MCC arranged the 1898 Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's to begin on 18 July — the 50th birthday of W.G. Grace, who captained the Gentlemen side. Grace, lame and with an injured hand, made 43 and 31 not out in a drawn match. The fixture was treated as a national event: the King (then Prince of Wales) attended, the press described it as a tribute to 'the most celebrated Englishman of his age', and four days later Grace went to Trent Bridge and made 168 against Notts, his highest score of the summer.
By 1898 Grace had been first-class cricket's defining figure for thirty-three years. He had passed 50,000 first-class runs, 100 hundreds and 2,800 wickets; his 1895 'Indian Summer' had made him a national hero again at 47. The MCC committee considered his 50th birthday a generational milestone.
Through May and June 1898 Grace had played for Gloucestershire and London County; he picked up a hand injury during a June match. The Gentlemen v Players fixture was confirmed for 18-20 July, and the press build-up began three weeks before.
Grace turned 50 on 18 July 1898. The MCC committee, including Lord Harris and Lord Hawke, scheduled the year's flagship Gentlemen v Players fixture to start on his birthday at Lord's; tickets sold out in advance. The Prince of Wales attended on day one. The Gentlemen XI included Grace as captain plus C.B. Fry, Stanley Jackson, Ranjitsinhji, A.E. Stoddart and Gilbert Jessop; the Players included Tom Hayward, Bobby Abel, J.T. Hearne and Wilfred Rhodes. Grace, hampered by lameness and a hand injury picked up earlier in the summer, batted at three. He was applauded all the way to the wicket on day one, and again on day two; he made 43 and 31 not out, a modest contribution by his own standards but received with sustained ovations.
The match was drawn — rain and a defensive Players second-innings batting display ran the time out. Grace was presented with a commemorative gold watch by the MCC committee at the close, and birthday telegrams were read out from across the cricketing Empire. The London papers gave the match more column inches than any cricket fixture of the year apart from the Tests themselves.
Four days later, on 22 July, Grace went to Trent Bridge for Gloucestershire's Championship match against Nottinghamshire. He scored 168, his highest first-class score of the season, and the Trent Bridge crowd produced a similar standing ovation. He continued playing first-class cricket for another decade, finally retiring from London County matches in 1908 at the age of 60.
18 July 1898: Grace's 50th birthday; Gentlemen v Players begins at Lord's.
Prince of Wales attends day one.
Grace makes 43 in the first innings, 31 not out in the second.
Sustained ovations on every Grace appearance at the wicket.
Match drawn after rain interruptions.
MCC presents Grace with a commemorative gold watch.
22 July: Grace makes 168 v Notts at Trent Bridge — highest score of his summer.
18 July 1848
Grace born at Downend, Bristol.
May-June 1898
Plays for Gloucestershire and London County.
18 July 1898
50th birthday; Gentlemen v Players opens at Lord's.
20 July 1898
Match drawn; Grace presented with gold watch.
22 July 1898
168 v Notts at Trent Bridge.
1899
Final Test, Trent Bridge.
1915
Dies aged 67.
“On a hot morning in July 1898 the sporting world gathered at Lord's to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of W.G. Grace.”
Grace played on for another ten years. He captained England in his last Test (1899) at the age of 50, played for London County in first-class cricket until 1904, and continued in club cricket into 1914. He died of a stroke in October 1915 aged 67. The 1898 birthday match remains the only Lord's fixture deliberately scheduled for an individual cricketer's birthday.
An English cricketing state occasion — the only sportsman of the Victorian era for whom MCC redrew the season's calendar to coincide with his birthday.
The 1898 birthday match was the high-water mark of Grace's status as a national icon. David Kynaston's book 'W.G.'s Birthday Party' (1990) used the fixture as a lens on late-Victorian England. The commemorative gold watch is now held by the MCC at Lord's.
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.