I can not really believe there is a debate brewing as to whether George Gunn was a superior exponent of the art of batting than old Vic'. The flaws in Perm's argument have already been superbly exposed by Neville Cardus, Goughy and Archie, but may I be permitted to quote from an outstanding contemporary review of Trumper's performances on the 1902 Ashes tour, written by Sydney Pardon and taken from the 1903 edition of Wisden?
"Trumper stood alone among the batsmen of the season, not only far surpassing his own colleagues, but also putting into the shade everyone who played for England. In the course of the tour he obtained, despite the wet weather, 2570 runs, thus easily beating Darling's 1941 in the glorious summer of 1899, which up to this year was a record aggregate for any colonial batsman touring this country. Pages might be written about Trumper's batting without exhausting the subject. Having regard to the character of the season, with its many wet days and soft wickets, it is safe to say that no one - not even Ranjitsinhji - has been at once so brilliant and so consistent since W. G. Grace was at his best. Trumper seemed independent of varying conditions, being able to play just as dazzling a game after a night's rain as when the wickets were hard and true. All bowling came alike to him and on many occasions, notably in the Test matches at Sheffield and Manchester and the first of the two games with the M.C.C. at Lord's, he reduced our best bowlers for the time being to the level of the village green. They were simply incapable of checking his extraordinary hitting. Only a combination of wonderful eye and supreme confidence could have rendered such pulling as his at all possible. The way in which he took good length balls off the middle stump and sent them round to the boundary had to be seen to be believed. Though this exceptional faculty, however, was one of the main sources of his strength on soft wickets, he was far indeed from being dependent on unorthodox strokes. His cutting and off-driving approached perfection and he did everything with such an easy grace of style that his batting was always a delight to the eye. Risking so much, he plays what I would call a young man's game, lightning quickness of eye and hand being essential to his success, and for this reason I should not expect him after twenty years or more of first-class cricket to rival such batsmen as Shrewsbury, A.P. Lucas and W.L. Murdoch, but for the moment he is unapproachable. He was not in the smallest degree spoilt by this triumphs, bearing himself just as modestly and playing the game as sternly at the end of a long tour as at its beginning."
Could anyone seriously imagine the esteemed Nottinghamshire batsman being spoken of in such revered terms?
