Harry Jupp — The Surrey Stonewaller and His Impenetrable Defence, 1860s

The 1860s county game rewarded patience: wickets were uncovered, pitches unpredictable, and batsmen who survived long enough eventually found batting conditions improving. Jupp's method was an adaptation to these conditions.

Jupp was born at Dorking in 1841 and made his first-class debut for Surrey in 1862. He was a right-handed batsman of resolutely defensive disposition, placing the highest premium on not getting out and trusting that runs would accumulate through gaps in the field rather than through attacking strokes. His technique was correct — he played straight, watched the ball carefully and rarely offered a chance — but his scoring rate drove captains and crowd alike to frustration. Contemporaries recorded that he was capable of batting an entire morning session without reaching fifty. Despite — or perhaps because of — this extreme caution he was selected for England's first two Test matches, in Melbourne in March 1877, where his solidity provided the backbone for England's batting while more flamboyant colleagues came and went. He scored 63 in the second innings of the first ever Test match, which Australia won by 45 runs.

“If Jupp was at the wicket the ball could not get him out, though the laws of God and man might have other plans.”

Jupp continued playing county cricket until 1881, accumulating over 23,000 runs. He died in 1889.