Charles Jesse Kortright of Essex was generally considered the fastest bowler of the Victorian era — quicker, contemporaries said, than Tom Richardson or Arthur Mold. He never played a Test, but his 1898 confrontation with W.G. Grace at Leyton produced one of cricket's most-quoted exchanges: when Grace declined to walk despite being plumb out, Kortright eventually uprooted two stumps and remarked, 'Surely you're not going, Doc? There's still one stump standing.'
Fast bowling in the 1890s was concentrated at Surrey (Lockwood, Richardson, Lohmann) and Lancashire (Mold, Briggs); Essex was a junior county only elevated to the Championship in 1895. Kortright, a Brentwood-bred amateur with private means, was the county's first international-class cricketer.
Grace by 1898 had cultivated a reputation for never walking — pad play, gardening, theatrical complaints to umpires. The Leyton fixture in his 50th-birthday season was the year's most-anticipated club encounter; Kortright was specifically targeting Grace's wicket.
Kortright (1871-1952) was an Essex amateur of independent means, the son of a Brentwood landowner. He played first-class cricket from 1894 to 1907 and bowled fast off a long run-up at a pace contemporaries described as terrifying. Unlike most gentleman amateurs he trained hard; William Gunn of Nottinghamshire, after being bowled in a Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's, said the ball that beat him was a yard quicker than any he had faced. Kortright once claimed to have bowled a bouncer that flew over the batsman, over the wicketkeeper and was still rising when it cleared the boundary.
The Grace incident took place in late May or June 1898 at Leyton, a Gloucestershire fixture against Essex during Grace's 50th-birthday season. Grace, not yet out, had successfully appealed his way past two close LBW shouts and a thin nick which the umpire declined to give. Kortright bowled increasingly faster; eventually a ball pitched on a length, jagged back and uprooted the off and middle stumps. As Grace turned to leave, Kortright is said to have called out: 'Surely you're not going, Doc? There's still one stump standing.' Grace did not speak to Kortright again that season.
Kortright's most extraordinary first-class analysis was 6 wickets for 4 runs against Surrey at Leyton in 1895 — Hayward, Abel and Lohmann among the victims. His 8 for 57 against Yorkshire at Leyton in 1900 was another headline. He took 489 first-class wickets at 21.05; his refusal to consider the long voyages required for an Australian tour prevented him from earning a Test cap.
1894: Kortright's first-class debut for Essex.
1895: 6 for 4 v Surrey at Leyton — Hayward, Abel, Lohmann among victims.
1898: Grace incident at Leyton — uproots two stumps.
Famous remark: 'Surely you're not going, Doc? There's still one stump standing.'
1900: 8 for 57 v Yorkshire at Leyton.
Refuses Australian tour invitations; never plays a Test.
1871
Born in Furze Hall, Essex.
1894
Essex first-class debut.
1895
6 for 4 v Surrey at Leyton.
1898
Grace 'one stump standing' incident at Leyton.
1907
Last first-class match.
1952
Dies aged 81.
“Surely you're not going, Doc? There's still one stump standing.”
“A yard faster than any ball I had ever played against.”
Kortright continued playing for Essex until 1907 and lived on into the post-war era, dying in 1952 at the age of 81 — the last of the Victorian fast bowlers. The Grace anecdote, retold by Kortright himself in retirement, became one of cricket's most circulated stories.
The fastest bowler the Victorians knew, and the only man on record to fire a verbal volley at W.G. Grace and live to tell of it.
Kortright is the prototype of the 'fastest bowler never to play a Test' — a recurring archetype in cricket folklore. His name became shorthand in inter-war journalism for raw speed; Neville Cardus paired him with Larwood and Tyson in print. The Lord's museum holds his cap and a stump from the 1898 Leyton match.
England v West Indies
1933-07-22
Six months after Bodyline, Learie Constantine and Manny Martindale opened up with sustained leg-theory bouncers at Douglas Jardine in the Old Trafford Test. Jardine, captaining England, stood up and made 127 — his only Test century — proving, at considerable physical cost, that he could face the tactic he had unleashed on Australia.
India vs Pakistan
1996-03-09
On March 9, 1996, Pakistan's Aamer Sohail cut Venkatesh Prasad for four, then pointed his bat at the boundary as if to say 'I'll do it again'. Next ball Prasad bowled him, then animatedly waved him off the field. The send-off became the defining image of the India-Pakistan 1996 World Cup quarter-final, won by India by 39 runs.
England vs West Indies
1954-04-01
Fred Trueman's 1953-54 tour of the West Indies under Len Hutton was a personal disaster. The 22-year-old Yorkshire fast bowler clashed with hosts, opponents, umpires and even his own captain. At the end of the tour MCC withheld his Good Conduct Bonus — a public censure that probably cost him his place on the next two overseas tours and which Trueman resented for the rest of his life.