Sir Jack Hobbs was a purists’ purist. He brought to batting a new dimension, a rare canvas of perfection: something that is as yet unmatched.
Hobbs’ art was full of profound expression, a fount of wisdom. Of subtle refinement and classical definition — a celebration of cricket syntax and grammar.
Hobbs [December 16, 1882-December 21, 1963], was one of English cricket’s finest jewels. He was endowed with transcendent decorum. He amassed 61,760 runs in first-class cricket: a whopping achievement, in 834 matches, 1,325 innings, replete with 199 centuries [273 fifties], with 316 not out, as his highest score. It’s, indeed, a world record of unparalleled excellence. His average was outstanding too: 50.70.
What’s also amazing is the fact that Hobbs posted no less than 98 of his ‘tons’ after his 40th birthday. Life, it is said, begins at 40. Hobbs, the supreme craftsman, exemplified this timeless maxim, like no other cricketer before, or after, him.
A legendary artist, Hobbs, was blessed with his own god-gifted embellishment, the cricket bat. He played the game in copy-book style without ever compromising on the refined foundations of his batting skills, or alchemy. He pursued his vocation with a sense of total commitment — and, whenever the situation required a change in game plan, he evaluated it with a feeling of uplifting subjectivity, not just objectivity alone.
This was also precisely the reason why he was able to demonstrate his velvety flair by being meticulously faithful to the cricket manual. So much so, the willow became a resplendent vade mecum in his gifted hands. As Bill Bowes, a fine cricketer himself, summed up Hobbs’ revealing mastery, “When he [Hobbs] stood at the wicket before playing the shot, he looked a great player. He was all ease, grace, and confidence.” The rest was — poetry.
No batsman has, so far, scored more first-class centuries than Hobbs — yet what made him extra special was his marvellous eyesight. He had the capacity to sight the red cherry earlier than most batsmen of his time. It was a big-plus — it gave him enough time-frame to executing his classy strokes with the instinctive, inborn touch of a goldsmith providing the finishing touches to a bracelet. Hobbs was a good learner. He was also supremely adaptable.
To highlight one example: Hobbs easily got into the thick of cricket anew, after a four-year lay-off, following the Great War. Had the tragic war, like all battles, not intervened, and robbed him of some of his best years, he would have, most certainly, scored more runs, and more hundreds — as if whatever he so gloriously achieved wasn’t enough.
For a thoroughly practical batsman, Hobbs’ only weapon of non-violent ‘balance’ was his bat. He seemed to caress the ball, as if it were a child. He was not just a compulsive accumulator of runs in the strictest sense; he also never really ‘hunted,’ or ‘aimed,’ for records. Rather, the records went in search of him, as if he were a heaven-sent messiah of the sport.
When Hobbs was at the wicket, there never was a dull moment. His technique was strongly and stylishly oriented: relaxed and perfectly balanced. He could either go back, or forward, at the proverbial drop of a ball. His footwork was silky, also quick. He could, with natural effortlessness, dictate the length of the ball — on any wicket, against any type of bowling, and on his own terms.
Hobbs held the bat with his bottom hand firmly. While his natural grip allowed him the freedom to playing all the shots, the most important thing that defined his methodology was his supreme surgical skills. He could ‘manipulate’ the ball with refined brilliance and superfluous ease. He could also almost check his stroke, if required, so that the ball travelled ever so slowly to the fieldsman. Bingo, Hobbs would steal a single. Besides this, Hobbs could place the ball into a vacant slot, almost at will — and, when the space was ‘plugged,’ he delighted in sending the ball crashing to its destination through that ‘exact’ position where the fielder was placed earlier.
Hobbs’ running between the wickets was safe, assured, and objective. The effect was often dramatic. His deft placement and insured running always had a demoralising effect on his opponents. Hobbs never allowed them to relax for a single ball. They were all qualities that would have kept him in good stead in the shorter version of the game today, where speed is everything. It would have also delighted former Test great and ace commentator, with the famous Yorkshire twang, Sir Geoffrey Boycott, no end.
Hobbs’ true greatness could be best gauged a brace of incidents. The first took place in 1919. Hobbs, partnered by Jack Crawford, hit 96 runs in just 32 minutes — the number of deliveries was not significant in that epoch — for their county, Surrey, on a devilish wicket, to beat Kent, with just eight minutes to spare for draw of stumps. In the words of an itinerant English cricket writer, “Hobbs and Crawford got down to their task; there was no swiping, no thrashing about. The hitting was deadly and as precise as machine-gun fire; the placing might have been the work of two snooker players of world class.” Perfect description.
Yet another incident occurred on the same ground, the Oval, seven years later, in a Test match, when the Ashes was regained by England on a terribly bad wicket. Hobbs and his famous opening partner, Herbert Sutcliffe, put on 172 runs, in a rare display of supreme batting skills, before Hobbs was dismissed by a beauty of a ball from Jack Gregory. Hobbs, by then, had compiled a great hundred: one of his best ever, according to critics. It had all the natural finesse of Hobbs at his best.
Notwithstanding his genius for the extraordinary, Hobbs, like all great batsmen, was also subject to the agony of going through lean trots — every batsman’s inescapable malady. There was, for instance, one of his poorest run-droughts, when Hobbs scored just 150 runs in eight matches. It was also the worst of times ever since he came into big-time cricket, albeit late, at age 22. Not that Hobbs was exempt from bad trots later. He had had them, all right, but they were never protracted; or, maybe, they never tarnished his reputation. His exalted place was beyond doubt.
“Hobbs,” wrote John Arlott, cricket’s Golden Voice, “probably erred less often than any other batsman we have seen. Once in position, he seemed to harness pace, swing or twirl to his strokes, hitting the ball with sensitive sympathy, which gave his play such a natural air. His study of the game made him the ideal senior professional. His cricket could never have been so complete if he had not relished it so much. He was always quick to appreciate the skills of others: he was a cricketer of courtesy and humour who always made youngsters, in awe with him, feel at home.”
Hobbs was also an inveterate leg-puller and practical prankster. To quote Arlott, again, “One England captain could never quite prove that it was Hobbs who substituted water for gin in his flask; while many of his [Hobbs’] friends have been staggered, when, completely unaware, that he picked their pockets, they have thanked him for the return of petrol-lighters, cigarette-cases, and handkerchiefs, they did not know they had lost.”
Hobbs was, indeed, cricket’s most perfect perfectionist, if ever there’s one. G H Hardy, the great mathematician and cricket aficionado, who analysed the game’s tactics and rated its champions, was a die-hard Hobbs fan. Hardy often used cricket metaphors in his maths papers, all right. But, his highest accolade was keyed to rating a mathematical proof, for instance, as being “in the Hobbs’ class.” ‘Howzatt?!’ — for a mathematical expression that, in more ways than one, celebrated a refined thought of god.
Hobbs’ Test record was more than impressive: 61 Tests; 102 innings; 5,410 runs; 211 highest score; 15 centuries; 28 fifties; 56.94, average. An average of 50-plus is quite something. It’s not an easily achievable standard, over a long stretch of time, for any batsman, in any age. More than that, it bespeaks of Hobbs’ permanent place in cricket’s Hall of Fame — a sporting aristocrat and the best loved of all cricketers of his time and beyond.
— First published in Cricket Odyssey
