E.M. Grace's MCC v Kent Match — 192 Not Out and 10 Wickets, 1862

Canterbury Week, established in 1842, was the social and sporting highlight of the Kent cricket calendar. The MCC fielded a strong side for the 1862 fixture; Kent, captained by W.S. Norton, requested the match be played 12-a-side to give a chance to two extra young cricketers. The decision cost the match its formal first-class status but did nothing to diminish its scoring records.

E.M. Grace had a strong 1862 season for the South Wales club and for various MCC sides. By August he was averaging over 50 in important matches and was a near-automatic selection for showpiece fixtures. The Canterbury Week invitation came with the expectation that he would top-score; nobody anticipated 192 not out followed by all ten wickets.

Edward Mills Grace (born 28 November 1841, Downend) was the second of the cricketing Grace brothers and was, until W.G. emerged, the family's leading player. Right-handed, hard-hitting, with an unorthodox bat-lifting technique that earned scoldings from his uncle Alfred Pocock, he was already a Bristol legend by his late teens. In August 1862, picked by the MCC for the Canterbury Week fixture against Kent (a high-profile match in front of large crowds), E.M. Grace produced what most cricket historians regard as the greatest single all-round performance of the pre-Grace era. He carried his bat through the entire MCC innings, finishing on 192 not out from a total of 344. He then took all ten Kent first-innings wickets for 69 runs, bowling slow underarm 'lobs' that would later be his trademark. Because the match was played 12-a-side at Kent's request, it does not appear in the strict first-class record. Wisden and most contemporary chroniclers nonetheless treated it as among the most remarkable feats ever recorded. E.M. Grace went on to captain Gloucestershire from 1871 to 1891, score nearly 10,000 first-class runs, take more than 300 first-class wickets and serve as County Coroner — the role that gave him his lifelong nickname, 'The Coroner'.

“He carried his bat through the innings for 192, and then dismissed all ten Kent batsmen in their first innings.”

E.M. Grace's reputation was now national. He was selected for the All-England Eleven and joined George Parr's tour of Australia and New Zealand the following winter (1863-64), the second English tour to the colonies. He maintained his standing as the family's senior cricketer until W.G.'s emergence in the late 1860s, after which he settled into a long career as Gloucestershire's captain and as one of the game's great characters.