Cricket gave birth to Sherlock Holmes from author Doyle’s passion for the game

By K.R. Nayar

It's very exciting to learn that some of the famous authors have connections to cricket. After H.G. Wells, I have now learned that the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes also has links with cricket. Writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired to coin his character's name as Sherlock Holmes from names of cricketers. Doyle’s tales about his life as a cricketer too are special. Read on to see how he regaled us by playing with words as much as he enjoyed playing the game….

The Sherlock Holmes museum on the way to the Lord's cricket ground 

Ever since I started my blog, it is interesting that ideas for stories have been coming in from different people who read my blog. It is very heartening to see this readership growing rapidly and I am grateful to all those who have enjoyed my stories. Since I am a cricket writer, almost all my writings are related to the game, but I also ensure there is message for everyone, including those who are not fans of cricket, in almost every piece I write.

Soon after I wrote about the famous English author H.G. Wells’s cricket connection, there were many who were surprised to learn that his father was a cricketer. It was then that I remembered passing through the Sherlock Holmes museum that is located very close to the historic Lord's Cricket Ground in England. It is said that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887, was a cricketer who had played ten first-class matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club, also famously called the MCC.

One of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's many novels 

Doyle was a hard-hitting batsman and a bowler as well who once produced a spell of 7 for 61 against Cambridgeshire at Lord’s in 1899. His bowling deliveries have been described as a slow puzzling ball. His only first-class wicket was that of the great W.G. Grace Sr, who after hitting 110, mistimed Doyle’s puzzling delivery and skied to the wicket-keeper. Though Grace was 52 years old when Doyle got his wicket, he was so thrilled on bagging his wicket that he even wrote a poem on the incident.  The lines describing the catch taken by wicket-keeper Bill Storer read:

Up, up like a towering game bird,

Up, up to a speck in the blue,

And then coming down like the same bird,

Dead straight on the line that it flew.

Good Lord, it was mine! Such a soarer

Would call for a safe pair of hands;

None safer than Derbyshire Storer.

Doyle has also distinctly described Grace walking back to the pavilion.

Homeward he lurched to his lunch!

His bat was tucked up at an angle,

His great shoulders curved to a hunch.

Walking he rumbled and grumbled,

Scolding himself and not me;

One glove was off, and he fumbled,

Twisting the other hand free.

Grace once made sure to make a sarcastic comment on Doyle in a match they played together against Kent in 1900. Doyle had gone in to bat with a small tin vesta box containing matches in his trousers pocket. England and Kent pacer Bill Bradley hit Doyle’s thighs, splintered the box, and set the matches inside ablaze.  An amused Grace, then remarked: “(They) couldn’t get you out – had to set you on fire.”

W.G. Grace 

It is said that the name Sherlock Holmes was derived from the names of two Nottinghamshire cricketers  Mordecai Sherwin and Frank Shacklock. It is also said that when Shacklock went to play for Derbyshire he had a fellow fast bowler named William Mycroft. Doyle thus named the brother of his character Sherlock Holmes as Mycroft Holmes.

Doyle’s popular short story ‘Spedegue’s Dropper’ that appeared in ‘The Strand’ magazine in October 1928 was based on lob bowling. He decided to write that story after he got bowled by a strange delivery from a bowler named A.P. Lucas. He describes that delivery in his writing: “I have only once felt smaller, and that was when I was bowled by A. P. Lucas, by the most singular ball that I have ever received. He propelled it like a quoit into the air to a height of at least 30 feet, and it fell straight and true on to the top of the bails.”  The short story was about an asthmatic schoolteacher who used such a delivery to win the Ashes for England.

It’s a treat to read Doyle's Memories and Adventures published in 1924. He could write humorously about many instances, especially from cricket. In his earliest recollection of cricket, he wrote that as a schoolboy, while watching a young cricketer known for his hard-hitting with many admirers, one of the shots from the boy hit his knee cap. Years later when he began playing, he got hit twice on the same knee. He described it, playing with words: “some fast bowlers happened to hit me twice in the same place under my left knee, which has left a permanent weak-ness.”

Doyle's Memories and Adventures is an enjoyable read

Doyle also describes how he had disappointed three ladies who came to watch him play. “I remember three ladies coming to see me play against one of the Bedford schools. The boys politely applauded as I approached the wicket. A very small boy lobbed up the first ball which I played at. It went up into the air and was caught at point by the very smallest boy I have ever seen in decent cricket. It seemed to me about a mile as I walked back from the wicket to the pavilion. I don't think those three ladies ever recovered their confidence in my cricketing powers.”

So the next time you read a Sherlock Holmes book or watch a television series or a movie, remember that the character you are enjoying was born out of cricket.