Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

6 Grace had controversially run out Australia No. 8 Sammy Jones. The incident happened when the visitors’ captain Billy Murdoch hit the ball to leg and ran a single. Alfred Lyttelton, the wicket- keeper, followed the ball and threw it back to the stumps towards Ted Peate, who was at the wicket, but Peate missed it and it was gathered up by Grace, who was fielding at point. Grace held on to the ball for two or three seconds and Jones, assuming the ball was dead, moved out of his crease to do a bit of ‘gardening’. It was at this point, with Jones out of his ground, that Grace walked up to the wicket and, taking off the bails, appealed to umpire Bob Thoms, who is alleged to have said: ‘If you claim it, sir, it is out.’ Those words have gone down in history, but Charles Pardon, who was covering the tour for Bell’s Life and who had heard what Thoms had allegedly said, spoke with Thoms and asked him what he actually said. Thoms told him that he had said all that was necessary in the circumstances, the single word ‘out’. Pardon reckoned that Jones was ‘foolish’ and that Grace ‘did what he was perfectly justified in doing’. A.P. (‘Bunny’) Lucas, who also played in the match, later claimed that one of the Australians ‘admitted he would have done the same thing if he had been where Grace was’. But there was a feeling that ‘it wasn’t cricket’. Certainly it had Spofforth seething – and, later in the day, that was to prove England’s undoing. Jones is also famous for helping to establish a cricketing superstition in his home country. His top Test score in twelve matches was 87 against England at Old Trafford in 1886. Ever since, that total – 13 short of a century – has been considered unlucky by Australians. With Jones dismissed, Australia were 114 for seven, an overall lead of just 76. By now Spofforth had joined Murdoch, who hit Peate to the onside for three. But in the same over Peate did for Spofforth, bowling him middle stump, leaving Australia on 117 for eight. They were 79 ahead. Tom Garrett joined his captain and the latter managed a single and a two. Garrett then struck Hornby’s Lancashire colleague Allan Steel very hard to the off, where Hornby was soon in hot pursuit of the ball. Garrett had taken two and called his partner for a third. But the Wollongong- born all-rounder had reckoned without Hornby’s lightning fast reaction. The English captain threw the ball smartly to Studd, who returned it to Lyttelton, who broke the stumps in a flash. Murdoch was run out by about a yard and Australia were 122 for The Ashes are born