Famous Cricketers No 84 - G.L.Jessop

force throughout his career, Jessop would have held the records for the most sixes in a match, season and career and subsequent players would have been hard pressed to pass his totals. Jessop’s name is mostly remembered these days for the 104 he scored in the Oval Test match against Australia in 1902. The attempt to regain the Ashes had already failed. The first two Tests were drawn and Australia had won the next two. On the final day of the fifth Test, Australia set England 263 to win. Australia had reduced England to 48 for 5 when Jessop came in to join F.S.Jackson. This pair put on 109 in 67 minutes. Jessop and G.H.Hirst added another 30 before Jessop was dismissed for 104. He made these runs out of 139 while he was at the wicket, in 75 minutes, including 17 fours, several of which would now count as six. For someone as athletic as Jessop, he had his fair share of ill health, ranging from chills to lumbago to pulled muscles. He suffered his most serious injury during the Headingley Test in 1909 when he tore muscles in his back. This had long-term consequences for the rest of his cricket career, his war experience and his old age. 1894 Gloucestershire were bottom of the nine-team Championship. Jessop was third in the county’s batting averages and second in the bowling. Photographs of G.L.Jessop in his first-class debut season show him with a moustache. In team photos for 1897 onwards he is clean-shaven. The moustache reappears in the 1915 photograph of him making an army recruitment speech. He can still be seen sporting one in his old age. Jessop made his first-class debut against Lancashire at Old Trafford. In the first innings, he made 29 out of a stand of 48 with J.R.Painter and 19 out of 26 in the second innings with the same batsman. Jessop records that he hit the first ball he received, from A.W.Mold, for four. He recalls coming to the wicket to save a hat-trick. If this is so, it was in the second innings of the match, not the first. Wisden commented, ‘Jessop, it should be noticed, made a highly creditable first appearance for the western county.’ He also took his first wicket in first class cricket. In his third match, against Sussex, he held his first catch, H.R.Butt, off the bowling of C.L.Townsend. In the match against Kent, Wisden comments on the superiority of Jessop’s fielding over that of the rest of his side. C.L.Townsend described Jessop’s fielding throughout his career as ‘miraculous’. In his last match of the season, against Somerset, he made his first score of 50 or more. He scored 61 out of 73 in 50 minutes, hitting the ball ‘in all directions.’ With F.G.Roberts, he put on 55 for the last wicket, of which Roberts made one. Own Team O M R W Opp Ct Total Total 1. Gloucestershire v Lancashire, Old Trafford, July 30, 31 (Lancashire won by an innings and 98 runs) b A.W.Mold 29 99 29 12 72 1 S.M.Tindall lbw 351 c J.Briggs b A.W.Mold 19 154 2. Gloucestershire v Warwickshire, Edgbaston, August (2), 3, 4 (Match drawn) c W.G.Quaife b H.J.Pallett 3 199 17 12 16 2 E.J.Diver lbw 224 S.J.Whitehead b did not bat - 70-4 3. Gloucestershire v Sussex, Bristol, August (6), 7, 8 (Sussex won by an innings and 104 runs) c F.W.Marlow b F.Parris 5 121 8 3 16 1 W.Newham b 302 1 st H.R.Butt b A.W.Hilton 0 77 4. Gloucestershire v Surrey, College Ground, Cheltenham, August 13, 14 (Surrey won by an innings and 49 runs) run out 10 52 11 3 24 3 R.Abel b 201 1 W.Brockwell b F.E.Smith b c A.Street b T.Richardson 0 100 4