement was sound — like a snooker player. He found gaps easily in the field — with a good deal of clinical skill.
As his days in the sun progressed, Grace was but a far cry from the young stripling — a colt with electrical enthusiasm for the game. So, the image that is commonplace of Grace today is his massive, bearded face — a grizzly bear, or a remotely comical figure, for a generation long used to lithe, athletic sport heroes. Yes, the bat, in Grace’s hands, looks like a child’s first-ever willow, not to speak of his enormous feet so transfixed at the crease. They are images that do not seem like taking the attack to the bowler. But, Grace was Grace. Once the bowler had let go the ball from his hands, the physician-cricketer would be a transformed man. Result: voila! Add to this Grace’s amazing stamina, and massive strength, and you have one great epic — Grace’s own — ever written, or put into composition in the game’s wondrous script.
Grace’s value was just not confined to the sports field. It extended beyond — not merely in terms of waves of hysteria of people who wanted to watch him play, but also financial productivity. Grace knew his price. He was also aware of how hard a bargain he could drive. In today’s world, Grace would have made a great copy for cricket writers, thanks to his idiosyncrasies and sense of mirth. More so, because opinion is divided on Grace’s gentlemanly qualities — whether he cheated and bent the rules to suit himself. To cull an example: Grace, who did not like fast bowling, in his later years, once nicked a ‘quickish’ delivery from a young paceman, Neville Knox. As the fielding side was cock-a-hoop with his dismissal, Grace stood his ground. He rubbed his arm, and said, “I didn’t come here for nothing; nor did all these spectators. Play on!”
The sheer multiplicity of Grace’s anecdotes lends credence to Grace’s larger-than-life image. He was a great character, doubtless. Maybe, he lacked that pedantic element of air. But, what was most extraordinary was his sense of dedication to cricket and his patients alike — two vastly divergent fields with nothing in common, so to speak. Well, the point is Grace was a rigid professional, a hard man to barter with. Yet, you wouldn’t believe it. He often provided his services free to poor patients — without holding anything back.
Grace was an instinctive player. He was forgetful too. More than anything else, he was a winsome soul — a man who loved practical jokes. What he hated most was reading books. It did not affect him at all — the accumulation of knowledge, or erudition. He also hated war. The First World War troubled him greatly. He was shattered to think how his fellow English cricketers were being butchered in France. Yet, he wrote a famous letter to The Sportsman magazine urging fellow cricketers to join the armed forces, ASAP. It showed his patriotic fervour — his affection for the country of his birth.
Grace’s keen eyesight was special — it was his keynote to success. He played the pull shot, for one, like no other player of his time. Grace was a great innovator and a great all-rounder too — all rolled into one. His Test record may not do him justice, all right, nor does his first-class percentage of 32.29 and 40.68, respectively. But, they confirm his standing: Grace, as Grace can be, the stamp of a champion. Here’s Grace’s fact-file: Tests — 22; innings 36; runs 1,098; highest 170; 100s 2; 50s 5. First-class cricket — matches 872; innings 1,483; runs 54,518; highest 344; 100s 126. You don’t judge a player merely in terms of statistical excellence — there’s something else called originality that’s imperative. Right? Grace had that glowing element — all his own.
This was his greatness — a vibrant expansion of his self, belief, method, and conviction of thought, and emotion in motion. Of the bat meeting the ball on its own terms — simply, and also sensibly. Of blending the serious with the pleasing — one that had every resource to please everyone. A force that carried the seed of cricket as all-encompassing — the most learned of all sport. Of poetry that emerged not from technique alone, but from a kind of Platonian ‘divine frenzy.’ The rest, as the cliché goes, is history — a part of cricketing folklore and enterprise.
It also sums up Grace, the fountain-head of cricket resurgence. A player, like no other — who carried nothing else, but his originality to a world beyond space and time.
— First published in The Hindu
[W G Grace. Photo, Courtesy: George Beldam/Public Domain/Wikipedia]
![George Beldam/Public Domain/Wikipedia]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WG_Grace_c1902.jpg){kind=link}