famous young Indian fairly rose to the occasion, playing an innings that could, without exaggeration, be fairly described as marvellous. He punished the Australian bowlers in a style that, up to that period of the season, no other English batsman had approached. He repeatedly brought off his wonderful strokes on the leg side, and for a while had the Australian bowlers quite at his mercy." Although Australia won the match, the players were astonished by the way Ranjitsinhji batted. Not everyone was pleased at his success. Home Gordon, a journalist, praised Ranjitsinhji in a conversation with an MCC member; the man angrily threatened to have Gordon expelled from the MCC for "having the disgusting degeneracy to praise a dirty black." Gordon also heard other MCC members complaining about "a nigger showing us how to play the game of cricket". Over the next weeks, Ranjitsinhji lost form, and after failing twice in the third Test, missed the last day of the match suffering from asthma, but he scored heavily after this. After sharing a big partnership with Fry for Sussex against the Australian team, he scored 40 and 165, with little support from other batsmen, to save the match against Lancashire, the runners up in the County Championship. In the following match against Yorkshire, on 22 August 1896, the County Champions that season, he scored two centuries on the last day of the game as Sussex saved the match after following on; prior to this, only four men had scored two centuries in the same first-class game, and as of 2011, no one else has scored two on the same day. By the end of the season, he had scored 2,780 runs, beating the record aggregate for a season held by W. G. Grace, and hit 10 centuries, equalling another record of Grace. His average of 57.92 was the highest of the season. Even so, Sussex finished bottom of the County Championship as Ranjitsinhji had little batting support and the team's bowling was ineffective. Succession dispute Ranjitsinhji's fame increased after 1896, and among the praise for his cricket were hints in the press that he intended to pursue a political career, following other Indians in England. Instead he began to turn his attention to the Nawanagar succession, beginning to make enquiries in India as to his position. Meanwhile, he began to cultivate potentially beneficial connections; at Queen Victoria's jubilee celebrations, he