Howzat? An Investigation into the Dismissal of WGG by ACD
Howzat? An Investigation into the Dismissal of WGG by ACD is an article written by Alan C. Olding published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 10, may 2000).
This article investigates the exact way Arthur Conan Doyle dismissed W. G. Grace, correcting repeated biographical errors that said Grace was bowled out. Using Conan Doyle's poem, memoir, article, and cricket match records, it shows Grace was actually caught by Storer off Conan Doyle's bowling.
Howzat? An Investigation into the Dismissal of WGG by ACD
W. G. Grace has his revenge — ACD is stumped!
The fact that one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fields of sporting endeavour was the game of cricket, and that in the course of his career he was considered competent enough to play for the M.C.C. (Marylebone Cricket Club) against first-class county teams, is, I believe, well known amongst Sherlockians and Doyleans alike.
It is mentioned in Conan Doyle's autobiography, Memories and Adventures, and taken up by his biographers, beginning with Hesketh Pearson, whose Conan Doyle was published in 1943. This was followed by John Dickson Carr's The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1949). In later years, biographies by Pierre Nordon (1966), Charles. Higham (1976), Ronald Pearsall (1977), Julian Symons (1979), and more recently Martin Booth (1997) appeared, each of them dealing in more or less detail with Conan Doyle's achievements on the cricket. field. (I am quite sure there are others which I have not sighted.)
In his autobiography (327), Conan Doyle relates how he 'had the good luck to get the wicket of W. G. Grace, the greatest of all cricketers', but he does not go into detail as to how this feat was achieved. In much the same fashion, in his Conan Doyle, Hesketh Pearson merely says that W. G. Grace's wicket 'fell to him' [ Doyle ].
I do not know why, but perhaps being an American, and having. only a limited knowledge of the game, John Dickson Carr assumed that Conan Doyle had 'bowled' W. G., and said so in his biography (322).
Nordon (195), Pearsall (70), and Symons (52) all followed this lead, whilst Higham did not mention the wicket-taking at all, merely commenting that Conan Doyle 'watched' (128) and 'played with' (155) the great W. G.
It will come as a surprise to many that, with the exception of Pearson and Higham, they were all sadly mistaken. Conan Doyle did NOT bowl out' W. G. Grace!
Turning to Martin Booth's The Doctor, The Detective & Arthur Conan Doyle, one finds the same error perpetuated, which to me is more than a little surprising, because his reference to the event (198) reveals that he had before him, in Conan Doyle's own words, the description of the dismissal of England's greatest batsman. Booth quotes three verses from Conan Doyle's poem 'A Reminiscence of Cricket', which appeared in The Collected Poems (1922). They describe the appearance of the bearded giant who stood before him, as he trotted up to bowl his first ball.
I am left wondering whether Mr Booth read the poem right through, for, in the course of its nineteen verses, Conan Doyle makes it clear that Grace, having played the first two balls with great circumspection, tried to hit the third out of the ground. He succeeded. only in 'skying' it, to be caught by Storer, the wicket-keeper, a Derbyshire player.
In order to verify this sequence of events, I have checked with the unofficial web site of the Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, where W. G. played out his first class cricket career. The information I received reveals that the match in question was played on 23-25 August 1900 at the Crystal Palace Ground, at Sydenham, London. Grace was playing for London County, and Conan Doyle for the M.C.C. and Ground. The following entry appears in the match records (from J. R. Webber, The Chronicle of W. G. The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians):
- W. G. Grace c(aught) W. Storer b(owled) A. Conan Doyle, 110
Apart from the poem already mentioned, Conan Doyle wrote an article about Grace, entitled 'A Memory', which was published in The Strand Magazine in 1927. Concerning W. G.'s dismissal, he wrote:
- For once he caught it on the edge and it went to an amazing height perpendicularly into the air, and into the hands of Storer, the wicketkeeper. The old man laughed and shook his head at me. He was thinking probably that it was the worst ball that ever got his wicket, but he was too polite to say so.
As a post script, I should add that in Memories and Adventures, Conan Doyle tells how W. G., bowling to him, had his speedy revenge. After scoring four runs off each of the first two deliveries, Conan Doyle jumped out to play the next one, was deceived by its flight, and missed it. He was stumped by Lilley, the wicketkeeper. (Booth (8) had this wrong, too, saying instead that Grace 'bowled' Conan Doyle.)
Notes:
HOWZAT? (How is that?): The customary appeal by the fielding side to an umpire, when claiming the dismissal of a batsman.
Conan Doyle represented M.C.C. from 1900 to 1907, and played ten times. He played against Grace on four occasions, and with him for M.C.C. and Ground on three occasions.
Dr William Gilbert Grace (1848-1915) was arguably England's greatest all-round cricketer. In a career spanning forty years, he amassed 54,896 runs, including 126 centuries, and took 2,876 wickets.
I am most grateful to the unofficial G.C.C.C. website, and to an anonymous club supporter, who was kind enough to consult the records and supply me with the information.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
