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Gilbert Jessop – Part 2 – with Simon Wilde
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In Part 2 of my chat with historian Simon Wilde, we discuss Gilbert Jessop's form leading into the famous Oval Test match of 1902, the affect rain had on the cricket that summer, the missing scorecards from the Oval Test, and whether Jessop was shortchanged in his innings because of an English cricket Law relating to boundaries.
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ABOUT SIMON WILDE: Simon has been cricket correspondent of the Sunday Times since 1998. He has written 12 books, three of which were shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. His most recent works have been the acclaimed England: The Biography, a history of the men’s national team, and The Tour, which chronicles the England team’s travels overseas since 1877, which won the MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year prize. His new book - Chasing Jessop: The Mystery of England Cricket's Oldest Record - has just been published, and chronicles not only Jessop’s colorful career, but forensically dissects one of the most famous individual feats in the history of the game.
CREDITS: Presenter & Producer: Tom Ford
All music used in podcast comes from the University of California Santa Barbara’s remarkable collection of wax cylinder’s from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are free to download and use. You can donate to the upkeep of these recordings via their website.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
In the good old summertime, in the good old summertime.
Jessop's Controversial Drop
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome back to my chat with author Simon Wilde about England's great hitter, Gilbert Jessop.
00:00:14
Speaker
We resume our conversation after the third test of 1902, when Jessop finds himself suddenly out of favour.
00:00:24
Speaker
But then, very strangely, he's dropped for the next test, the fourth test at Manchester, which has gone down ah in history as the thrilling three-run victory for Australia, in which, of course, the most famous innings was Trumper's century before lunch on the first day.
00:00:43
Speaker
So you painted the scene beautifully there in terms of Jessup finding form and giving England hope. So why do you think he was dropped for this fourth test.
00:00:54
Speaker
And then how did he find his way back into the test team for the fifth and final test?
Impact of Excluding Key Players
00:01:00
Speaker
Well, he yeah he was left out for for the Old Trafford test, as was George Hurst.
00:01:05
Speaker
It was a very sort of complicated, convoluted situation where England were England needed a wet wicket bowler. Lord Hawke was the chairman of selectors. he was ah he was a Yorkshireman. was the Yorkshire captain.
00:01:18
Speaker
He was already giving England several Yorkshire players and he was reluctant to give them another one. So, because Schofield Haig was regarded as ah as a a wet wicket specialist and they thought that...
00:01:31
Speaker
It might rain and they might need one. And so he he picked Fred Tate of Sussex, who was also a good bowler in in wet conditions. um So it there's a bit of sort of petulant sort of horse trading going on about who should play and who shouldn't.
00:01:46
Speaker
And Jessup was left out, as was Hurst. This goes back to the point about Jessup being neither one thing nor the other, really. Could he bowl? um where If he's but playing as a batsman, how do you fit him in?
00:01:59
Speaker
England are desperate to win a game, to get themselves back to, you know, one all. But they they make a catastrophic error by leaving out two of their best players, really, in Jessup and Hoyers. They are the two best, they are theyre also, as I've said, the two best fielders. So,
00:02:17
Speaker
Of course, as as it would as luck would have it, they they end up losing a match by three runs. from Fred Tate the last man out, bold. He has an all game. He drops a catch.
00:02:28
Speaker
He's blamed. But also, Australia were able to steal runs left, right and centre because see they didn't have Jessup or Hurst. They used to field in mid-wicket or in the covers, those two.
00:02:39
Speaker
And they'd stop loads of runs. Well, one of the reasons Victor Trump had scored a century before lunch was because he was... able to steal runs left, right and centre. You know, the the fielding simply wasn't up to it. So was it it was a tactical disaster, frankly, for England. They made lots of mistakes. It was was a bad error to leave out Jessup and Hurst.
Selectors Reverse Decision
00:02:59
Speaker
And England should have... should have won the game they're only chasing quite a small score in the fourth innings um around 120 and they um and they and they were in it they got themselves into a good position and and then collapsed so that was another case that was another case of them a fourth innings run chase that england got into difficulties and in this case they lost when we get to the oval they get into difficulties but they go on and win but Yeah, so Jessup's left out.
00:03:28
Speaker
But then when we come to the oval test, does they they they the selectors at least admit their mistake and they bring back Hurst and Jessup for that game. Yeah, and and the fifth test has subsequently become known as Jessup's match. And the fourth test match, I think I've seen it referred to in numerous places as Fred Tate's match for all the wrong reasons, basically. And I'm sure it's apocryphal, but poor Fred Tate, I think, says that he made up for it by producing his son, Morris Tate, you know, a generation later who did more than enough for England.
00:04:02
Speaker
But I'm sure that's just an apocryphal story anyway. Yeah. All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
The Oval Test Begins
00:04:12
Speaker
So, Simon, we've finally come to the fifth test match held at the Oval, um the final match of the 1902 Ashes. And it's occurring just two days after the delayed coronation of King Edward VII. So we're officially in the Edwardian period now.
00:04:31
Speaker
The Australians were lucky enough to have, I think, not front row seats, but they had a a viewing spot from a baroness, I think, who offered her balcony for the Australians. so we read the Australians recounting in diaries how...
00:04:47
Speaker
how much they enjoyed that, which for ah you know Australians on the other side of the world in 1902 must have been a genuine thrill. So the oval test, Australia wins the toss.
00:05:00
Speaker
They decide to bat first and they knock up a first innings total of 324.
00:05:07
Speaker
Actually, Hugh Trumbull and Noble are the top scorers. And George Hurst, who's ah welcomed back into the side for England, takes five wickets.
00:05:17
Speaker
um At this point in time, so after the first Australian innings, what was Gilbert Jessup's involvement?
Jessop's Fielding Excellence
00:05:25
Speaker
um Did he bowl at all? He bowled, I think, something like six overs, something like that. I've been through you know many newspaper reports of the game all three days of the match. um And his even though I must have read 30 40 accounts the day's play,
00:05:46
Speaker
accounts of the day's play I didn't find anyone who commented on Jessup's bowling in that inning. So it must have been completely unmemorable and completely ineffective.
00:05:56
Speaker
Nothing seemed to happen. bowled six overs, right, 11 runs. ah You know, like say, no drop catches, no, no, nothing, nothing, nothing interesting happened when he bowled. So, um That was sort of quite remarkable. he was there were they was commented upon how well he fielded and um one of the cartoonists, newspapers used to have cartoons or line drawings rather than photographs. They couldn't produce photographs fast enough to get them into daily newspapers.
00:06:22
Speaker
um They could only do it in weekly newspapers. there There were some drawings of Jessup throwing himself around in the field and making some great stops. So he was he made his know presence felt through his fielding on that day.
00:06:34
Speaker
But yeah, Australia winning the toss, the weather's good. So in those days, that if the weather was fine, you always batted first, unlike today when people seem to want to bowl first.
00:06:46
Speaker
You always batted first because if the rain came later, if there was some rain around later, you'd be You'd make more runs when the weather was good than when the weather was wet. So it was it didn't mean it was a no-brainer, really. You always batted first. So Australia had a great first day.
00:07:00
Speaker
324 in those days is a big score. They've got it in good conditions. And, yeah, as we see, it sort of it does it does rain later. And batting becomes much trickier in the um later stages of the match.
00:07:15
Speaker
And it is something we need to touch upon because it does rain overnight before the beginning of the second
Weather Changes the Game
00:07:21
Speaker
day's play. But we need to touch on how rain affected the entire series.
00:07:27
Speaker
It was a very wet summer in England, 1902. And you make an excellent point in your book about how rain for this test match actually helped produce a result. Can you talk us through that?
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think if it hadn't rained on the first night, I think England would have batted on day two, much like Australia. They would have tried to get a similar get up to a similar sort of score. Had they done that, and they might well have done given pitch would have been okay,
00:07:59
Speaker
we'd have struggled to get to a result later because these were only three-day matches. Obviously, they got through a lot more overs than we do today. But even so, that would have been a difficult match to... so mean, Australia would have then been batting a second time. They've gotten their 2-0 up. They don't need to... They don't mind if it's a draw.
00:08:18
Speaker
England are the team that want to win, really. So Australia would have... batted with no great urgency in the second innings necessarily. They weren't they weren't going to contrive anything. So I think the game could have fizzled out really in um and been pretty uneventful.
00:08:34
Speaker
So the rain actually... accelerated the match because so on day two, it was particularly difficult. um And it's still tricky on day three when Jessup plays his innings, but day two was the tricky one. i think we had 18 wickets full on the second day.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yes. The game accelerated. And England's first innings, once the rain subsided, was a bit of a disaster. um So Jessup is clean bowled by Hugh Trumbull for just 13 runs, and England finds itself six wickets down for just 83 runs, remembering they're chasing 324. they still need...
00:09:16
Speaker
They needed another 92 runs just to avoid the follow-on. So Jessup out for 13. Were there any signs from his first innings of what was to come in the second?
00:09:28
Speaker
He did um play a few aggressive shots and he he got away a few. he made he made his 13 in not many deliveries is what I'm trying to say. um so he played like Jessup usually played, um which was aggressively, but he but he but he gets out.
00:09:43
Speaker
I mean, think the batting was tricky at that point. it was um He was out around lunch on the second day, and yeah, they were I think they went to lunch at maybe 83 for six.
00:09:55
Speaker
And if England hadn't saved the follow-on, they would have been made to follow on, and they'd have probably lost. And again, the game would not have been the game And in fact...
00:10:07
Speaker
um and in fact the Australians contributed to England's savings following because so Clem Hill, who was a great field omen, he was noted for his athleticism, a bit like Jessup. um He inexplicably dropped Bill Lockwood um early on in his innings and Lockwood helped put on a few runs with George Hurst. I think they had a partnership of... um of sort of 40-odd.
00:10:37
Speaker
He didn't quite get them past the follow-on, but they were able to do it. yeah I think Lockwood was the eighth man out. They were able to save the follow-on as a result of that. So had Clem Hill not dropped that catch, again, the game would have been different.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, and as you say, he was Clem Hill. He was a remarkable fielder. In another, ah well, a few there's few occasions he took some remarkable outfield catches ah in the deep. so And I think you pointed out numerous newspaper reports pointing this out in the aftermath of the match, saying...
00:11:12
Speaker
This could have easily been avoided by the Australians had Clem Hill um held that catch, but it wasn't to be As you say, 18 wickets fell on that second day, so we go right through the Australian innings.
00:11:25
Speaker
um And then again, there's rain to begin the third and final day.
Jessop's Aggressive Turnaround
00:11:31
Speaker
England, they start their second innings shortly after the commencement of play and The target that they're set is 263 to win.
00:11:41
Speaker
um had ah Just to put it in context, Simon, had a team ever successfully chased a target this large in Test cricket in England before? No. um No, it was it was, I mean, this again is a you know is a stark comparison with today. We'd
00:11:59
Speaker
263 doesn't seem a lot, but um then with uncovered pitches, batting was much harder. they have so that i mean To to of summarize it, the batting average of the two teams in 1902 was something like 21. Low and modern series, of the teams was 32.
00:12:17
Speaker
It's 50% again more. series in england combined batting average of team was thirty two so it's a it's ah you know it's fifty percent again more so and The scoring levels were lower.
00:12:30
Speaker
So it was it was a big target. And I think Jessup said that they didn't the England players didn't really feel that they had much hope of getting there. yeah know They thought he was ah it was a long shot.
00:12:41
Speaker
um And then just going back to the avoiding the follow-on, the fact that some England did avoid the follow-on meant that, of course, rather than them batting on the tricky pitch again on the second day, it was Australia who batted it.
00:12:55
Speaker
on the tricky pitch and that's why England managed to get the mate down by stump so England's fight back began with Australia's second innings and how cheaply England bowled them out and they completed that job on the third morning got the last two wickets um So it was um the the sort of momentum had started to shift to ah back back away from Australia when England began their second innings on the final morning.
00:13:22
Speaker
but then But then they lost wickets pretty quickly and they went back towards Australia. So the game was moving very fast at this point. the but no No batsman was really getting on top at all.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, and it's almost a carbon copy of England's first inning. Yeah. ah They find themselves five wickets down for just 48 runs on the board. They're chasing 263. So Jessup walks to the center of the pitch and he's faced with the team still requiring...
00:13:54
Speaker
215 runs and there's just five wickets in hand. So how do we even begin to unpack this inning, Simon? Was it all fire and brimstone right from the very first ball that he faced or did Jessup take a while to warm up?
00:14:10
Speaker
No, it was it he was fire and brimstone from pretty early on, to be honest. He... He had a swing at his first delivery and inside edged it past Leg Stump. He could have been bold first ball, um but wasn't.
00:14:23
Speaker
um And he went on the attack. he had So he was um he went out to bat at around 10 past one, in the morning, during the morning session and the lunch break was at 1.30. So he knew he was going out to bat for about 20 minutes.
00:14:39
Speaker
You know again, many batsmen would think, okay, I'll just try and survive to lunch and then we'll have a look afterwards. But he, he went on the attack straight away. And by lunch, he'd got 29 minutes.
00:14:51
Speaker
not ours, with a string of um aggressive shots. so he But he did ride his luck in so much as he there was a sort of difficult stumping chance to Kelly behind the stumps and off Saunders. And then shortly afterwards, he he drove, um Jessup drove to sort of long off area, also off Saunders, and Victor Trumper ran in and tried to...
00:15:18
Speaker
take a diving catch, but he he he dropped it. But it was most people say it was a difficult chance. It was sort of like one of those ones which is a so a bit of a sliced to drive and it was sort of curbing away from him. So it was quite hard for Trumper to sort of line it up properly. um And although it was definitely a drop, it was regarded as a difficult chance. But they were actually the only two chances Jessup would give in the innings after later on Once he got into his rhythm, he didn't make many mistakes really at all.
00:15:49
Speaker
um So he was a little bit shaky before lunch, less so afterwards. And I think there's quite a lot of chat at lunchtime among English commentators, you know observers, whatever, people in the crowd saying they were more confident about F.S. Jackson's um staying there. He was at the other end. And Jessup, they thought, you know what's Jessup doing? is you know Why can't he just be a bit more careful? you know This is the sort of conversation we have when we watch basketball now, isn't it? Why don't they just take a bit more care?
00:16:20
Speaker
That's exactly what Jessup was like. he was He was going hell for leather and in giving everyone palpitations, really. I don't care what
00:16:32
Speaker
i what <unk>t know that
00:16:43
Speaker
Well, before we progress any further in dissecting Jessup's innings, I just want to take a little um the pivot and talk about scorebooks in the late 19th, early 20th century and their inconsistencies. Now, the reason I'm...
00:17:00
Speaker
asking this is because um it's sort of the crux of your book and certainly the last third of your book in trying to dissect Jessup's innings and how many balls he faced and the time, how long he was at the crease.
Mystery of the Lost Scorebooks
00:17:14
Speaker
You've mentioned already in this episode that the two official scorebooks from this oval test are lost. which sort of just adds to the mystique of Jessup's innings.
00:17:25
Speaker
So from your understanding, how was Jessup's innings actually recorded? there were there were two There were two official scorers, which was the norm in those days. Well, in fact, still it's the standard practice that you'd have two scorers, one sort of representing each team. It was a way of making sure that the score was kept fairly, but also a way of double checking that they'd got it right. If one person was doing it and made a mistake, then you know how were you ever going to correct that?
00:17:56
Speaker
So there would be two scorers helping each other out. I mean, we don't have these problems now because it's all done ball by ball on many you know websites and the rest of it, and we can watch and a recording on TV, et cetera. don't have to worry about that. But then you had one chance to get it right, really.
00:18:13
Speaker
um So there were two scores two official scorers. they They were sitting next to the press box in the look Oval Pavilion, and I should think that the journalists in the press box would be asking them questions about how you know bowling figures and ah you know how many falls he said or whatever.
00:18:31
Speaker
So they were sort of situated next to the journalists. They were the only official means of keeping a score and getting an accurate figure, but in fact... We know from ah reports that I sort of unearthed and anecdotal evidence that journalists were in the habit of keeping their own scores, and particularly with someone like Jessup, because he scored so fast, they would keep a note of how many balls he'd face.
00:18:55
Speaker
Just on the scorebooks, the old scorebooks of that period, they didn't do what we would call linear scoring, which is where you keep a a ball-by-ball list of every over against each... ah the The balls faced by each batsman would be recorded.
00:19:10
Speaker
it It wasn't really until the 1960s and 70s when TV and radio were using their own scorers and wanted... a scorer to give them lots of information that could be discussed on on air, that you had linear scoring. So an old-style scorebook is the sort that anyone who's played village cricket or club cricket will be familiar with, the where you keep a a note of every ball bowled against the bowler in the sort of boxes alongside his name, but you don't do that for the batsmen. You just put their scoring strokes.
00:19:39
Speaker
And this was a problem for about 100 years in in in cricket, generally, that the balls faced for the batsman was not not something that was recorded. it was that that was only That only became standard, really, in the 60s, 70s, when one day cricket took hold as well. And obviously, balls faced became the sort of primary measure, really.
00:19:58
Speaker
There were exceptions. A few scorers, as I recount in the book, were using ball-by-ball scoring for batsmen. And so they would keep a note, but it was sporadic and it wasn't what the official scorers did.
00:20:12
Speaker
So this is why there is a problem with the Jessabinings in terms of finding out how many balls he faced. There is no official record, but there there was... one ball-by-ball list that we knew about that said he got there in 76 balls to his 100.
00:20:27
Speaker
I found another one that's lain completely undiscovered until now, which shows that he, or claims that he got there in 71 balls. i and I then ended up trying to marry the two together and by you also...
00:20:43
Speaker
incorporating all the many newspaper reports i reconstruct the innings in the book over by over to work out how many balls he actually faced and find out where the discrepancies lay in fact the two lists that i've got are remarkably similar so there's only a it's only a we're only arguing about a few dot balls here or there is a very small number that are different but obviously it led me to come to a different conclusion than they generally accepted 76 balls which is what everyone thought Jessup required to get to his 100 I'm saying it's less than that now
00:21:17
Speaker
It is a fascinating dissection on your part and I encourage my listeners to ah seek out your book if they haven't already.
Jackson's Defensive Support
00:21:25
Speaker
And yeah, we also need to sort of remind ourselves that the more common way of referring to the length of a batsman's innings was by time. And these days we often see that ah you know, Victor Trumper or WG Grace were at the crease for 160 minutes, you know, which was much easier to record, obviously, because they note when he walked to the wicket and then note when he was dismissed.
00:21:53
Speaker
So yeah, it is this interesting comparison that you make, but it is an important one because if this record by Jessup is ever to be broken by, fellow English batsman, of course, it's going to be compared by the number of balls he faced.
00:22:09
Speaker
So again, reading the unfolding of this fourth innings, Simon, what occurred to me was that we probably should give a bit of credit.
00:22:20
Speaker
mean, all the credit goes to Jessup, but we should give some credit to Stanley Jackson. who was at the crease when Jessop walked to the wicket um and they ended up putting on a century partnership, ah which was much needed because England was five down for 48 runs.
00:22:38
Speaker
Can we ascertain or can you work out from all your ah research how the two batsmen played off one another? Was Jackson simply the polar opposite of Jessop's style?
00:22:53
Speaker
Well, yeah, i mean, so Jackson was um was ah the sort of amateur that we've spoken about earlier, who went to you know a public a leading public school, Harrow, and then he went to Cambridge, like Jessup, but he was there earlier, um had the classical upbringing in terms of cricket coaching, played orthodoxly.
00:23:11
Speaker
was a very, very good player, scored 500s against Australia in test matches. he he he And he had a great temperament for the big matches. you know some Some England players who were CB5 the case in point,
00:23:25
Speaker
He had a phenomenal record in counter cricket, but he struggled in in test cricket to sort of handle the scrutiny. um In fact, CB Fry is a sort of big part of my book because he he played in a couple of the early tests, then got dropped because he'd made no runs.
00:23:38
Speaker
But he was writing match reports for the Daily Express, and they were really good, actually. And hit and he was an eyewit he was one of the principal eyewitnesses of the Jessup innings, and he wrote some great stuff in the Daily Express about it.
00:23:50
Speaker
um But in he he struggled with the pressure. ah Jackson didn't. he was He was a great big match player. So um in the early part of the innings, when England struggled to 48 for five, Jackson was the only player who could cope with the difficult conditions.
00:24:06
Speaker
and he And he batted very positively. and he got So when Jessup walked out, England were 48 for five. 31 of those runs had been made by Jackson, who was playing in a positive manner.
00:24:19
Speaker
when Jackson saw how Jessup was going and and scoring, but attacking as you'd expect, and then um doing very well, I think Jackson realised that actually his job was to just stay there and Chessop would score the runs, but he needed to stay in so that we didn't England didn't lose any more wickets.
00:24:39
Speaker
And that was you know if he could do that, that would be his most important job. So Jackson actually sort of changed gear quite dramatically. He just went into sort of defense mode and he did it very well.
00:24:52
Speaker
um But... I think their partnership of 109, I think Jackson contributed 18 or something that, because there's a few extras as well.
00:25:02
Speaker
So he really did. In all the time that he was batting with Jessup, he scored fewer than he had done in the previous period of play before Jessup went in.
00:25:13
Speaker
um so But Jackson played a really canny innings. I mean, he did you know he did the right thing and he played it very well. But so he did start to sort of struggle towards the end before he got out. I think he was dropped twice maybe by, I think, a slip and then a short leg. He was dropped and then he got out.
00:25:31
Speaker
But so it was that that was an interesting partnership because so one man who was going berserk and the other one was sort of furiously defending. It was interesting to read sort of how he changed his style. And that's a very important ah part of cricket is noting how the partner is playing. Yeah, you're right. Jackson did it perfectly.
00:25:50
Speaker
And he played that role perfectly. And he was to then Captain England in the following Ashes series 1905 in England. Now, Simon, there is an existing photograph of Jessup's innings, but it there is only one that is known, and it happens to be taken by George Beldham, who is the most famous photographer from the golden age of cricket.
00:26:13
Speaker
My listeners would certainly know his body of work.
Jessop's Boundary Brilliance
00:26:16
Speaker
As you note in your book, it looks like this photo is of Jessup playing a sweep to the boundary off Saunders. It is a bit blurry, but there is a possible connection. you include in your book this wonderful description from the Edinburgh ah Evening News, and I'm just going to quote it here because it describes the moment beautifully.
00:26:40
Speaker
Quote, the crowd could scarcely contain itself and when he justss so outdid all his previous efforts by hitting four consecutive fours off the irresistible saunders to the squarele boundary the crowd looked like a white poplar tree in a storm everyone stood up and waved something hat or a handkerchief or a hand, and the buses passing down the flanking road pulled up to see the cause of the excitement.
00:27:08
Speaker
I just love that quote because it describes the situation perfectly, but also allows us insight into how crowds behaved in 1902. um So again, how how do you assess what sort of stroke play Jessup is undertaking at this point in his innings?
00:27:26
Speaker
He hit a lot of his boundaries ah to the leg side off Saunders. He played... I mean, he talked about this or wrote about it later and said that he he was happy to play cross-batted shots to Saunders, ah but he didn't do it to Trumbull because Trumbull being taller, making the ball bounce more, was it was a riskier proposition and he didn't do it.
00:27:54
Speaker
And I've i've sort of got a i've got a description through all the newspaper accounts and so on. I've got a description of every shot that Jessup played, scoring shot that Jessup played,
00:28:05
Speaker
ah not of all his singles, but of everything above that. So like the twos, the three, the fours. There was even a five, a late cut for five down to the Vauxhall boundary, which was very long. So we've got a description. So I was able to sort of construct a wagon wheel of his shots.
00:28:20
Speaker
And sure enough, There's plenty of shots going to the leg side off Saunders, but there's none off Trumbull. He hit Trumbull straight. He played Trumbull straight and he played cross-batted shots against Saunders. he was quite calculating and and quite shrewd in how he went about it he He knew what the dangers were with Trumbull. He'd got out to Trumbull earlier in the series and he knew the problems.
00:28:47
Speaker
So he was he was quite pleased with himself, I think. He said that he stuck to that plan of not trying to hoit Trumbull to leg because it was too dangerous. But he took a lot of runs off Saunders in that direction of the field.
00:29:00
Speaker
Long, long time, long, long time But when go, you will know that you're enjoying this podcast, perhaps you'd like to support it by buying me, Tom Ford, ah coffee.
Rule Changes and Jessop's Record
00:29:13
Speaker
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00:29:22
Speaker
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00:29:33
Speaker
So Simon, we have to remind ourselves in 1902 that a batsman hitting the ball over the boundary was not the same as it was or is today. Of course, we think of it as being an automatic six, but this was not the case for Jessup in 1902, which actually affects, as you point out in your book, what the number of balls he actually faced to reach his century. Can you elaborate on that, please?
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah, well, the the six hitters, we know it, didn't exist then. It came in in 1911. So all the all that test matches in England prior to that were ah played under the under the following rules, which was that if you hit a ball to the boundary, it was four. If you hit it over the boundary, it was four.
00:30:24
Speaker
if the ball landed inside the precincts of the ground to get a six you had to hit the ball right out of the ground which oval in this instance who was almost a impossible not quite impossible but very difficult because it was it was one of the biggest playing areas it was the biggest playing area in the country it was a this This is a slightly strange rule which had been agreed by the county clubs.
00:30:50
Speaker
to It doesn't really make much sense now, but it was to do with the fact that the boundaries around the grounds were were so different. mean, the boundary itself was only ever marked to keep the crowd off the field, really, and that only came in in the 80s.
00:31:05
Speaker
And there weren't many big stands in many of these grounds. I mean, they'd have a pavilion, which would be a big thing, a big building, and it was at the Oval. But a lot the other areas were terraces and then, you know, land beyond really. So it wasn't like a stadium at all.
00:31:20
Speaker
So we'll be hitting out of the maybe a hitting out of the whole ground wasn't that hard to do at some grounds around England, but at the Oval it was. and The Australians didn't agree with this rule really. And Joe Darling, the Australian captain, was a big...
00:31:35
Speaker
advocate of six runs being awarded for ah hit that went over the boundary. He said batsmen should be rewarded for the big hits and he said it would be more entertaining for the crowd and it would be more interesting and the faster scoring, you know, all the things that we would probably agree with.
00:31:51
Speaker
He pushed for that. In Australia, if you hit it over the boundary into the crowd, you got five runs. And there were in the 1901-2 series, there was so where you can see, if you look at this the score, the the um sort of databases now, there was something like the best part of 20 hits that went for five, which were sixes, if you like, um in that series. And Jessup hit a couple of them.
00:32:15
Speaker
um So in Australia, it was slightly different, but they were pushing for... ah a six to be agreed across you know across the world, really. and um But it took a few years for it to happen But anyway, yeah, Jessup.
00:32:28
Speaker
So Jessup, in his innings, he hit Hugh Trumbull into the pavilion three times. Trumbull kept bowling from pavilion end. And Jessup, as we've discussed, would hit Trumbull straight. He wouldn't hit square against him. He'd hit straight and he hit him into the pool in three times. So that innings now would have been, under today's rules, would be have been 110 rather than 104.
00:32:52
Speaker
And two of the sixes would have happened before he got to his 100. The third one happened aft would have happened after he got to his 100. So those two sixes before ah he gets to his 100 would have helped him get there in one ball fewer. So funnily enough, ah the Chesop family that I mentioned being in contact with, they they're quite keen to remind everyone that, some or they would be, that Jessup didn't have the advantage of hitting sixes. And of course, people like Johnny Bairstoy got to his century and 77 balls with the help of quite a few sixes.
00:33:25
Speaker
So I'd like to point out that so Jessup was at a singular disadvantage in terms of ah the lack of sixes. um Yes. but i say I mean, it seems or extraordinary now, doesn't it? But that that was that was the case at the time.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's an excellent point. And I know from an Australian perspective, because I think Adam Gilchrist holds possibly the fastest ah test century. And it i remember watching it and it's six after six after six. So it just adds to the allure of Jessup's remarkable innings.