W.G. Grace

William Gilbert Grace was an English cricketer who many believe, is the greatest ever to have played the game. He was also a medical practitioner and was also known as 'The Doctor' among cricketing circles. Grace was a right-handed all-rounder who made his first-class debut at just 17 years after his birth in 1848. Though there are a few versions of his first-class records, he has amassed over 54000 runs having played over 850 games. He was a prolific run-scorer and often became the talking point of English media early in his career due to his stunning display with the bat. Grace played around 44 domestic seasons and in the process, scored over 800 runs in just 8 days including a couple of triple-hundreds in 1876.

Dr. Grace represented 28 teams in his career apart from his England stint which included major teams like Gentlemen, Gloucestershire, London County, Marylebone Cricket Club and South of England, during which he made over 120 hundreds and 250 fifties. Though more renowned with the bat, Grace was not the kind of bowler a batsman could take lightly in the domestic circuit. With his round-arm action, in 1886, playing for MCC against Oxford University, Grace accounted for all ten wickets in an innings conceding 49 runs which went on to remain as his best bowling performance in first-class cricket.

Grace made his international debut in 1880 against the visiting Australians at The Oval and proved his first-class record right with a fine 152 in the first innings. This was also the first hundred for England against Australia. Unfortunately, he couldn't make significant contributions in his next few knocks, including the famous 1882 Test at The Oval where England lost to Australia to give birth to the Ashes. A few years later, at the same ground, Grace registered his best score (170). Since then, he could not capitalise on starts and never made another hundred and ended his international career in 1899 having played 22 Tests and scored just a shade under 1100 runs. He was named captain for the first Test at the age of 51 in 1899 and soon realised that his body was taking a heavy toll on him and made way for his successors. Grace was quick to ask C.B. Fry, an English selector, if he should be replaced by Archie MacLaren in the Second Test. Fry answered: "Yes, I do." "That settles it," said Grace, and he immediately retired from international cricket.

Even after quitting cricket at the highest level, Grace's hunger to play the game made him to join the London County Cricket Club. He spent 8 years at the club before hanging up his boots at first-class level in 1908, but not before making 1000s of runs almost every season even as he approached his 60s. However, he continued playing minor cricket for many years before batting for the last time in 1914, a week after his 66th birthday. A year later, W. G. Grace passed away to due to heart-attack, much to the shock of the entire nation.