Beard before wicket

WG Grace didn’t just dominate his cricketing era with sporting prowess, indefatigability (I’ve always wanted to write that… try saying it) and gamesmanship. He dominated the opposition using his great big beard.

You’re unlikely to see a finer specimen of facial hair on a gentleman (or scoundrel) than the huge beard sported by his Grace. Imagine how intimidated some callow, apple-cheeked youth from the shires would have been coming up to bowl to the great Grace with his eyes a-glowering and his beard a-billowing in the gentle summer breeze.

“Just you dare try bowling me out,” WG’s bristling beard would seem to say.

And even if some young whelp did have the impudence to topple the great man’s wicket, there was no guarantee he would actually be out. In exhibition matches, Grace is said to have refused to walk if he felt he hadn’t had a chance to show what he could do in exhibition matches.

One apocryphal story about Dr Grace concerns the match between the Gentlemen and Players at the Oval in 1894. Grace had played for the Gentlemen, nominally amateurs, since 1865 and had turned round their fortunes against the professional Players after a long losing streak.

In this match, the Gentlemen were 84 for three when fast bowler Timothy Gingerman had Grace trapped lbw with a low skidding delivery for just 27.

Incredulous at the umpire's decision and Gingerman's confounded cheek, Grace huffed and puffed, claiming that the ball had first made contact with his voluminous beard before hitting his body.

"A batter cannot be given out beard before wicket," Grace is said to have thundered at the umpire who promptly reversed his decision rather than face the wrath of the country's most famous sportsman.

Grace went on to score a century and the Gentlemen subsequently won the game by an innings and 39 runs.

Beards are not so fashionable among cricketers these days and it's hard to see many modern players being able to claim the BBW defence against being given out, except perhaps the magnificent Hamish Amla and his extraordinary beard.

The South African and Nottinghamshire batsman, who had a short but very successful stint at Essex last season, has a dark, thick beard that Dr Grace would certainly approve of... but he is probably far too much of a gentleman, and too good a player, to resort to using BBW to get him off the hook.

*More blatant untruths here I'm afraid. Serious posts will follow soon...