At the age of 56 years and 139 days, Quaife is the oldest cricketer to score a century in a County Championship match, doing so in the 1928 tournament.

[2] A diminutive right-handed batsman with a strong defence, Quaife played one match for Sussex before moving, with his older brother Walter, to Warwickshire in 1894.

In between, he scored more than 36,000 runs with a further 70 centuries and, for good measure, took 900 wickets with leg break bowling that, early in his career, was suspected to be illegal.

He passed the 1,000 run mark in 25 seasons and was the leading batsman as Warwickshire won the County Championship for the first time in 1911.

The middle initial (or name) appears, however, to have been acquired merely to differentiate him from his brother, Walter, who was eight years his senior and an established Sussex cricketer before moving with William to Warwickshire, where he played until 1901.