Once in my heyday of cricket,
One day I shall ever recall!
I captured that glorious wicket,
The greatest, the grandest of all.
Before me he stands like a vision,
Bearded and burly and brown,
A smile of good humoured derision
As he waits for the first to come down.
A statue from Thebes or from Knossos,
A Hercules shrouded in white,
Assyrian bull-like colossus,
He stands in his might.
With the beard of a Goth or a Vandal,
His bat hanging ready and free,
His great hairy hands on the handle,
And his menacing eyes upon me.
And I – I had tricks for the rabbits,
The feeble of mind or eye,
I could see all the duffer’s bad habits
And where his ruin might lie.
The capture of such might elate one,
But it seemed like one horrible jest
That I should serve tosh to the great one,
Who had broken the hearts of the best.
Well, here goes! Good Lord, what a rotter!
Such a sitter as never was dreamt;
It was clay in the hands of the potter,
But he tapped it with quiet contempt.
The second was better – a leetle;
It was low, but was nearly long-hop;
As the housemaid comes down on the beetle
So down came the bat with a chop.
He was sizing me up with some wonder,
My broken-kneed action and ways;
I could see the grim menace from under
The striped peak that shaded his gaze.
The third was a gift or it looked it-
A foot off the wicket or so;
His huge figure swooped as he hooked it,
His great body swung to the blow.
Still when my dreams are night-marish,
I picture that terrible smite,
It was meant for a neighboring parish,
Or any place out of sight.
But – yes, there’s a but to the story-
The blade swished a trifle too low;
Oh wonder, and vision of glory!
It was up like a shaft from a bow.
Up, up like a towering game bird,
Up, up to a speck in the blue,
And then coming down like the same bird,
Dead straight on the line that it flew.
Good Lord, it was mine! Such a soarer
Would call for a safe pair of hands;
None safer than Derbyshire Storer,
And there, face uplifted, he stands
Wicket keep Storer, the knowing,
Wary and steady of nerve,
Watching it falling and growing
Marking the pace and curve.
I stood with my two eyes fixed on it,
Paralysed, helpless, inert;
There was ‘plunk’ as the gloves shut upon it,
And he cuddled it up to his shirt.
Out – beyond question or wrangle!
Homeward he lurched to his lunch!
His bat was tucked up at an angle,
His great shoulders curved to a hunch.
Walking he rumbled and grumbled,
Scolding himself and not me;
One glove was off, and he fumbled,
Twisting the other hand free.
Did I give Storer the credit,spo
The thanks he so splendidly earned?
It was mere empty talk if I said it,
For Grace had already returned.
*****
A Reminiscence of Cricket is a poem written by Arthur Conan Doyle. On 23-25 August 1900, Conan Doyle played in a first class cricket match against W.G. Grace where he scored 4, and took the wicket of Grace who had scored 110.
The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle played in ten first-class matches, mainly for the MCC, between 1900 and 1907. As a lower-order right-handed batsman and occasional slow bowler, he scored 231 runs, average 19.25, in 18 innings with a top score of 43. His only first-class wicket came against London County at Crystal Palace on 25 August 1900 when he had WG caught by the wicket-keeper off a skier for 110.
I found this poem with an extensive commentary by someone called Shamanth: “I’ve loved it primarily because of the allure of an amateur lifestyle that it portrays – an age where you could study medicine, play first class cricket, referee boxing bouts and marathons, and still produce brilliant literature, when you could live without sacrificing any dimension of your life, without putting your head down to specialize in any one field, when you did something simply because you loved it without having to forfeit other aspects of your life that you loved just as much. It makes you long for a lifestyle with such freedom.”
Credit: “From photo by E. Hawkins & Co., Brighton” – K. S. Ranjitsinhji, The Jubilee Book of Cricket Third Edition
Form in Formless Times 