On the second morning of the 1882 Oval Test, with Australia's score at 114 in their second innings, young Sammy Jones wandered out of his crease to do some gardening — and WG Grace, ball in hand at point, threw down the stumps. Spofforth, watching from the pavilion, called Grace 'a bloody cheat' and reportedly stormed into the England dressing room with the line, 'this will lose you the match.' Two hours later he had taken 7 for 44 and Australia had won by 7 runs.
Murdoch had played a ball to fine leg. Wicketkeeper Alfred Lyttelton ran around to field. The throw came in to Grace at point. Sammy Jones, who had completed his second run, nodded at Grace — by Australian accounts establishing 'a tacit understanding' that the play was over — then walked out of his crease and patted the pitch with his bat. Grace, with the ball still in his hand and the stumps in his sights, threw them down. The umpire had no choice. Jones was given out, run out for 6.
The gamesmanship was, strictly, within the laws. The ball had not been formally returned to the bowler; Jones had not 'made his ground' before being out of his crease. But contemporary cricketers — and most modern commentators — see it as the original act of letter-not-spirit cricket, the sort of thing that would now produce a televised tribunal.
Fred Spofforth was waiting to bat. By all accounts (Tom Horan's later writing is the primary source) he came out of the dressing room incandescent, and during the lunch break burst into the English changing room calling Grace a cheat. He is said to have told Murdoch, 'this will lose you the match.' By stumps Spofforth had taken 7 for 44 and Australia had won by 7 runs.
Whether Grace's run-out actually fired Spofforth's spell is impossible to prove. But the chronology and the eyewitness accounts are clear enough that almost every Ashes history connects the two events. The original Ashes was, in some sense, born from a piece of WG Grace gamesmanship that backfired catastrophically.
Murdoch plays to fine leg; Jones completes second run.
Lyttelton runs round, returns ball to Grace at point.
Jones nods at Grace, walks out of crease to garden the pitch.
Grace throws down the stumps with ball in hand.
Umpire has no choice: Jones run out for 6.
Spofforth tells Grace, 'a bloody cheat.'
Spofforth at lunch: 'this will lose you the match.'
Spofforth 7/44 in second innings; Australia win by 7.
29 Aug 1882, morning
Australia 114/4; Murdoch and Jones batting.
Just before lunch
Murdoch plays to fine leg; Jones runs two.
Same over
Jones gardens; Grace throws down stumps; out for 6.
Lunch break
Spofforth confronts Grace; vows revenge.
Afternoon
Australia 122 all out; England begin chase.
Late afternoon
Spofforth 7/44; Australia win by 7 runs.
“A bloody cheat.”
“This will lose you the match.”
“I left him standing out of his ground.”
Grace himself was unrepentant. 'I left him standing out of his ground,' he is reported to have said. The English press called the act 'sharp practice'; the Australian press called it cheating. Spofforth's spell turned the moral debate moot — Australia had won.
Sammy Jones's career drifted; he played 12 Tests through the 1880s but never with great success. He died in Australia in 1951, aged 89, having outlived almost every other player in the 1882 Test.
The single piece of gamesmanship most often credited with starting the Ashes — Grace's run-out of Sammy Jones lit the fuse on Spofforth's 7/44.
The Sammy Jones run-out is the most-cited 19th-century example of gamesmanship in cricket. Modern parallels — Greg Chappell's underarm, Vinoo Mankad's run-out of Brown, Bairstow's stumping by Carey — are routinely measured against it. The fact that Grace's act seemingly ignited the very Spofforth spell that ended the match adds an irony that has lasted 140 years.
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.