The English batsman aka ‘The Croucher’ who scored quickfire centuries for fun
Gilbert Jessop is a man who played with a T20-like approach more than a century before it was introduced on the international stage. Jessop scored First-Class centuries at 79 runs per hour.
For Gloucestershire, he had reached 100 within an hour on 12 occasions. However, on July 25 he became the first to score two in the same game against Yorkshire.
Jessop did so against the fearsome Yorkshire opening attack of George Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes. Standing 5 feet 7 inches from the ground, he would take a very low stance and manipulate the fast bowlers' lengths.
In a time where a six was only counted when it was hit out of the ground and not outside the boundary, he hit 5 huge sixes out of the ground and 11 over the ropes. This was done in 1907 when the bats’ thickness was nowhere near present times.
In 1902, Jessop played his best knock on the international stage. In the 4th innings he rescued England from 5/48 and hit 104 off just 76 balls including 17 fours. Eventually, England won the match by 1 wicket.
Jessop was born on May 19, 1874. He was 11th of the 12 children of Henry Edward Jessop and Sussanah Radford Hughes.
Jessop scored 569 runs 18 Tests at an average of 21.88 including one century and three fifties. In First-Class, he scored 26,698 runs from 493 games including 53 centuries. His highest score of 286 came under 3 hours.
While Jessop still holds the record for England's fastest Test century 120 years later, he has 873 wickets at an average of 22.79.