Victor Trumper - A Tribute

[Days of Grace]

I didn't say that it was posed or staged before.

But, anyway, I was watching Richie Benaud's Greatest XI DVD and he said he had it on good authority that it was staged.

With the way photography was in those days, it would have been hard to capture a photo so perfect whilst the action is going on.

I admire Trumper as a player, but, as with a lot of Australian cricket greats, some of what is said about him is myth and it seems as if people are wanting to believe in the myth and get upset when others challenge their beliefs.

 

[SJS]

But, anyway, I was watching Richie Benaud's Greatest XI DVD and he said he had it on good authority that it was staged.

With the way photography was in those days, it would have been hard to capture a photo so perfect whilst the action is going on.

Try standing on one leg(the right one) with your legs spread apart to their limit with a bat held high over your head at the beginning of the swing and hold the pose while a photographer with those hundred year old cameras captures your balancing act and post the picture here.

some of what is said about him is myth

Like what ?

 

[SJS]

In the "Key Notes" to their book, Fry and Beldam record . . .

The aim of this book is to answer the question, "How do leading batsmen play?" To answer it as completely and with as much detail as is possible by camera and pen. To answer it by appeal to concrete facts and individual methods.

Books on cricket for most part, are open to criticism that they contain too much theory and too little practice. How far this one is free from the defect, the reader must decide. But at any rate it will, we hope, be accepted as a genuine attempt to present things as they are and batsmen as they play...... the method we have tried to follow is to present a large number of particular instances, amnd from them to work back to such generalities as are warranted by the facts. . .

Every picture is an actuality. The photographs from which the blocks were made were taken of the various batsmen while they were actually playing the various strokes, and every single detail is on the negatives. Not a single word of the text was written until finished prints of the photographs were studied and discussed.

In short the book is founded on Action-Photography and Actual Experience.....

The photographs were taken at odd times, often during the progress of county matches, often under all kind of difficulties of weather and light; and naturally some series were more successfull than others.

Another point which should be clearly understood is that, where faults are commented on, there is no suggestion that the player in question id the faulty exponent of the stroke. All batsmen vary in their play, sometimes making their strokes less perfectly that at others. Moreover in some cases the batsman was asked to play a particular stroke and then found that the ball bowled at him did not quite suit the stroke.....

We wish to accord our hearty thanks to all the cricketers who, often at considerable inconvenience to themselves, were kind enough to submit to the lengthy ordeal of action photography. In order to obtain accurately the stages in various strokes so as to show the beginning, the middle, the finish, the same batsman was often required, "in the interest of science," to repeat his strokes time after time.....

.. such completeness as we have been able to achieve... would have been impossible but for the ready acquiescence of the authorities at Lord's, the Oval, and several other important centres of first class cricket in our plans of dragging players into the meshes of our instantaneous nets. When one kindly secretary asked how long each exposure took and heard 1/1000th of a second, he remarked, "Oh well, then, you will be through with our eleven - about 1/100th of a second for the whole team." But the process of instantaneous photography is not so simple as a sum of fractions. All kinds of arrangements before hand are necessary....​

 

[Burgey]

Try standing on one leg(the right one) with your legs spread apart to their limit with a bat held high over your head at the beginning of the swing and hold the pose while a photographer with those hundred year old cameras captures your balancing act and post the picture here.

Daniel-san......

 

[SJS]

Daniel-san......

Yeah but look at where the weight(and centre of gravity) of the body is in that and in this...

 

[Burgey]

Yep, it's a wonderful photo (the Trumper one).

It's almost everything that's wonderful about cricket in one shot - grace, power, energy and focus.

Except for the T20 cheerleaders - you can't see them, but they're in the background I'm sure.

 

[Days of Grace]

Like what ?

Like the Mailey chapter, for instance

 

[Trumpers_Ghost]

I admire Trumper as a player, but, as with a lot of Australian cricket greats, some of what is said about him is myth and it seems as if people are wanting to believe in the myth and get upset when others challenge their beliefs.

And this doesn't relate to overweight, domestic "gentlemen" in England in the 19th Century as well?

He was a champion of his era, and that is what is important.

 

[The Sean]

Let's not forget that the most famous photo of Trumper stepping out to drive was most likely staged. Did he really drive the ball like that in a match situation?

Does it matter? It's a wonderful photograph of a great cricketer.

Mailey's chapter was a great read, but it was hero-worshipping writing on his part. I wouldn't mind reading an objective, non-nostalgic, contemporary account of Trumper's batting.

There are plenty of contemporary accounts of Trumper's batting, but so beloved and admired was he by team mates, opponents and observers alike that getting something completely objective isn't always easy. And this in itself says something I think - when everyone who saw him at close quarters considers him so brilliant, so magnificent, so in a class of his own, that's generally quite telling. People generally have their favourites and players they admire more than others for various reasons, but when the admiration for one player is so universal I think it needs to be taken seriously.

 

[Days of Grace]

Yes, that's a good point.

I am just astonished that in this day and age of new cricket biographies released seemingly every month, no one has written an authoritative accout of Trumper's life and times.

 

[The Sean]

Yes, that's a good point.

I am just astonished that in this day and age of new cricket biographies released seemingly every month, no one has written an authoritative accout of Trumper's life and times.

That is quite surprising actually.

I've always thought I wanted to write the definitive book about Archie Jackson, perhaps now I need to write two books.

 

[bagapath]

style apart, even statistically trumper was so far above the rest of his contemporaries that bestowing greatness upon him must have been very easy for cricket writers.

The overall batting average in the era spanning 1900 - 1913 was 24.7. Trumper averaged more than 39 runs per innings, about 60% more than the average batsman from that era. with the current era's (1995 - 2009) overall batting average being 30.92 this would roughly translate into averaging 49 runs/innings now, a clear sign of greatness. what makes it even more special is the fact that only trumper and hill seem to have played significant amount of cricket betweeen 1899 - 1913 and still averaged over 38. faulkner and hobbs started later, by 1908. on his day, trumper must have been the greatest batting star in the cricketing world, head and shoulders above everyone else.

 

[archie mac]

style apart, even statistically trumper was so far above the rest of his contemporaries that bestowing greatness upon him must have been very easy for cricket writers.

The overall batting average in the era spanning 1900 - 1913 was 24.7. Trumper averaged more than 39 runs per innings, about 60% more than the average batsman from that era. with the current era's (1995 - 2009) overall batting average being 30.92 this would roughly translate into averaging 49 runs/innings now, a clear sign of greatness. what makes it even more special is the fact that only trumper and hill seem to have played significant amount of cricket betweeen 1899 - 1913 and still averaged over 38. faulkner and hobbs started later, by 1908. on his day, trumper must have been the greatest batting star in the cricketing world, head and shoulders above everyone else.

Clem Hill and Victor were born in the same year, and averaged almost the same, but Clem said 'as a batsman I am not fit to lick Vic's boots'

 

[The Sean]

Clem Hill and Victor were born in the same year, and averaged almost the same, but Clem said 'as a batsman I am not fit to lick Vic's boots'

The Hill/Trumper comparison one has always interested me and Derriman also wrote about it when profiling both men. Hill actually came to prominence slightly before Trumper and for a couple of years was acknowledged as Australia's premier batsman. Both men played exactly the same number of innings - Hill scored more runs, at a better average, and was more consistently reliable too. And yet as you say Hill acknowledged Trumper's supremacy - without, apparently, any trace of false modesty - as readily as everyone else in the cricketing world.

 

[Days of Grace]

In those days perhaps style and grace at the crease mattered a little more than it does now in this results-driven world.

 

[bagapath]

In those days perhaps style and grace at the crease mattered a little more than it does now in this results-driven world.

even now they do. of course, you should compare two equally successful cricketers to realize how the more stylish/graceful one is preferred compared to the grafter.

examples

lara vs waugh
akram vs waqar
holding vs garner
greenidge vs boycott
richards vs miandad
g.chappell vs border
warne vs murali
gower vs gooch

though they have similar records (in some cases the stylish one having inferior records), the player on the left hand side is usually the more popular/respected/remembered cricketer compared to the one on the right. it is mostly on account of style and grace.

trumper vs hill must have been a very similar equation.

 

[Days of Grace]

It's interesting if you look at Hill and Trumper's strike-rates in the tests where balls faced are counted, they are actually very similar. Hill may have even been a faster scorer than Trumper.

 

[SJS]

Like the Mailey chapter, for instance

Ha ha


Mailey writes of how as a kid he was in awe of Trumper and virtually "quivering" in anticipation of the moment when (and if) he bowled to him and then he bowled him after just one boundary.

If that is a myth (maybe it is) I wonder if it takes away from, or adds to, Trumper's reputation as a batsman.

Find another

 

[bagapath]

It's interesting if you look at Hill and Trumper's strike-rates in the tests where balls faced are counted, they are actually very similar. Hill may have even been a faster scorer than Trumper.

of course hill is one of the greatest batsmen of all time. and he did have a better SR compared to trumper. just that trumper had that extra dollop of style which seems to have won more hearts around the cricketing world that time.

 

[SJS]

Pelham Warner was no schoolboy cricketer in awe of Trumper. He was his senior, an England cricketer and already seen as a future England captain when Trumper made his debut. Moreover, that Warner is not prone to hyperbole is well known to anyone who has read the large number of books he has written. This is what he writes of Trumper.

Whenever I think of Victor Trumper my mind goes back to that afternoon at Sydney more than seventeen years ago. The star of Australia seemed setting when his graceful and active figure appeared on the scene.

What style ! What ease ! What power !

He put the ball where he liked and bated as one inspired. No wonder the thousands who thronged that lovely ground went wild with delight. The greater the cricketer the more modest he should be, and Trumper was the most modest of all the modest cricketers I have met.

When batsmen attain the skill of Grace, Ranjitsinhji, Fry or Hobbs, it is difficult to say which is actually the best of them, but of Trumper it may be said that in his prime he was not inferior to any batsman that ever lived or ever will live.​