and Didcot won by an innings, and as a result E. M. was invited to tour Australia a few months later with George Parr's England team. E. M. did not return from Australia until July 1864 and his absence presented Grace with an opportunity to appear on cricket's greatest stages. He and his elder brother Henry were invited to play for the South Wales Club which had arranged a series of matches in London and Sussex, though Grace wondered humorously how they were qualified to represent South Wales. It was the first time that Grace left the West Country and he made his debut appearances at both The Oval and Lord's. It was in the match against "Gentleman of Sussex" played just before his 16th birthday that he scored his first ever century making 170 including a stand of 188 for the second wicket with his captain John Lloyd (political reformer). Cricket career (1864–1914) First-class career summary Although there is controversy among cricket statisticians about the details of Grace's first-class career, it is generally agreed that its span was 44 seasons from 1865 to 1908, and one source lists 29 teams, the England national team and 28 domestic teams, represented by Grace in important or first-class matches. Most of these were ad hoc or guest appearances. In minor cricket, Grace represented upwards of forty teams. Besides playing for England in Test cricket (1880–1899), the key teams in Grace's first-class career were the Gentlemen (1865–1906), All-England aka England (i.e., non-international; 1865–1899), Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC; 1869–1904), Gloucestershire (1870–1899), the United South of England Eleven (USEE; 1870–1876) and London County (1900–1904). Apart from the London County venture in his later years, Grace had firmly committed himself to all of these by the end of the 1870 season when he was 22. 1864 to 1870 Cricket in the 1860s underwent a revolution with the legalisation of overarm bowling in June 1864 and Grace himself said it was "no exaggeration to say that, between 1860 and 1870, English cricket passed through its most critical period" with the game in transition and "it was quite a revolutionary period so far as its rules were concerned". Grace was still 15 when the 1864 season began and had turned 20 when the 1868 season ended and he began his medical career by enrolling at Bristol Medical School on 7 October 1868. In the interim, specifically in 1866,