by Arunabha Sengupta
That day in Cheltenham, 1930. The usual unbeaten double hundred by Don Bradman had already taken place. Young Alan Fairfax was running in, quick and skilful. And yet, that incredibly tall, incredibly graceful 43-year-old left-hander was lathering him against all sections of the off-side fence.
A confused Fairfax walked up to the veteran Vic Richardson fielding nearby. “Is it all right bowling at his off-stump?”
“All right?” Richardson replied., incredulous “It’s bloody marvellous. We’re all enjoying it.”
Frank Woolley—the most exhilarating stroke player. Even opponents enjoyed him in full flow.
The bat picked up in a long , smooth circular sweep, feet parted with a short forward step of the right foot. The willow came down straight and firmly controlled. There was always plenty of time to make the choice of a stroke. Never once a hasty stab or unbalanced jerk. Always the flowing, rounded gesture.
And then there were the bigger hits. There seemed to be little more than a free swinging forward stroke. The ball would often sail away clearing the longest boundaries. The faster the bowlers, the longer he hit them. If they pitched them short, he pulled them square with unhurried venom. Infinite grace yet brutally dominating. He loved batting against Larwood or MacDonald.
He played from 1906 to 1938. A whopping span of 33 seasons, four of them lost to the Great War. He started playing for Kent with Colin Blythe and Arthur Fielder. In the middle years he played alongside Tich Freeman and Bill Ashdown. In the end of his days he played alongside Les Ames, Bryan Valentine and Arthur Fagg.
In his first season he scored 779 runs. In the remaining 28, he topped 1000. In 13 of them he passed 2000. In 1928, he hit 3352 at 61 per innings with 12 hundreds. Besides there were 34 times that he scored 90s. Including 95 and 93 against Australia in the Lord’s Test of 1921.
In 1929, he hit 155, 108, 131, 117 in four consecutive matches.
He could play huge knocks as well. During his first trip to Australia, in 1911-12, he had been batting rather low in the order, and was keen to get going a bit earlier. He confided to his great friend SF Barnes. In the match at Hobart against Tasmania, Barnes told him, “Tell you what, as soon as they start the innings get your pads on. Phil Mead is No. 3, but I’ll make sure when the first wicket falls he can’t be found.” No one knows what Barnes did that day, but when Kinneir was out Mead could not be found. Before stand-in captain Frank Foster could realise what was going on, Woolley was walking out to join Wilfred Rhodes. He scored 305 not out, his highest score.
Yet, that is only a third of the story.
Woolley was introduced to the Kent side as yet another Blythe. That is a rather tall promise to live up to, and he never quite got there. But, in eight seasons he captured more than 100 wickets, on 15 more than 50. At The Oval in 1911, his figures against Surrey read 6.3-3-9-7. At Lord’s against Middlesex in 1908, he had 6 for 8. And of course, in the virtual final of the Triangular Test Championship of 1912, Woolley scored 62 in the first innings and then destroyed Australia with 5 for 29 and 5 for 20.
On six occasions he scored a hundred and captured 10 wickets in the same match. The first was in 1914 against Gloucestershire, the last against Otago at Dunedin. On eight seasons he did the double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets, in four 2000 runs and 100 wickets.
But then again, that completes only the second third of the tale.
With the great big hands at the end of near endless arms, Woolley stood in the slips and held one impossible catch after another. In fact, in 1923, he came near completing a unique treble, topping 2000 runs, 100 wickets and falling one short of 50 catches.
His 1018 catches still head the field in first-class cricket. Alongside 58,959 runs at 40.77 with 145 centuries and 2066 wickets at 19.87 with 132 five-fors and 28 ten-wicket hauls.
Of his 64 Tests, 52 were played at a stretch without missing even one for England. 3283 runs at 36.07 with 5 hundreds, 83 wickets at 33.91 and 64 catches place him rather high in the list of all-rounders, albeit perhaps not in the league of the greatest.
But then, when we speak of Woolley it is always how rather than how much.
In that Test match of ethereal brilliance at Lord’s in 1930, Duleepsinhji produced 173 runs of rare splendour, Bradman played perhaps his most perfect innings of 254, Chapman blazed away with 121 in two and a half hours. A lot was written about them. But almost an equal number of words were spent on Woolley’s 41 from 46 balls on the first morning, when he got his runs out of 53 in spite of batting with Hobbs and Hammond as his partners.
In cricket-mad CP Snow’s early mystery novel Death Under Sail Fenbow the detective takes a taxi to Lord’s and sits in the empty ground. It helps him to think. And there he says: “I once saw Woolley make 87 on this ground. After that any innings that could be played is an anti-climax. There is no point in trying to repeat perfection. Cricket, having been created and evolved, has achieved its purpose, produced one lovely thing, and ought to die.”
Snow was a stickler for factual accuracy. And looking at the scorecards, we find Wollley did indeed score 87 at Lord’s once, against Australia in the 1926 Test.
Here is what Plum Warner writes about the innings: “Woolley batted magnificently. He drove one full pitch from Gregory between extra-cover and mid-off as hard as any ball was ever hit in the history of cricket, for it was at the ring in a ‘the twinkling of an eye’. He played a classic innings in that beautiful style of his which makes him such a delight to watch.” In the same innings Hobbs scored 119, Sutcliffe 82, Hendren 127, Chapman 50. But Woolley was different, the platonic ideal of grace.
Frank Woolley was born on 27 May 1887.
Illustration: Maha