W.G. Grace's 1869 Season — The Emergence of Cricket's First Superstar

First-class cricket in the 1860s was a low-scoring game played on rough pitches by professionals (the Players) and gentleman amateurs (the Gentlemen). Few batsmen averaged over 30 in a season; six centuries in a career was a notable achievement. Grace's 1869 figures — 1,320 runs at 57.3, six centuries — were more than any contemporary had produced.

Grace had been growing in stature since his 1866 double hundred, but the consensus through 1867 and 1868 was that he was a remarkable young player rather than an established master. The 1869 season opened with his Gentlemen vs Players hundred at the Oval in early July and built from there.

Grace had made his first-class debut in 1865 at the age of sixteen and announced his arrival in 1866 with 224 not out for an England eleven against Surrey at the Oval. Three further seasons of consolidation followed. In 1869, however, the cricketing world saw a step change. He scored 1,320 first-class runs in 25 innings, including six centuries — at a time when six centuries in a season was a career total for most professionals. He took 73 first-class wickets bowling fast roundarm. He was the leading run-scorer for the Gentlemen against the Players in both fixtures of the year — at the Oval (he made 117) and at Lord's (138). The Players had won the previous five matches in the series; the Gentlemen now won both. Off the field, Grace was elected to the MCC in May 1869 — the first time the club had elected a player so young. The Gloucestershire county club, of which his older brother E.M. Grace was already a leading figure, was formally constituted that year with W.G. as one of its founding figures, opening the path to the family's domination of county cricket through the 1870s.

“Mr W.G. Grace stands without a rival as a batsman in this country.”

Grace's 1869 season became the platform for the 1870s, in which he would set records that stood for decades. He scored 2,739 runs at 57.06 in 1871 — the first man to pass 2,000 first-class runs in a season — and 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in the same season ('the double') in 1873. The Gentlemen, on the back of Grace, would dominate the Players fixture for most of the next 25 years. Gloucestershire would be the leading county between 1873 and 1877.