Cricket in World War I

Cricket in World War I was severely curtailed in all nations where first-class cricket was then played except India. In England, South Africa and the West Indies, first-class cricket was entirely abandoned for the whole of the war, whilst in Australia and New Zealand regular competitions were played for the 1914–15 season but first-class matches were afterwards abandoned. In South Africa, first-class cricket did not recommence until a series of matches against the Australian Imperial Forces cricket team in late 1919, and provincial cricket was not played until a one-off match between Transvaal and Natal in April 1920.
At least 210 first-class cricketers are known to have joined the armed forces, of whom 34 were killed. The obituary sections of Wisden between 1915 and 1919 contained the names of hundreds of players and officials of all standards who died in the service of their country.
With war looming in August, cricketers with military commitments, such as Sir Archibald White, the Yorkshire skipper, left their teams to do their duty, and Pelham Warner and Arthur Carr, who captained Middlesex and Nottinghamshire respectively, followed when war was declared. The County Championship was not immediately abandoned, the MCC issuing a statement that "no good purpose can be saved at the moment by cancelling matches" on 6 August, but attendances plummeted. Jack Hobbs, who had scored a career best 226 in front of over 14,000 spectators on 3 August, had to rearrange his benefit match from the Oval, after it was requisitioned by the Army, to Lord's and on 13 August the MCC announced that all matches arranged at Lord's up to September would be postponed.
News of casualties suffered by the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium was already turning the public mood against "business as usual" and on 27 August a letter written by W. G. Grace was published in The Sportsman in which he declared that "I think the time has arrived when the county cricket season should be closed, for it is not fitting at a time like this that able-bodied men should be playing cricket by day and pleasure-seekers look on. I should like to see all first-class cricketers of suitable age set a good example and come to the help of their country without delay in its hour of need."
The remaining matches in the Championship were abandoned "in deference to public opinion" while the MCC closed the Scarborough Festival as "the continuation of first-class cricket is hurtful to the feelings of a section of the public". The last match to be completed, on 2 September, pitted Sussex against Yorkshire at Hove. "The men's hearts were barely in the game", the periodical Cricket reported at the time, "and the match was given up as a draw at tea." The last match played, twenty five years and a day later, before the abandonment of first-class cricket due to World War II saw the same teams facing each other on the same ground.
W. G. Grace, who had called for the early abandonment of cricket in his letter to The Sportsman, was reputed to shake his fist at the Zeppelins floating over his South London home. When chided by a friend who pointed out that the fast bowling of Ernie Jones had not discomforted him half so much, Grace replied testily "But I could SEE him!" Grace had played his second-last match, at the age of 66, for Eltham against Grove Park on 25 July 1914, scoring an unbeaten 69 out of 155 for six declared. He died of a stroke on 23 October 1915.
While first-class cricket had been cancelled in the major cricketing nations, cricket itself continued around the world. In England, the Oval and Lord's hosted a number of matches between representative services sides, Army regiments and other service units. Club cricket continued, especially in the north of England, where the Lancashire League played in each summer without a break.
Geese were kept on the grass at Lord's while the pavilion at Old Trafford was transformed into a Red Cross hospital. In four years, 1,800 patients were treated there, with beds occupying every possible space, including corridors and stairway landings.
Anzac soldiers played improvised games cricket under shellfire on Shell Green in Gallipoli in 1915. The Australians played a game in view of the Turks to give the impression of normality and confidence while the entire force was being secretly evacuated from the beach area.
Robert Graves recounts a game between officers and sergeants at Vermelles in France in 1915, when a bird cage with a dead parrot inside was used as the wicket. The game was abandoned when German machine gun fire at an aeroplane caused falling bullets to land dangerously close to the pitch.
Cricket was played overseas, often in fund raising matches. A game involving an English XII against an Indian team held at the Bombay Gymkhana in December 1915 for war relief was watched by 40,000 people. J. G. Greig scored 216 and Frank Tarrant took 9 for 35.
The only first-class cricketer to be awarded the Victoria Cross was John Smyth, for conspicuous gallantry with the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs in India in 1915. He also received the Military Cross and was decorated by the Russians. He played his 2 matches for the Europeans at Lahore, making 3 and 19 in the first and taking a wicket while posting 51 and 27 in the second. He was invalided out the army in the Second World War and became a Conservative MP, being created a Baronet in 1955 and a Privy Counsellor in 1962.
Cricket raised funds in other ways. George Robey, the "Prime Minister of Mirth", auctioned cricket memorabilia, including bats used by W.G. Grace, to raise funds for St. Dunstan's Hostel for Blind Servicemen.
Some cricket was still played in England, with the Australian Imperial Forces, featuring Charlie Macartney, playing an English Army XI at Lord's in July 1917. Lord's was also the scene for a baseball match between American and Canadian teams watched by 10,000 with the proceeds going to the Canadian Widows and Orphans Fund. Club cricket continued to the extent that it could, with large crowds attending the matches.
Lord Harris, captain of England in the first English Test natch in 1880, took part in a match at Lord's in 1918 between Plum Warner's XI and the Public Schools. His Lordship, aged 67, scored 11 before being run out.
With the war drawing to a close King George V watched England play the Dominions at Lord's in 1918. The Dominions opened their batting with South African Herbie Taylor and Australian Charlie Macartney.
210 first-class cricketers enlisted in the armed services, and others undertook war related work in support of the war effort. Taking Surrey as an example, Ernie Hayes, Bill Hitch and Andy Sandham joined the Sportsman's Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers while fast bowler Neville Knox became a private in the Public Schools Battalion. Herbert Strudwick, the Surrey wicket-keeper, worked in a South London munitions plant alongside teammate Razor Smith. Other cricketers helped in the recruitment drive, with Gilbert Jessop, promoted to the rank of captain in the 14th Service Battalion, Manchester Regiment, making speeches encouraging men to join up.
Jack Wilson played 9 matches for Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and a couple for HDG Leveson-Gower's XI in 1912 and 1913. He then turned his hand to flying, gaining his pilot's license on a Vickers biplane at Brooklands in June 1914. He was commissioned into the Royal Naval Air Service when war broke out and flew missions throughout the war. In April 1915 he and another officer 'observed two submarines lying alongside the Mole at Zeebrugge' and 'attacked them, dropping four bombs, it was believed with successful results.' On 7 June the same year the Admiralty reported that 'this morning at 2.30 am, an attack was made on the airship shed at Evere, north of Brussels, by Flight-Lieutenants J. P. Wilson RN and J. S. Mills RN. Bombs were dropped and the shed was observed to be in flames. It is not known whether a zeppelin was inside, but the flames reached a great height, coming out from both three sides of the shed. Both pilots returned safely.'
A few days later, on 21 June, the Admiralty announced that HM King had been graciously pleased to award the Distinguished Service Cross to both Wilson and Mills 'for their services on 7 June 1915, when after a long flight in darkness over hostile territory, they threw bombs on the zeppelin shed at Evere near Brussels, and destroyed a zeppelin which was inside. The two officers were exposed to heavy anti-aircraft fire during the attack' (London Gazette 21 June 1915).
At the Yorkshire AGM in 1916, Lord Hawke said of Wilson, "May he continue his splendid work, and be with us when we again resume hostilities on the cricket field:" In the county yearbook for that year there is a photograph of him dressed in naval uniform. He was also awarded the Belgian Order of the Crown (LG 29 August 1917), and in the New Year's Honours for 1919 he was awarded the AFC, "in recognition of distinguished service" (LG 1 January 1919).
In a conflict when the average survival time for R.F.C. pilots could be counted in hours, Wilson was promoted to major, survived the war and died on 3 October 1959 in Tickton, Beverley, Yorkshire. His other claims to fame include winning the Grand National on 'Double Chance' in 1925.
Cricket was used as a theme in cartoons highlighting the "Hun's unsportsmanlike attitude to war". J.H. Dowd's The Kaiser's Cricket depicted a spike-helmeted German soldier playing cricket in a most underhand way. He is shown catching a ball in the field with a net, hitting an umpire with a bat, batting with a net in front of his stumps, pushing a batsman out of his crease before stumping him and bowling a ball from the middle of the pitch.
C. M. Padday's painting of Royal Navy sailors playing cricket on deck "somewhere in the tropics" shows a ball made of twine attached to wickets made of buckets for easy retrieval when it was hit over the side.
A Punch cartoon depicted the Germans in more lighthearted manner in a cartoon which showed a German plane flying over a cricket match. The game continues, even as the plane drops its bombs, with the fielders chasing a ball to the boundary. The caption, playing on the German misunderstanding of cricket, shows the German airman's report as saying "We dropped bombs on a British formation, causing the troops to disperse and run about in a panic stricken manner".
The fear of poison gas attacks spreading to England saw the British Government warn citizens to take their gas masks everywhere in 1916, just in case. Essex cricketer and journalist Edward Sewell was photographed in full cricket gear wearing his mask.
British and Empire soldiers were instructed to throw the Mills bomb, a hand-held fragmentation grenade using a technique similar to that of bowling a cricket ball. Training classes were given on how to best do this. A cartoon satirising this was published by Geoffrey Stobie in 1918. The image has two panes; in the left pane, a cricketer is about to deliver the ball, his left arm out in front of him and his right vertically down behind his back holding the ball. In the right pane, this position is mirrored by a soldier, but rather than a cricket ball, he is holding a grenade in his right hand.
The No. 15 Ball grenade was referred to as the 'cricket ball' grenade. It was ignited by striking the grenade like a match before throwing it at the enemy. It proved unreliable, as it was susceptible to the damp, and was withdrawn after the Battle of Loos.
Other cricketers were seriously wounded in the fighting, which in many cases had a serious effect on their cricketing careers.
The County Championship resumed in England in 1919, with the counties agreeing to a brief and unsuccessful experiment with two-day county matches. It was not only the playing ranks which had been thinned by four years of slaughter. Worcestershire County Cricket Club mounted a roll of honour, in the form of a wooden plaque, in the pavilion at New Road to list and remember the 17 members of the club who died in the Great War. It is still at the club.