CRICKET, CONAN DOYLE AND THE BALL THAT GOT THE ENGLAND SKIPPER
In 1885, Dr Arthur Conan Doyle married his first wife Louise Hawkins. Not much is known about his honeymoon other than the fact that the couple went to Ireland and the newly-wed Doyle spent considerable time putting bat to ball.
Doyle was a keen follower of cricket but his achievements were modest. He claimed to several of his peers that he represented Edinburgh University (where he was training to be a doctor) but he actually played in just a handful of games as a player for the University’s B team.
Doyle’s career blossomed right after the publication of his first Sherlock Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet (1886). He was invited to join The Allahakbarries, the somewhat peculiarly named amateur cricket team composed exclusively of writers. It was founded by JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. Besides Doyle and Barrie, writers HG Wells and GK Chesterton played for it at various times.
With time, Doyle graduated to first-class cricket. In 1900, he made his debut playing for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). He played 10 first class matches, most of them at the Lord’s in London. His cricketing exploits were underwhelming but for this: Doyle’s only first class wicket was of none other than Dr WG Grace.
The great English cricketer and captain, it seems, mistimed a swipe at a rank bad delivery from Doyle and gave a simple catch to the wicket-keeper. Doyle wrote a poem to commemorate the occasion. The poem, A Reminiscence of Cricket, is prosaic but it’s part of cricketing folklore. Its first paragraph is often quoted in cricketing conversations:
“Once in my heyday of cricket,
One day I shall ever recall!
I captured that glorious wicket,
The greatest, the grandest of all.”
It is speculated that the name of Doyle’s famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, may have been influenced by his interest in the game. A Nottinghamshire player, in Doyle’s time, was called Shacklock.
At his peak Doyle was a treat to watch, so felt a young PG Wodehouse. In 1902, Wodehouse had observed Doyle bowling for Allahakbarries against Royal Engineers at Chatham. When he was called to bowl, the Engineers were on 220 for 4; Doyle took five wickets giving away only 44 runs. In the words of Wodehouse: “He was captain that day. A captain who is capable of bowling like that, and yet does not try his hand till fourth change, is no ordinary man.”
Despite being a life-long admirer of the game, cricket finds only a couple of mentions in the Holmes tales –– a blue cricket cap that was recovered from the van of the gypsies in The Adventure of the Priory School, and a mention that one of three suspects in The Adventure of the Three Students played cricket for the college team. The Oval cricket ground also did get a mention in the Sign of Four when Toby the dog led Holmes and Dr Watson in a lane to the east of the cricket ground in search of a murder suspect. But beyond this, Doyle did not even mention the game in his four novels and 56 stories involving the famous detective.
On his death, his obituary published in the Wisden Almanac noted: “Although never a famous cricketer, he could hit hard and bowl slows with a puzzling flight. For MCC v Cambridgeshire at Lord’s, in 1899, he took seven wickets for 61 runs, and on the same ground two years later, carried out his bat for 32 against Leicestershire, who had Woodcock, Geeson and King to bowl for them.”