Cricketing Days: The Game Conan Doyle loved most of all
Cricketing Days: The Game Conan Doyle loved most of all is an article written by Clifford Jiggens published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 5, 1994).
A detailed study of Arthur Conan Doyle's lifelong involvement with cricket, tracing his playing career, notable matches, literary connections, and sporting achievements. The article shows how seriously he pursued the game, including first-class appearances, famous cricketing acquaintances, and the influence of cricket on aspects of his writing and social circle.
Cricketing Days: The Game Conan Doyle loved most of all
The famous W. G. Grace captures Conan Doyle's wicket.
His wide interests and his activities in so many fields are doubtless the reason why biographers of Conan Doyle have given little or no attention to his cricket. Yet Conan Doyle was devoted to the game and was, indeed, a very good cricketer, who eventually fulfilled an ambition to play at first-class level, and alongside great names in the game.
In his obituary, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1931) said that Conan Doyle 'could hit hard and bowl slows with a puzzling flight'. As a bowler his 'slows' gained him the wicket he treasured above all: that of the greatest cricketer, W. G. Grace. As a batsman, he scored several centuries, including one on his first appearance at Lord's. And as a writer he contributed to newspapers and magazines a number of cricketing pieces, some of which have appeared in anthologies of the literature of the game.
Conan Doyle tried his hand at 'very many sports', but, as he wrote in his reminiscences, Memories and Adventures (1924), it was cricket which gave him 'more pleasure than any other'. His reminiscences include several anecdotes about his cricket (albeit with one or two errors), but it is to the sporting press of his day that one has to turn for a more comprehensive picture of his cricketing career.
His interest in the game dated from his years at preparatory school, and his earliest memory of cricket there was a painful one. As a 'very small' onlooker he was hit on the knee by a cricket ball and carried to the infirmary by the batsman. This was none other than Tom Emmett, a famous Yorkshire player.
At public school, Stonyhurst College, Conan Doyle became captain of cricket, but in his later student days he was 'too occupied' to devote time to playing. It was not really until he set up in medical practice in Southsea in 1882 that his cricket resumed in earnest. He joined the Portsmouth club and in time became its captain. Conan Doyle also took part in country-house matches, which were a feature of the cricketing scene in late Victorian years.
Although his first-class matches did not come until 1900, it was in the last decade of the old century that the by then famous author was probably at the peak of his game. He joined the strong Norwood club when he moved to London and contributed many useful performances with bat and ball. An unbeaten century off the Dulwich bowlers was noted in the Cricket Field, a contemporary periodical, which described it as 'a fine display of hard hitting', and Conan Doyle's innings included a six and thirteen fours.
Conan Doyle also joined a team of literary men, the 'Allahakbarries', captained by J.M. Barrie, an equally enthusiastic but rather less talented cricketer. (Originally they were called the 'Allahakbar' club, the name being a Moorish version of 'Heaven help us!'). Conan Doyle, with his brother-in-law E. W. Hornung, creator of the cricketing gentleman crook Raffles, also organised Authors' XIS. A. E. W. Mason, Eden Phillpotts, and P.G. Wodehouse were among well-known writers who played in one or another of these teams. The 'Allahakbarries' generally took their cricket rather less seriously than Conan Doyle, who was the undoubted star of the team. A small (and rare) booklet about the club, privately published in 1893, includes light-hearted profiles of the members. The creator of Sherlock Holmes was noted as 'A grand bowler. Knows a batsman's weakness by the colour of the mud on his shoes.'
David Rayvern Allen, in his book about Barrie, Peter Pan and Cricket (Constable, 1988), says that Conan Doyle collaborated with his captain in an unsuccessful musical play, Jane Annie. In this, the last verse of the Proctor's song reflects their shared passion for the summer game:
- Proctor:
- In an abstract way (though I don't care to play)
- I think very deeply of cricket,
- And prove that because of dynamical laws
- It's easy to keep up one's wicket.
- I could score without doubt my hundred not out,
- Though modesty makes me refrain,
- And the whiz of a ball is not soothing at all
- To a man with a sensitive brain.
- Bulldogs.
- His M.C.C.-ey,
- And W.G.-ey,
- Lord's-and-the-Ovally brain.
It was in one of his appearances for an Authors' XI (not, of course, a first-class fixture) that Conan Doyle hit a century on his debut on the hallowed turf of Lord's in 1896. The bat he used became a treasured relic, and long afterwards hung in the hall of Windiesham, his Crowborough home.
Another memento of his cricket was also valued by A.C.D. Playing for the M.C.C. against the Gentlemen of Warwickshire, he took three wickets with successive deliveries. In those days it was often the custom to commemorate a hat-trick by presenting a hat to the bowler. In Conan Doyle's case he was given a small silver hat. Twice in lesser games he claimed all ten wickets in an innings, a feat even more rare than a hat-trick: once against another London club, and once against a Dragoon Regiment team at Norwich.
Conan Doyle played in Holland with a touring party 'mostly from the schoolmaster class' in 1891 and was responsible for what, at one stage of the game, had seemed an unlikely win over an All Holland team at The Hague. The Dutchmen needed only fifteen runs for victory and had four wickets in hand. Conan Doyle, however, detected a way of getting rid of those last men, and asked his captain for the ball. He had noted that the home batsmen had been coached by an English professional and that they played in orthodox fashion with a straight bat. He therefore packed the offside with fielders and then tossed the ball a foot outside the off stump. The professional had not taught the Dutchmen to deal with this unlikely situation, and four batsmen soon offered catches to mid-off or cover. Conan Doyle (all sixteen stones of him) was carried to the pavilion by his jubilant team-mates.
There was another overseas match almost a decade later which stood out in Conan Doyle's memory because of its unusual setting-and because of the fate awaiting some of the players. The match took place during his journey to South Africa in 1900 when the ship called at Cape de Verde. The staff at the Atlantic telegraph station there fielded a strong XI. Among the team from the ship, under the captaincy of Lord Henry Scott, which played (and beat) them, were Conan Doyle and young men on their way to fight the Boers. At least three of ACD's team-mates on that day were to leave their bones in South Africa.
Conan Doyle was a member of the M.C.C. for over thirty years until his death and, in late Victorian and Edwardian days, played many times for the club. Ten of these M.C.C. games, between 1900 and 1907, count as first-class fixtures. Four were against London County (led by W.G. Grace following his departure from Gloucestershire), three against Derbyshire, two against Kent, and the other with Leicestershire. Conan Doyle played both with and against W. G. Grace, and among other famous players in these particular matches were the former Australian captain, W.L. Murdoch; Lord Hawke, who led Yorkshire for over a quarter of a century; Gilbert Jessop, the great fast-scoring batsman; and well-known professionals including J. T. Hearne, A. E. Trott, W. Mead and Len Braund.
It was shortly after returning from South Africa, and in the very first of these matches against London County at Crystal Palace in August 1900, that Conan Doyle took the wicket of Grace. Four professionals had bowled in vain (and in those days most of the hard work of bowling was done by professionals), before Conan Doyle was given the ball. With the first delivery of his third over he deceived his fellow doctor into giving a catch at the wicket. Admittedly Grace, aged 52, had already scored 110, but it was still a wicket any bowler was very happy to capture. That one wicket cost a mere four runs.
Grace had his revenge at Lord's during the following June when he dismissed Conan Doyle. He again claimed his wicket during a match in 1902. By this time it was Sir A. Conan Doyle on the scoresheet, and ACD celebrated his first game since receiving his knighthood by hitting 43 runs off London County-his best first-class score before Grace took his wicket. Conan Doyle had just hit the great man for two fours, then Grace beat him with the next delivery and he was stumped. (In Memories and Adventures, Conan Doyle says the man who whipped off the bails was Dick Lilley, the England wicket-keeper; but as with one or two dates, Conan Doyle's memory was at fault, for contemporary accounts show it was in fact E.L. French.) The Times wrote of the innings: 'Sir Conan Doyle was strong all round the wicket.'
This was also the only first-class match, other than that first one in 1900, in which Conan Doyle bowled. This time he was unsuccessful, finishing with figures of 0 for 46. The best bowling performance of his career was probably in 1899 for M.C.C. v Cambridgeshire, when he took 7 for 51, but this was not a first-class game. His first-class career figures were:
- Batting: 10 matches, 18 innings, 6 not out, 231 runs, average 19.25
- Bowling: 16 overs, 1 maiden, 50 runs, 1 wicket.
Conan Doyle was, of course, only on the fringe of first-class cricket, and he never appeared in any county championship matches. He referred to his inclusion in the M.C.C. team as through the good nature of others rather than his own merits, but he was possibly being too modest, for he did well enough. (In his three matches in 1901 he had faced some well-known pace bowlers, and averaged over 30). He certainly earned his place in the Who's Who of First-Class Cricketers no less than many of the hosts of amateurs who flitted in and out of county teams in that era.
In one of his games against Kent there was a very unusual, though not unique, incident. A ball from W.M. Bradley, a fast bowler who had played for England, hit Conan Doyle's thigh and splintered a tin box containing matches, which was in his pocket. This set them ablaze and Conan Doyle hurriedly emptied the pocket and scattered the burning vespas on the grass. 'Couldn't get you out-had to set you on fire,' joked Grace.
Conan Doyle continued playing cricket at lesser level almost up to the First World War, giving up eventually at the age of 54 due to a weakness under the left knee from having been hit twice by a fast bowler. Apart from the M.C.C., Portsmouth, Norwood, the 'Allahakbarries', and the Authors' XI, he played at least a game or two for the Incognitii, Littlehampton, the Blue Mantles, Esher, Marlborough Blues and Lythe Hill. Perhaps there are one or two more clubs, too.
Conan Doyle wrote about cricket: fact and fiction, prose and verse. His best-known contribution to the game's literature, 'The Story of Spedegue's Dropper', must rank among the best of all cricketing short stories. On W. G. Grace's death he wrote a memoir of the great man for The Times. Among several other items in my collection of Conan Doyle's cricket writings is an extract from The Adventures of Gerard, in which the Brigadier is introduced to the game ("How the Brigadier Triumphed in England').
Strangely, there would seem to be no cricket in the Sherlock Holmes stories, save for a couple of oblique references to the game. There are brief mentions of the game in "The Field Bazaar', a short piece about Holmes and Watson which Conan Doyle wrote for the Edinburgh University Student magazine, and in 'How Watson Learned the Trick', an even shorter contribution for a miniature volume included in Queen Mary's Dolls' House Library. From the latter we may deduce that Holmes was a Surrey supporter!
Strangely, I say, because cricket might have seemed a game likely to appeal to Holmes: he lived within walking distance of Lord's and one of the most successful criminals of his day was Raffles of the M.C.C.
Yet, there is cricket in the Holmes stories or, at least, cricketers. Modern authors needing names for a host of characters reach for the telephone directory. Conan Doyle, instead, borrowed the names of cricketers of his day, many of whom he played with, for the names of many of the four hundred or so characters in the Holmes canon. The Case of the Cricketers in Sherlock Holmes is an intriguing discovery to which I hope to return.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
