A. E. J. Collins
A. E. J. Collins | |
---|---|
Birth name | Arthur Edward Jeune Collins |
Nickname(s) | James Collins |
Born | 18 August 1885 Hazaribagh, India |
Died | 11 November 1914 Ypres, Belgium | (aged 29)
Allegiance | British Army |
Years of service | 1902–1914 |
Rank | Captain |
Unit | Royal Engineers |
Battles/wars |
|
Awards | Mention in Despatches |
Spouse(s) |
Ethel Slater (m. 1914) |
Arthur Edward Jeune Collins (18 August 1885 – 11 November 1914) was an English cricketer and soldier. He held, for 116 years, the record of highest score in cricket: as a 13-year-old schoolboy, he scored 628 not out over four afternoons in June 1899.[1] Collins's record-making innings drew a large crowd and increasing media interest; spectators at the Old Cliftonian match being played nearby were drawn away to watch the junior school house cricket match in which Collins was playing. Despite this achievement, Collins never played first-class cricket. Collins's 628 not out stood as the record score until January 2016 when an Indian boy, Pranav Dhanawade, scored 1009 in a single innings.
Collins joined the
Early life and education
Collins was born in Hazaribagh, India,[2] to Arthur Herbert Collins, a judge in the Indian Civil Service,[3] and Mrs Esther Ida Collins. It had been thought that both of his parents had died by the time he began his education at Clifton College, Bristol, where he held a scholarship.[4] However, the 1901 census shows that Arthur's mother was actually still alive.[5]
He joined Clifton College in September 1897,
Tim Rice, in a 9 June 1999 article for The Telegraph to celebrate the centenary of the score, entitled "On the seventh day AEJ Collins rested", described him thus:[3]
He was an orphan whose guardians lived in Tavistock, Devon. He was a reserved boy, short and stockily built, fair-haired and pale. He was remembered by contemporaries as one who led by example, rather than by inspiration, although paradoxically he was regarded as likely to fall short of the highest standards as a cricketer because of his recklessness at the crease.
The famous match
In 1899, as a 13-year-old schoolboy, Collins scored what was then the highest ever recorded cricket score of 628 not out.[7][8] This feat took place during a junior school house cricket match between Clarke's House and North Town House. Such matches were timeless, played to a finish however long they took. The match was played on an outfield off Guthrie Road, Bristol, now named Collins Piece. The ground had both a poor surface and a very unusual shape: it was very short (only 60 yards (55 m) long), with a wall only 70 yards (60 m) away forming the boundary on one side, while the other side was a gentle slope falling away towards the school sanatorium in the distance. The pitch occupied the central 22 yards (20 m) of the narrow field, with the boundary only 17 yards (16 m) behind each set of stumps.[9] Hits to the long boundary, down the slope, had to be all-run, but the three short boundaries only counted for two runs.[10]
The match commenced on Thursday, 22 June, to take advantage of two half-day holidays while the college team played their annual match against Old Cliftonians nearby.
School lessons allowed another two-and-a-half hours' play on Friday, 23 June, and by then news of an exceptional innings had gone round the school. So brilliant was his play that even the crowd watching an Old Cliftonian match being played nearby lost its interest and a large crowd watched Collins's phenomenal performance.
The match resumed in the lunch hour on Monday, 26 June, at 12:30 pm, with a large crowd. By the end of play, Collins had been dropped again, on 556, to reach 598, but another wicket had fallen, and Collins was running out of partners.
North Town House, demoralised, were bowled out for 87 in 90 minutes on Tuesday. The match resumed on Wednesday 28 June, when North Town's second innings went even worse, making 61 in just over an hour, so Clarke House won by an innings and 688 runs. Collins showed ability as an all-rounder, with his right-arm medium pace bowling taking 11 wickets for 63 runs.[3]
The scorebook hangs in the pavilion at Clifton to this day. The scorers faced a difficult task in accurately recording the innings. One of them, Edward Peglar, is said to have remarked that Collins's score was "628, plus or minus twenty shall we say".[3] The other scorer for the match was J. W. Hall, whose father in 1868 had batted with Edward Tylecote, who later played Test cricket for England and whose name is on a poem kept with the Ashes urn. Tylecote had earlier set a world-record score of 404 not out in 1868, also at Clifton.[3] Hall later wrote that "The bowling probably deserved all the lordly contempt with which Collins treated it, sending a considerable number of pulls full pitch over the fives courts into the swimming baths to the danger of the occupants."[14]
Collins became public property for a long while after the match, forever associated with his great score. "Today all men speak of him", wrote one newspaper, "he has a reputation as great as the most advertised soap: he will be immortalised."[10] After leaving school, he never wanted to be reminded of his famous innings; nevertheless, he has been remembered well beyond his own lifetime.[15][16][17]
Within two years, 31-year-old Australian Test cricketer Charles Eady came close to breaking the record, when he made 566 for Break-o'-Day against Wellington in Hobart in less than eight hours spread over three weeks in March 1902.[18] This remained, for over a century, the closest challenge to Collins's record: his score was finally beaten in January 2016 by Pranav Dhanawade, a 15-year-old Indian boy who scored 1,009 not out from 327 balls for KC Gandhi School against Arya Gurukul School in Mumbai.[7][19][20] Only five other players, Prithvi Shaw (546), Dadabhoy Havewala (515), JC Sharp (505 not out), Malhotra Chamanlal (502 not out), and Brian Lara (501 not out) have ever scored more than 500 runs in one innings in any form of cricket. Lara is the only person to have achieved a score of over 500 runs in first-class cricket.[7]
Military career
Collins chose to follow an army career, passing his entrance exams to the
Collins married Ethel Slater in the spring of 1914 and was sent to France when the
See also
- List of cricket terms
- History of cricket
Notes
- ^ Winterbottom, Derek (1991). A Season's Fame: How A.E.J. Collins of Clifton College in 1899 made cricket's highest individual score. Bristol: Bristol Historical Association.
- ^ a b c d e "Player Profile: A. E. J. Collins". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Rice, Tim. "On the seventh day AEJ Collins rested". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ a b Christie, Octavius Francis (1935). A History of Clifton College, 1860–1934. J.W. Arrowsmith. p. 185.
- ^ Sell, Amy (26 June 2014). "A. E. J. Collins and the highest recorded cricket score". British Newspaper Archive. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
- ^ "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. ref no 5327: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April 1948
- ^ a b c "Most runs in an innings – minor cricket". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ "Most runs in an innings – first-class matches". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ a b c "The boy who knew no boundaries". ESPNcricinfo. 21 April 2007. Retrieved 27 July 2009.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Williamson, Martin (31 July 2004). "AEJ Collins: a place in history". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ "Record Score". The Times. 24 June 1899. p. 14.
- ^ "The Record Individual Score". The Times. 27 June 1899. p. 11.
- ^ "The Record Individual Score". The Times. 28 June 1899. p. 12.
- ^ Hall, J. W. (18 March 1938). "Big Scores at Clifton". The Times. p. 12.
- ^ Barnes, Simon (18 May 1996). "Old master; Cricket". The Times. p. 46.
- ^ Keating, Frank (9 November 1998). "Way back when: Frank Keating pays tribute to some of the sporting heroes who died in the 1914–18 war". The Guardian. p. 6.
- ^ "100 Wisden Cricketer facts". The Daily Telegraph. 11 May 2006. p. 7.
- ^ Williamson, Martin (7 October 2006). "Eady's three-week record innings". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ "World record: Indian boy makes 1,000 runs in school cricket match". BBC. 5 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
- ^ "Bhandari Cup, KC Gandhi English School v Arya Gurukul (CBSE) at Mumbai, Jan 4–5, 2016 – Scorecard". ESPNcricinfo. 5 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
- ^ "As it Happens – Long innings". The Times. 10 September 1966. p. 9.
- ^ "No. 27755". The London Gazette. 17 January 1905. p. 417.
- Clifton Rugby Football Club. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ "No. 28036". The London Gazette. 2 July 1907. p. 4522.
- ^ "Casualty Details: Collins, Arthur Edward Jeune". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
- ^ "Casualty Details: Collins, Herbert Charles". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
- ^ "Deaths". The Times. 6 September 1966. p. 2.
References
- Green, Benny, ed. (1987). Wisden Anthology 1864–1900. ISBN 0-356-10732-9.
- Clifton College Register 1862–1947. Old Cliftonian Society.
- Winterbottom, Derek (1991). A Season's Fame: How A.E.J. Collins of Clifton College in 1899 made cricket's highest individual score. Bristol Historical Association.
External links
- Media related to A. E. J. Collins at Wikimedia Commons