Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

Your correspondent’s estimate of this great batsman is just, save in one particular. Lucas was not strictly speaking a strong forward player, he scored principally from a powerful ‘punch’ off a good length ball just wide of the off stump; but it was not an off drive. Another superb stroke was his play off his legs. Moreover, there was a serious blemish in his style. When he did play forward, the bat always screwed a little, so that if he miscalculated the pace of the ball – which he very seldom did – he would miss it. This frailty caused him to be bowled by H.G.Tylecote in the ’Varsity match of 1877, after a light rain had disturbed the pitch. Also his style was not ‘classic’, if that word implies grace as well as ease. But he had real genius of eye; he could follow a turning ball wonderfully and did not know what nervousness meant. Let me add that all through life he was a fine type of a simple-hearted, perfectly sincere Christian, as many of the residents in Essex know. It is hard to imagine that a ‘perfectly sincere Christian’ like Lucas would play with anything but a straight bat, but here we have the word of a senior churchman for it. There is also some statistical evidence: in first-class cricket he was, unusually, bowled (176 times) more often than he was caught (169). By contrast, his exact contemporary Arthur Shrewsbury was out bowled 208 times but caught 428. This was perhaps also a tribute to Lucas’s method, for Lord Hawke recalled H.H.Stephenson saying that ‘he drove the ball into the ground more than anyone else’, suggesting that he gave fewer catching opportunities. Lyttelton told W.A.Bettesworth that he considered Lucas and D.Q.Steel were ‘born cricketers’ and Stephenson agreed, but also took some of the credit: ‘There were many features of their play, including their beautiful stroke of a leg-side ball – so fatal to many – which they would hardly have possessed if they had not been coached.’ W.G.Grace concurred that Stephenson’s coaching was … the foundation of a batting style that has been the admiration of every first-class player … [Lucas’s] batting was free and correct, and he had great patience. He made the most of his height, and came down the ball with great force; he was particularly strong in driving.’ 76 Sydney Pardon confirmed this in his 1921 obituary of C.F.Leslie: I remember being struck one afternoon when he and A.P.Lucas were in together at Lord’s by the contrast in their back play. Lucas came down very hard on the ball every time, but Leslie adopted a sort of hanging guard and almost allowed the ball to hit his bat. Both were watchful to a degree, but Lucas was much the better to look at.’ As befits a man with a mathematical turn of mind, Lucas seems always to have been aware of his performances. During one Rovers game at Old Trafford, ‘The little man, again paying attention to his average, was 82 The man and the cricketer 76 W.G.Grace, or more correctly his ghost-writer W.Methven Brownlee, in his book Cricket , J.W.Arrowsmith, 1891, pp 338-339.