On 22 June 1865, sixteen days short of his seventeenth birthday, William Gilbert Grace played his first first-class match. Picked by the Gentlemen of the South against the Players of the South at the Oval mainly for his bowling, he and I.D. Walker bowled unchanged through both Players innings. Grace took 13 wickets in the match. Although the Players won by 118 runs, the cricket world had its first sight of the man who would dominate the sport for the next thirty years.
The Gentlemen v Players matches were the showcase fixtures of the English summer. Selection for the South side at the Oval, the match a tier below the great Lord's encounter, was the recognised route by which young amateurs proved their right to the senior fixture.
Grace had impressed during a tour with the Lansdown club in 1864 and had played for the South Wales club at Brighton. E.M. Grace's involvement in the 1862 Down End feats and his place in the All-England Eleven gave the Grace name a currency among selectors that opened the door for the younger brother.
Grace had been playing serious cricket since the age of nine, drilled by his father Henry and by his uncle Alfred Pocock on the family's home ground at Downend in Gloucestershire. By 1864 he was already scoring runs and taking wickets in important non-first-class fixtures. The 1865 invitation came largely because his elder brother E.M. Grace was already a household name and the selectors trusted the family pedigree. W.G. was picked as a fast roundarm bowler who could bat lower in the order. The match itself was a low-scoring affair on a difficult Oval pitch. Grace and Walker bowled unchanged in both Players innings, sharing the wickets between them. Grace's match analysis read 13 for 84. With the bat he made 23 in the first innings and 12 not out in the second. The Players, with George Parr, Tom Hayward and George Anderson among them, won by 118 runs. The result mattered less than the impression Grace made: tall, gangling, already strong-shouldered and accurate, he was, several reporters wrote, the best schoolboy bowler ever seen at the Oval. Within twelve months he would score his first first-class hundred — 224 not out for England v Surrey at the same ground. Within four years he was the first name on every team sheet.
22 Jun 1865: Match begins at the Oval; Grace picked as a bowler
Grace and I.D. Walker bowl unchanged through Players' first innings
Grace and Walker repeat the feat in the second innings
Grace takes 13 wickets for 84 runs in the match
Grace contributes 23 and 12 not out with the bat
Players win by 118 runs
23 Jun 1865: Reporters note Grace's bowling as the find of the season
18 Jul 1848
W.G. Grace born at Downend, Gloucestershire
1863
Grace plays for South Wales club
22 Jun 1865
First-class debut at the Oval
Jul 1866
Maiden first-class hundred — 224 not out
1869
Grace elected to MCC
“He bowled fast round-armed and was very straight; with the bat, on a wicket which gave the bowler every help, he batted with patience beyond his years.”
“Master W. Grace is the find of the season, and we shall hear much more of him.”
Within a fortnight Grace was selected for the senior Gentlemen v Players fixture at Lord's. By July 1866 he had scored his maiden first-class hundred, 224 not out at the Oval. He went on to score 54,211 first-class runs and take 2,809 first-class wickets, both records for decades.
A modest match return that announced the most important cricketer of the nineteenth century.
The 1865 debut is the historical zero point of W.G. Grace's career and, by common consent, of modern batsmanship. Every analysis of the development of batting technique starts with him; every list of England's greatest players begins with his name. The 22 June 1865 scorecard is among the most reproduced in cricket literature.
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.