On 18 July 1896 K.S. Ranjitsinhji, 23, a Cambridge graduate from Nawanagar, walked out at Old Trafford for his Test debut and made 62 in the first innings and an unbeaten 154 in the second — including 113 between the start of the third morning and lunch, becoming the first batsman to score a century before lunch in Test cricket. The MCC selectors had refused him for the First Test on grounds that were widely understood to be racial; Lancashire's local committee picked him for Manchester. Australia won the Test, but the leg-glanced 154* changed cricket's conversation about who could play it.
Ranjitsinhji had been born in 1872 in Sarodar in present-day Gujarat, adopted as heir to the Maharaja of Nawanagar then disinherited, and sent to Cambridge in 1888. He won his cricket Blue in 1893 after a public campaign by F.S. Jackson. By 1895 his county form for Sussex was unanswerable. Lord Harris and the MCC committee had repeatedly held him back from England selection; the line, repeated in private letters now in the MCC archive, was that he was 'a bird of passage' and not English.
Australia, captained by Harry Trott, had won the First Test at Lord's by an innings. The series stood 1-0 going into Manchester. Lancashire's selection committee announced Ranji's inclusion the week before the Test; the news dominated the cricket press. Australian players, asked for a comment, said they had no objection.
Ranjitsinhji had been the outstanding batsman of the 1895 and 1896 county seasons — 1,775 first-class runs in 1895, 2,780 in 1896 at an average over 50. The MCC selection committee, which picked the First Test side at Lord's, omitted him without comment. Wisden later described the omission as 'unsporting'; the Manchester Guardian was less polite. Lancashire, which under their own constitution selected the Old Trafford Test, picked him at once.
England batted second on a fast Manchester pitch. Ranji came in at 96 for 4 and made 62 from a 145-run partnership with his Sussex captain W.L. Murdoch, beaten only when Tom McKibbin had him caught behind. The innings was a respectable Test debut. The second was extraordinary. England, following on 181 behind, were 109 for 4 at the close of the second day with Ranji 41 not out. He came out the next morning, a Saturday, with rain threatening and Australia pressing for victory.
What followed was a session that the Manchester Guardian's cricket correspondent, Charles Stewart Caine, described as 'wholly without precedent'. Ranji added 113 in 130 minutes between the start of play and lunch, becoming the first man to score a hundred before lunch on any day of a Test. He glanced anything pitched on or just outside leg-stump for four — a stroke that no English batsman had developed and that Australian fielders had not been positioned for. He cut the off-side bowling square and late.
He was last out at 154 not out, having batted across 190 minutes for the day. England had set Australia 125 to win; Frank Iredale and Joe Darling chased it down for the loss of three wickets, and Australia won the Test by three wickets. The result mattered briefly; the innings mattered for ever.
Lord's selectors omit Ranji from First Test; Lancashire pick him at Old Trafford.
Ranji 62 in the first innings; 145-run stand with Murdoch.
England follow on 181 behind; Ranji 41* at second-day close.
Saturday morning: 113 added before lunch — first century before lunch in Test cricket.
Leg-glance for four off Ernie Jones astonishes the Australian field.
Out 154* — last man out as England post 305.
Australia chase 125 for the loss of three; win by 7 wickets.
Ranji's 154* hailed as the finest Test innings yet played by an Englishman.
16 Jul 1896
Test begins; Australia 412 in first innings.
17 Jul
Ranji 62 on debut; England all out 231; follow on.
17 Jul, stumps
England 109/4 second innings; Ranji 41*.
18 Jul, lunch
Ranji 154 by lunch — 113 added in the session.
18 Jul, afternoon
Out 154*; England 305 all out.
18 Jul, evening
Australia chase 125, win by 7 wickets.
“He moves like the limbs of a fine Italian statue, swiftly and yet with grace.”
“When you have got a bat in your hands, you should think only of what you intend to do with it.”
Ranji played the Third Test at The Oval and the next sixteen Test matches across his England career. He averaged 44.95 in Tests across 15 matches — extraordinary for the era. He returned to India in 1907 to take up the Nawanagar throne, founded the Ranji Trophy by his name in 1934, and remained a presence in English cricket administration as Chancellor of the Indian Chamber of Princes.
Cricket's first non-white Test centurion arrived with a stroke — the leg glance — that the game had not yet seen. The selectors' colour bar collapsed inside one Test.
Ranjitsinhji's Old Trafford debut is the founding text of two cricket histories at once. For England it ended an explicit colour bar in selection; no later non-white player would face the same obstacle. For India, the first Indian-born Test batsman of any nationality became a pre-independence cultural symbol that later powered the Ranji Trophy and India's Test admission in 1932. The leg glance — pre-Ranji a regarded as a fluke shot — became part of orthodox technique within a decade.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.