The father of cricket is English cricketer William Gilbert Grace. The legendary player was born on 18 August 1848 near Bristol. He lived for 67 years and passed away on 23 October 1915. His grandfather’s name was George Pocock, while Fred Grace and E.M. Grace were his brothers. When he was playing one-day cricket it didn't even exist. At that time only test cricket was played. He played cricket for MCC, Gloucestershire, and London County. He made his Test debut against Australia in 1880 and played his farewell Test versus the same opponents nine years later.
Before the ICC and other cricket boards took the sport’s control in their hands, cricket was merely a leisure time activity. Nowadays, the youngsters sacrifice a lot in their lives just to get a chance to play international cricket for their country. Earlier also, a man named William Gilbert Grace did this thing.
He gave his everything to cricket at that time this game was not famous but he tries to make his future in cricket. He played only 22 Test matches in his cricket career but still he is known as the father of cricket. Any modern Any modern era cricket fan would answer that Sachin Tendulkar deserved this tag or a fan older than him would call Sir Donald Bradman as the Father of Cricket.
The reason why WG Grace holds this tag to his name is that he played a whopping 44 first-class seasons in English cricket. He played 870 FC games at a time when cricket was not taken so seriously. Still, Grace invested his time and energy to make the sport great.
WG Grace’s contribution was such an incredible one that perhaps no one else might have taken that risk at that time. India was still under England’s reign and we are talking about that time when even the Englishmen were not so rich.
He scored 126 centuries and 254 half-centuries in his first-class career. It shows that he has a good talent for cricket but he did not get many chances to show his talent for his country.
Be it batting, bowling, fielding, or even wicket-keeping, WG Grace did it all in his legendary career. Thus, he is widely believed as the father of cricket.
As far as Sachin Tendulkar goes, the former Indian batsman is popularly known as the God of Cricket. The reason behind is that he holds a majority of the cricket records in terms of batting. Virat Kohli, who is known as the King Kohli, is closely approaching his numbers.
However, cricket will never ever reach the phase that it was in during the 1880s. The sole credit of it goes to WG Grace, the Father of Cricket.
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