Chasing Jessop: The mystery of England cricket's oldest record

Speaker: Simon Wilde

In 1902, playing for England against Australia at The Oval, Gilbert Jessop played arguably the greatest innings in the history of cricket, turning what looked like certain defeat into what became an incredible victory, and doing so at such speed that he set a record for the fastest Test century for England that still stands more than 1,000 Test matches later.
Even Ben Stokes's team of Bazballers have been unable to put in the shade a cricketer for whom all-out attack was the only way to play long before T20 cricket was invented. But the precise circumstances of Jessop's astonishing performance have long been shrouded in mystery. The original scorebooks are missing and the accepted truth that he took 76 balls to reach his century has rarely been scrutinised.

Join Simon Wilde, cricket correspondent for the Sunday Times and author of Chasing Jessop, as he forensically reconstructs one of England's most famous matches in an attempt to establish what really happened. How many balls did Jessop face? Might he have actually got to his hundred even faster than previously believed?

Book sales

You can buy copies of many of our speakers’ books from Fox Lane Books, a local independent bookseller and Festival partner. In some cases, author signed bookplates are available too.

Portrait Image credit: Peter Whyte

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