W.G. Grace Bowled by Spofforth for 4 — Lord's, 27 May 1878

Grace had captained an England XI on his honeymoon tour of Australia in 1873-74 and had played the Australians in private matches before. He had never faced Spofforth in a serious fixture in England.

MCC won the toss and elected to bat. Grace came in at first wicket down with the score on 27. Spofforth, who had bowled to him only briefly in colonial fixtures five years earlier, was at the Pavilion End.

Grace was 29, the runaway champion of English cricket, and the principal reason MCC believed they would win the match in a few hours. The pitch was soft after overnight rain. Spofforth, opening the bowling, was unusually quick from the off. With Grace newly at the crease, Spofforth produced a fast, full, slightly angled delivery that beat Grace's defensive push and clipped the off stump. The bails flew. Spofforth, by Horan's account, leapt two feet in the air. Grace walked off without a word. He was the highest-profile victim of the spell that became 6/4 in 5.3 overs and that broke MCC for 33. The dismissal is a touchstone moment in 19th-century cricket: the moment the world's best batsman was visibly outmatched by a colonial bowler. Grace would have a long cricketing rivalry with Spofforth thereafter and was bowled by him several more times in the 1880s, but no later wicket carried the symbolic weight of the Lord's duck.

“The hero of English cricket walked off without a word, his stumps in disarray.”

Grace's failure helped MCC collapse for 33 and lose the match the same day. He took the dismissal in good humour publicly but was widely reported to have been deeply embarrassed. He met Spofforth several times in the rest of the 1878 summer and made peace with him over a beer at the Oval in late August.