Aubrey Smith destroys MCC seven months after his ‘death’

Aubrey Smith destroys MCC seven months after his ‘death’

May 13, 1890: It was one of the weirdest matches of all time, with the first innings seeing a batsman score 79 per cent of the team’s runs. Arunabha Sengupta recalls the match that also saw the career-best bowling performance by the fast bowling England captain who became one of the earliest stars on silver screen, Charles Aubrey Smith. Most curiously, Smith had ‘died’ a few months earlier.

The ‘Death’

Charles Aubrey ‘Round the Corner’ Smith was back after spending way too long in South Africa.

He had gone there leading the motley brigade of Major Wharton’s men, that eventually turned out to be the first official England side to play Test cricket in the southern land.

And then there were other occupations. With his deputy Monty Bowden, Smith had ventured into speculation and business. He had played the parts in semi-amateur theatricals, with his rendering of Captain Blake in The Scrap of Paper being one of the greatest successes. He had captained the Wanderers Football team, leading them to the final of the Transvaal Association Challenge Cup in which they beat the Wasps 3-2. And he had captained Wanderers in cricket as well, capturing 7 wickets in a match and singing Oh what a happy land is England after the game. He had captured a further 6 wickets while bowling for Stock Exchange against the World, opening the attack alongside a name that was going to be associated with South African cricket forever — Abe Bailey.

And then he had ‘died’! The firm of Bowden and Smith was doing very well even when the temporary bubble burst. But, in the months of intense heat and famine that followed, both the partners got sick.

Smith contracted typhoid from the contaminated water supply; it was aided and abetted by pleurisy and pneumonia. He lay sick, in frenzied fits of hallucinations. And in the Graaf-Reiner Advertiser, the following morose news item was published:

“Information has been received that Mr Aubrey Smith, who captained the English team during the Cricket Tournament, has succumbed to that fell disease, inflammation of the lungs.”

Thankfully, the obituary was 59 years, 2 months and 3 days premature. Friends Mrs Fricker and Arthur Marshall nursed him back to health. Smith recovered at a quiet farm in Krugersdorp, close to a crocodile river.

Soon he was back in the cricket field, playing for Transvaal. Unfortunately, Bowden, his partner, friend, deputy for England and teammate for Transvaal, did succumb to illness during the South African adventures. And by that time, the firm of Bowden and Smith had also collapsed.

Smith returned to England in 1890. The editor of Cricket, Charles W Alcock, wrote, “His exuberance at seeing a real cricket ground again after a long spell of the artificial substance can easily be imagined.”

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Rain and Ruckus

Indeed, back from the dead, Smith took to the new season in all zest and vigour. Sussex cricket was at its lowest ebb, having finished at the bottom of the County table in 1889. Smith’s return as captain was predicted to be just the shot in arm they needed.

Smith took the field for Sussex Club and Ground against 17 colts and took 15 wickets and 3 catches in the enjoyable minor game. And then the side travelled to London to take on MCC at Lord’s.

It was a strong MCC side, with the swashbuckling veteran AN ‘Monkey’ Hornby leading the way and its ranks being made up of useful Test cricketers like Billy Gunn, Billy Barnes, William Attewell and Wilfred Flowers. The famous Nottinghamshire stumper Mordecai Sherwin stood behind the stumps. Fred Martin, the left-arm medium pacer who would soon create waves in his short Test career, was another stalwart in the side.

On Sunday, London had been lashed by heavy rain. The Sussex cricketers arrived to find the ground a mud heap, in no condition for the match to start. Indeed, the game did not get underway till 3.40.

It was quite a brave decision to bat first on winning the toss, but MCC did. Smith decided not to take the new ball, letting the future Test batsman and useful medium-pacer George Bean open the attack alongside the round-arm fast bowler Jesse Hide.

And he did not get a chance to bowl. It was all over in 110 balls, 22 five-ball overs. On that wet wicket, Hide bowled like a demon and dumbfounded all the MCC batsmen. At the other end Bean was by no means easy to play. One after the other, batsmen came and departed. Yet, through all this mayhem, Hornby hit the ball with a vigour that undermined the nature of bowling and wicket.

Hide, at one stage, captured four wickets in four balls. Flowers was caught at mid-off. William Ford lobbed one to short-leg. Charles Wright was another one to hit straight to mid-off to give the bowler the hat-trick. Off the next ball, John Russell pushed forward and was held by Hide in his follow through.

Yet, Hornby swung his willow with nonchalance. It was an incredible innings of daring and mastery, full of audacious strokes. It came to an end at 45 when he snicked a cut off Hide to the debutant wicketkeeper Henry Butt of Hastings. He was ninth out at 57, and the innings came to an end at the same score with Hide getting Sherwin caught. Hornby thus scored 79 per cent of the runs, 80.37 per cent if we consider just the runs off the bat. The second highest score was 4 by William Chatterton.

Hornby’s 78.95% was, at that point, the second-highest percentage by a batsman in an all-out total. It still ranks very high on the all-time list:

Highest percentage of (all-out) team total by a single batsman:

Hide finished with figures of 11-0-22-7, Bean with 11-2-34-3. Smith did not bowl, neither did he have the need to change the bowling.

Neither did the MCC require a third bowler.

Sussex managed to last a while longer, batting 29.4 overs against the high quality attack of Attewell and Martin. However, with no Hornby hitting for them, they managed just 41 runs.

Bean and Edward McCormick top-scored with 8 apiece. Smith himself managed 7. But within an hour and ten minutes, the side had been rolled over. Attewell had 4 wickets, Martin 6. After scoring 57 in the first innings, MCC led by 16 — a considerable number of runs given the match circumstances. The day ended with the first two innings completed within two hours and a quarter. Hornby, with his 45, was still the only batsman to reach double-figures. In fact, he had outscored the entire Sussex side.

Resurrection

The sides returned to the ground on the following morning to find the wicket in the same unplayable state. This time, after Hide had bowled the first over, Smith took the ball himself. From that strange position in line with mid-off, he started his run up and approached the wicket after traversing a curious curvilinear path.

There was one stroke of luck. Gunn was run out without scoring. And then the ball ruled.

Barnes was snared by Hide. Next came the big blow. In his first serious match since the South African odyssey, Smith ran in and got the big wicket of Hornby, caught in the extra slip.

Incidentally, Hornby scored just 8 in the second essay, but it was again the highest score of the innings.

Soon, Smith had knocked down the stumps of Flowers and Ford, Hide had done the same with Chatterton. Having polished off the cream, Smith now demolished the lower order. When Sherwin missed the line and his off-stump went for a stroll, the total read 36. The innings had lasted 24 overs this time, and Smith had figures of 7 for 16 from 12. It would remain his career-best in First-Class cricket.

So, Sussex needed just 53 to win, but it was quite a proposition to get those runs on that dreadful wicket. Indeed, Cricket reports that ‘presumption was all against their success.’

But, there was wisdom in their approach now. The only man to have reached double figures in the match was still Hornby, and he had achieved excellent success with spontaneous hitting. With the formidable duo of Martin and Attewell running in to defend the small score, Bean decided to follow the same approach. He launched into Martin.

It was some very judicious hitting, and most of it sweetly struck. Wickets did fall, but the splendid vigour of Bean’s batting decided the issue and prevented Martin from settling down to a length. He was fifth out at 42, having hit 33 of that himself, but by then the match was all but decided. Walter Quaife and John Charlwood took Sussex to the brink of victory before Smith himself came in to carry the team through.

The game was over in three hours 50 minutes.

What followed?

This incredible match sent the spirits of the Sussex fans soaring, and did much to strengthen the belief that the return of the captain would rejuvenate the side for the season.

Alas, barely two days after this game was over, Arthur Shrewsbury and Billy Gunn added 398 runs for the second wicket at Trent Bridge and Smith and Hide conceded 265 runs between them with just one wicket to show for it.

The loss by an innings and 266 runs broke the hearts of the supporters and the spirit of the team. The one silver lining of that clouded summer was that their sole Championship victory came against WG Grace and his Gloucestershire side. The rest of their journey through the season was a long limp with 11 losses to go with their one win from 12 encounters, and a place at the bottom of the table once again.

Brief Scores:

MCC 57 (Monkey’ Hornby 45; Jesse Hide 7 for 22) and 36 (Charles Aubrey Smith 7 for 16) lost to Sussex 41 (Fred Martin 6 for 20, William Attewell 4 for 20) and 53 for 6 (George Bean 33*; William Attewell 5 for 15) by 4 wickets.

(Arunabha Sengupta is cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history of cricket, with occasional statistical pieces and reflections on the modern game. He is also the author of four novels, the most recent being Sherlock Holmes and the Birth of The Ashes. He tweets here.)