BOWLING
By D. L. A. JEPHSON
To those that have time hanging all too heavily on their hands, and in
good truth know not what to do—to those perchance that may, through
lack of occupation, be compelled amid adverse circumstances, finding
that anything is occasionally better than nothing, to peruse these
jagged, untrimmed sentences—I would say this: that for many days,
with a deep determination of purpose, I have perused the writings of
our great cricketers—I have read the golden words of Grace, of Steel,
of Ranjitsinhji—and have arrived hot-haste, sick at heart, at the
conclusion that I cannot retell what has so often been told by them,
and told so clearly, so succinctly, with such prodigious insight into
the profound ramifications of this art. And so, like some pale-faced
curate sitting fear-bound beneath the terrifying presence of a ruddy
bishop, I must perforce scratch with a rusty pen of the bowlers I have
met. In the ten years of my cricket life I have met many.
Let us divide them into classes. We will take the old-time division;
we will divide them into four—those that are of a slow pace, those
that are of a medium pace, those that are fast, and those semi-moribund
trundlers, the dealers in lobs.
Having myself started in my early days with the firm conviction that
this old game of cricket was the best game for boys and men of moderate
years that the ingenuity of generations had invented, I became also
convinced that to be a great bowler was the highest pinnacle of fame,
and at the same time of usefulness, that a cricketer could hope to rest
on.
The work, without doubt, is hard, the labour of the day strenuous, but
the pleasure of bowling a length with the wicket a bit in your favour,
with a side that are trying to field, and not loafing as “little mounds
of earth or waxen figures in a third-rate tailor’s shop,” is a goodly
thing, a thing to dream of. And this craft of bowling is so sure, so
certain. A great batsman may make a mistake, even on the Oval in the
height of summer, even on the Oval in the height of perfection—and
all those that have played there know the miraculous opportunities for
run-getting this ground affords—he may make a mistake, let us say,
bowled Richardson, 0! Well, for the day he is done—up to now of no
use to his side, of no use to himself. Now, take the great bowler on a
wicket of this excellence, or of any other. He can make a mistake, drop
a slower one a bit too short, overpitch the well-intentioned yorker,
falter in his stride and be placed to leg for four. What matter from a
selfish point of view? His fun for the day has not departed. He bowls
and bowls, and continues to bowl; and probably the blind goddess gives
in the end the wherewithal to be cheerful. Therefore, on this miserable
lowest ground of self-interest, be a bowler!
And then again, when he has done a noble thing—or perchance it is his
birthday, and the elements give heeding to his call—there falls, let
us say, a gentle rain in the early-bird hours, and a hot sun scorches
from 10 to 12. He has got his money on a two to one chance (and nobody
else in the race)—Peel, Rhodes, Haigh, Jack Hearne, the wonderful
George Lohmann, and dozens more. What does the other side make? They
are lucky to make 100—lucky to make 70!
To be a bowler on a bit of bird-lime is the biggest certainty the
cricket world has knowledge of. You may meet a Ranjitsinhji, a Bonner,
a Jessop, or a Frank Crawford; but if you don’t meet these, the odds on
you are as the odds on an arc light to a farthing dip.
Again—for a moment to raise the platform on which we have
been discussing so casually this selfish side of the bowler’s
existence—there can be little doubt that of the three branches
of the game (batting, bowling, fielding), bowling is the pivot on
which the other two turn. Who is the more use to his side—the great
batsman or the great bowler? Nine out of ten intelligent beings answer
unhesitatingly, the bowler; and rightly too, especially if he be
of medium pace, or even slow medium, on a great variety of wickets,
ranging from the fiery, cast-iron, stone-strewn rock of an Old Trafford
wicket (I don’t mean for a second that the Old Trafford ground is often
in this state, but when it is, it is a little faster, a little more
susceptible of bump, than anywhere else I know) down to Bristol or
Southampton after a wet day, he is invariably of supreme assistance to
his side. And what a number of graduated shades of differing wickets
there are, from the sun-scorched cracking clay, where the fast bowler
finds your fingers, or failing these your ribs, where your runs are
made through the slips or first hop over their heads to the boundary,
down through the varying degrees of good, natural, fast wickets to the
Valhalla of batsmen, let us say Taunton, the Oval, or Bristol, where
the ball rarely rises stump high, and where there is as much life
in the wickets as there is in a barrel of oysters! On grounds like
these the batsman assuredly cometh into his own, and metaphorically
layeth the bowler by the heel, bruising him hip and thigh through
the weary hours of an August day, till the welcome news of the last
over revives the rag of a man that is left, and he slowly wends his
way to the rabbit-hutch, in sore need of the well-earned bath and its
ensuing rub down—in sore need of a ginger beer. Perhaps there are too
many of these superexcellent wickets; perhaps, from certain batsmen’s
point of view, there are not. But the moment the rain appears, the
bowler is another being; in the language of the card-room, he wears
a four-ace smile, and there is a corresponding depression in the
countenance of the great batsman. All down the still more numerous
phases of wet, sticky, and real bird-lime wickets (impossible for
nine out of ten batsmen)—down through all these the four-ace smile
remains, and it is only when we arrive at the thoroughly sodden ground,
with a faint drizzle or slight showers at convenient intervals, when
the ball is wet, the footholds greasy, and there are bucketfuls of
sawdust besprinkled here, there, and everywhere, that the batsman again
reverses the situation, and, like an overfed fox-terrier, has acquired
another poor rat of a bowler.
I say overfed advisedly—not that he is replete with runs on too
many occasions in an ordinary season, when a fair amount of rain
falls, and the good and bad wickets are allotted us fairly evenly,
and a decent percentage of catches are held (which is very seldom
the case); but when he glues himself for a day or day and a half to
some easy-paced billiard-table wicket, where a blind boy could stay
with a toothpick, I say he is overfed—he gluts himself with runs;
and though, as I have said before, he has, in my humble opinion, less
chances of distinguishing himself than the medium-paced bowler, and
is in consequence of less value to his side (which, after all, is the
very essence of the game), yet when his opportunity arises he overeats
himself to an astonishing degree, and often grouses to a similar extent
as the rat of a bowler catches him by the tail with a duck and one on a
wicket of sun-baked clay.
I have sorely digressed, but the trend of the digression was this, that
if as a youth you wish to play cricket, devote all your time, all your
energies, to bowling. A great bowler is born, not made; but though you
may never soar to the heights of a Spofforth or a Lohmann, you can
learn to bowl a good length, you can learn to bowl intelligently, and
be a source of comfort to yourself, and, what is infinitely better, in
all probability a source of comfort to your side.
We have divided the bowlers of to-day and yesterday into four: it
were better to say three, leaving the few dealers in lobs to huddle
themselves into a minute band that can nowadays follow many leagues
behind the great cavalcade that comprises the real three divisions.
Lobs are occasionally useful things to carry round with a side, but
should in a healthy team be used medicinally.
They act as a stirring tonic to men in the field who have grown lazy
and careless from lack of work, for with all the lobs I have ever seen
there is always a blissful uncertainty as to where a good batsman will
place the next one; and some players hit them so uncomfortably hard
that it is best for the slackers to keep their weather eyes open, or
they may experience a rude awakening. There is no more exhilarating
spectacle on a cricket-field than to see a drowsy dreamer of a field
receive the ball in a most unexpected place, on the wrist or the ankle,
on the nose or somewhere where the injury is not likely to be serious.
[Illustration: _WILLIAM LILLYWHITE._]
[Illustration:
_From a Painting by_ _W. Bromley._
_JOHN WISDEN._]
Three years ago at the Oval, I remember, Sam Woods was watching a
match, and a certain individual in an immaculate sweater, brilliantly
decorated in front with letters a foot long, sauntered on to the field.
It was evidently a part of the game with which he had no sympathy. Sam
glared down on him, and in his terse phraseology commenced—
“Who’s that feller?”
Some one mentioned a name. “I know,” says Sam. “I know the silly
bloomer.... He was fielding in the country—I was playing—up she went
in the air—he was fast asleep—catch her, you fool!—and he caught
her—_plumb on the nut_.”
And this genial cricketer was pleased for the rest of the day at the
mere recollection.
At last we have arrived, through devious paths, at our three great
divisions. Many bowlers whom I class as slow may in reality consider
themselves to be medium; many medium may prefer to be known as fast;
and perhaps there may be a very few fast bowlers who prefer the
description of medium—but I doubt it.
First and foremost we must place the Old Man, or Old ‘Un, as we so
endearingly like to speak of him. There can be but few people in this
country who do not know this full-bearded, full-bodied figure of a
man—the few short shuffling strides, the arm a little above the
shoulder, the right hand a shade in front of him, the curious rotary
action before delivery, _and the wonderful length_.
The hand is large and the ball well concealed, and as you face him,
for he stands full fronted to you, it seems to leave by the back door,
as it were, that is, over the knuckle of the little finger.
I have played with him many times, but he does not seem to me to do
very much (of course I am speaking of a good wicket), but some come
a little higher, others a little lower, some a little faster, some
slower; on the middle leg is his favourite spot—two or three off the
leg stick with a square deep who is not asleep, then a straighter one
with a “bit of top on it”—the batsman tries to push to leg—there is a
somewhat excited _’s that?_ and the would-be run-getter is sauntering
pavilionwards.
Certainly of all the slow bowlers I have met he is the most successful
against _new faces_, whether they are young or old. He generally bowls
them neck and crop, or else they are l.b.w., and it makes very little
difference if the batsman is an Australian wonder, or a boy in a
village school: they come in and they go out, and they can’t understand
it—it looks so extremely harmless. They forget the master-hand, with
the master-mind to work it; they forget the wonderful perseverance! If
you can’t get them out over the wicket, try round; if you can’t succeed
this end, have a rest and try the other.
To-day he may bowl a trifle slower than he did twenty years ago. It
seems to me, however, that he bowls with very much the same effect. He
is a bowler that stands by himself. As long as I can remember, no one
has ever compared “W. G.” with any other bowler; he stands alone—it
is a distinct form of attack. We hear of Rhodes being contrasted with
Peel, and Peel discussed in relation to Peate, and so on in thousands
of instances, but the Old Man stands by himself, with a style, a
method, a success of his own.
Of really good amateur slow bowlers, during the last twelve years, in
which time I have been more or less nearly connected with first-class
cricket, there has been a phenomenal dearth.
They can literally be counted on the fingers of a man’s hand. As I
write only two stand out—C. L. Townsend and C. M. Wells. Of course
there have been others, and there are others, but unless I have missed
my way through the long lists of bowlers through which I have passed,
I have lighted on no names that, without some slight stretch of the
imagination, one could place on anything like the same level with the
two already mentioned. Should there be any, I sincerely apologise for
their omission. A. G. Steel and E. A. Nepean never entered into my
short first-class cricket experiences.
I have met them both, however, in club games, and even with the small
amount of natural and acquired intelligence at my disposal, I could not
fail to see how good they must have been at their best.
One feat of Nepean’s I remember well. He was playing for the Gentlemen
_v._ the Players at the Oval. Arthur Shrewsbury was batting, and Nepean
was bowling, if my recollection fails me not, at the gas-works end,
and, greatly to the astonishment of many of us present, _bowled him
round his legs!_
Great as was the astonishment of the spectators, it paled before the
wonder of the two in question, and the tale went round on the morrow
that gentle sleep had failed to visit their respective couches on the
evening of this memorable day. One was said to have lain awake all
night marvelling _how on earth he had done it_, and the other _how on
earth he had let it be done!_
Whether the tale be of truth or otherwise I know not, but it was a ball
that probably Nepean will remember long after he has ceased playing
even club cricket.
The one exception that proves the rule that great bowlers are born and
not made is C. M. Wells. To the best of my belief, when he started
his career at Dulwich as a bowler, he was of the shut-your-eyes,
bang-’em-down, never-mind-where-but-plug-’em-down style. Only a slight
success, I think, attended his efforts in this direction, and so,
having seen some good slow bowler on the school ground, assiduously
worked day after day at the nets, until up at Cambridge he proved
himself to be on his day one of the finest slow bowlers we have seen.
He possessed, and still possesses, a wonderful command of length, with
plenty of spin from the off—a considerable variation of flight—a
slower ball with several inches of break from leg, delivered, by the
way, from almost the palm of the hand, and a ball that, as it comes
sailing up the pitch towards you, has every appearance of being
intended for a leg break, but which in reality is simply propelled with
a large quantity of “top on.” It comes naturally quick off the ground,
and it comes along straight as a die, and many a batsman has ceased
from troubling, out l.b.w., through playing for a break that did not
exist. I should perhaps not have said ceased from troubling, for it is
a curious fact, and one for which there seems no adequate explanation,
that though a batsman generally grumbles a little at being given out
l.b.w. to a fast bowler, a _rara avis_ is occasionally found agreeing
with the decision; men as a rule grumble and trouble themselves vastly
being dismissed in a similar manner to a slow ball, and a _rara avis_
in this connection is almost as the dodo.
Of Wells’ fast ball I am perhaps not so eulogistic, but no doubt he
uses it as an astute hunter uses dead wood and briars to cover the many
pitfalls into which his intended victims are to cast themselves. This
end or that end, he never tires; if the laws of the game permitted it
he would bowl both; and as regards fielding his own bowling, I think he
is the best I have ever seen. I remember once at Cambridge in the Long
Vac. playing with him—I think it was against the M.C.C. I know the
side included Shacklock and Barnes. The latter was batting, and Wells
let go a slow full pitch, and poor old Barnes dashed at it as a dog at
a dinner. Wells, as he generally is, was well up the wicket, his legs
well apart, looking for what he could find. Barnes found the full toss,
and Wells the ball. As the veteran passed me at mid-off, his face was
as the face of a man who stoops to pick up a sovereign and finds a
brass button. It was the hardest catch, I should think, ever made at a
range of 10 yards from the gun, and Barnes was no niggard with the wood!
Having played with and against Wells a great many times, I have had
copious opportunities of watching him closely. He invariably starts
with the ball in the left hand, and in the first stride or two throws
it into his right. For the off break it falls into a cradle of fingers;
the middle digits are spread open, while the first and fourth are bent
double at the second joint. The ball rarely touches the thumb; the
natural straightening of the first finger at the moment of delivery
imparts the required break; but to bowl a length without the use of
the thumb, and to train your fingers to fall at will into this cramped
position, involves considerably more patience and practice than the
average cricketer cares to give.
Here again I shall digress. In all the excellent works on cricket
that at one time or another I have so diligently studied, I find
most elaborate instructions on this same subject, the holding of the
ball—“Always use your fingers,” “Never use the palm of the hand,”
etc., etc.; but despite all this worthy advice, I have never yet seen
two bowlers gather their fingers, or fingers and thumb, round the
ball in such a manner that the hand of one could not for an instant
be confused with the hand of the other. The length of their run may
occasionally coincide, very occasionally their stride may be of the
same compass, but these are the only two similar characteristics
which any two bowlers may be said to possess. The action and method
of handling the ball are as different in different bowlers as the
features on the face of the one are unlike the features on the faces
of the others. George Lohmann, one of the greatest bowlers that has
ever lived, spread his long, sinuous fingers (in which I include the
thumb) at almost equal distances round the whole circumference of the
ball. Spofforth, on the other, held only half the ball, the little
finger underneath, with the thumb on the top, both resting on the
seam—believing, as at billiards, that a ball struck on one side will
of necessity spin in its run or flight in the direction of the side
to which the propelling force was given. Turner, on the other hand,
covered the whole of the circumference, with the ball resting nearer
the palm of the hand than is the case with the majority. Mead, again,
being blessed with a long, strong forefinger, produces the same off
break with this finger and the slight use of his thumb and second
finger. Those who have played against Albert Trott know well the
particular delivery when they see part of the ball projecting below his
little finger, and the strong thumb standing straight up in the air;
it is practically propelled by the second, third, and fourth fingers.
I give these simply as a few instances. Every bowler, whether first
class, second class, or “no class,” has a peculiar method of his own,
some idiosyncrasy, however slight, in his manner of gripping the ball,
and this, too, _in addition_ to the varying flexibility, the varying
“flicks” or “whips” of the wrist, that each in his very own way
employs.
Now for C. L. Townsend—by accident this is a suggestive phrase, and
one that in his prime exactly describes the plan of action adopted by
the incoming batsmen—“Now for Charles,” “Go for him”—and they went;
and a great number came back sorrowing—bowled round their legs with a
two-foot break, stumped a couple of yards, caught at cover trying to
drive, bowled with an off break or a fast one—out in every possible
way. Bowling with a high, shambling action, he was very deceptive in
the flight and very deceptive in the pace, the ball coming slow in air
and fast off the pitch with as much finger leg break as he wanted.
On a sticky wicket, unlike the majority of slow leg break bowlers, he
could, if he wished, leave it alone and rely almost entirely with very
satisfactory results on the off break, bowled a bit faster. And, like
Wells, he could bowl all day, and did until towards the end of his
regular cricket career, when he forsook the stony path that a regular
first-class bowler must tread for the scented groves where dwell our
great batsmen, and, lapped in the luxury of 2000 runs per annum,
forsook to a great extent his former mistress.
Among all the famous slow left-handers there is one that to me stands
out more clearly than the rest, whether his striking personality—for
who did not know that bouncing ball of a man?—whether his wonderful
all-round skill, or his possession of that golden quality on a cricket
field, the golden quality of _life_, stood uppermost in my mind, I
cannot say, but to this day, as often as I think on the game, there
always arises the short, thick-set figure of poor Johnny Briggs.
[Illustration:
_From a Painting by_ _W. Bromley._
_ALFRED MYNN._]
[Illustration: _JAS. COBBETT._]
Buffoon, perhaps, at times, but never with an obnoxious buffoonery.
And what a bowler! The ball left his hand with a finger flick that
you could hear in the pavilion, and here was every known variety of
flight: three or four short, half walking, half running strides, and
the ball was at you, spinning like a top; first a balloon of a ball
that would drop much farther off than you thought, a lower one just
on the same spot, both breaking away like smoke; then another, with
nothing on, straight at the sticks; and then you saw the arm come
round a shade faster, and, if you weren’t on the watch, you found you
had struck a snag in the form of a really fast yorker, bowled at a
considerably greater pace than you have ever received one from either
Peel or Rhodes. Poor Johnny! I have no space to dilate further on your
wonderful gift of bowling with this indefinite “_you_.” In conclusion,
as this chapter seems rapidly to be casting itself into the mould of
personal reminiscence, I will relate my last two meetings with you.
We were playing at Hastings in the Week. “W. G.” was in command. It
was my lucky day, having made 50 or so by blind slogging, and the
liberal help of a sluggish field. The Doctor suggested you should try
the Chapel end. I took 28 off the first three overs, six of them
fours, mostly well off the off stump, bouncing up against the canvas at
square leg. I remember the aggrieved look on your face as you remarked
to the Old Man, “That’s not much of a stroke, Doctor,” and the Doctor
answered, “It’s all right if you can do it, Johnny”; and then, Johnny,
you were taken off.
We were playing at Lord’s, North _v._ South. It was a perfect wicket.
I was in need of a few runs to end the season with. Poor Johnny was
bowling, and bowling as well as ever, a bit faster on the fast wicket,
and going considerably with his arm.
“W. G.” had made as good a 130 as he ever made in his life. I went to
the wicket, played two, and the leg stump leant wearily back with a
ball that pitched on the middle and off—0!
The second innings, through the clemency of Ernest Smith, I avoided a
pair. I got to the other end and faced Johnny: the same ball, the same
languid attitude of the same stump, and the balance was mightily in
your favour, Johnny, as it always was.
He was a great bowler on his day, a bowler that was never done with,
and the void he has left on the cricket field will not be filled for
many a day, if ever it be filled at all.
The mind of every cricketer naturally associates with the memory of
Briggs the names of the other two great left-handers, Peel and Rhodes;
and what a wonderfully successful trio they have been, and what an
amount of amiable argument has been expended in the vain attempt to
decide which is the greatest of the three! I prefer to bracket the
three. And as no side is thoroughly equipped for attack without the
inclusion of a bowler of this stamp, had the captain of a side the
first call on the services of these two, he no doubt would include Peel
on a fast wicket, and in the event of the rain falling, would give the
preference to Rhodes. The smile on the face of either of them after a
goodly shower, and an hour or two’s stickying sun, has struck terror
into the heart of many a creditable run-getter.
My first experience of Peel was at Cambridge. As usual, and rightly
too, my place was number eleven on the list. There was six minutes to
time, and the good MacGregor told me to buck up and go in. So into
the dark I went, and, backed by the luck that sometimes falls to most
undeserving persons, I stayed through an over and a half of Robert—not
out 0 at night, and my last game for the ‘Varsity! On the morrow, on
not a very easy wicket, my marvellous luck remained with me, and stayed
with me even until lunch! 41! It must have been a dreary show. I only
instance this to once again emphasise the old old truism of what a game
of chance this cricket is. Here was I playing in my last match, playing
as a bowler, but, as the vulgar say, “couldn’t bowl for toffee,” or any
other desirable sweetmeat. Here was I, number eleven, and by a kindly
turn of fortune’s wheel allowed to stop Bobby Peel for two hours and a
half. Well, that six minutes in the dusk gave me ten years’ cricket,
so _I_ have nothing to grumble at in the luck of the game!
As every one knows, Yorkshire owe much of their great success to the
efforts of these two. Always to be relied upon—always ready to bowl
either end for two or twenty overs at a stretch: bowlers that a captain
can put on for an over, and knowing that neither of them will throw
away a couple of fours trying to find their length. Should we compare
the actions of the two, we must award the palm for style and easy
rhythmic swing to Peel. To Rhodes we must allow the greater amount of
spin.
Wilfred, as his intimates designate him, for some years had a bad time
when he journeyed with his friends to the Oval, for he nearly always
struck a fast wicket, and very few bowlers are affected to the same
extent as he is by the varying conditions of the ground.
On the Oval we have generally managed to score against him, provided
it is fine; but give him a little rain, and he gets his own and a bit
more back. I remember, three years ago, at Kennington, Yorkshire and
Surrey both made over 300. On the third day of the match there had been
rain, and a blistering sun was doing its best to give the spectators
their money’s worth in the afternoon. In this it succeeded. Yorkshire
held a lead of about 25. “Another drawn match, I suppose,” was heard on
every side; but the members and their friends don’t quite realise the
enormous difference of Rhodes, and of Rhodes and Haigh coupled, on a
dry and on a sticky wicket.
Latterly, Surrey have been anything but a good side on a bad wicket,
and those of us that knew this were by no means so happy in our minds,
and our dismal forebodings came very nearly being realised. Haigh at
the pavilion end and Rhodes at the gasometer did exactly as they liked.
The former, with practically only three men on the off and innumerable
short legs and silly mid-ons, bowled a perfect length off the off
stump, coming back anything from three inches to a foot. Only once
during the sorry rot that ensued did he get hit on the off. Rhodes, now
a totally different bowler from the day before, plugged away on the off
stump, and did exactly as he liked with the ball.
_Four wickets for 8_, and an hour and a bit to go! Poor old Surrey
in the soup again! It certainly looked like it, for the mouldy eight
runs on the tins were only hoisted there by a mighty effort and a
considerable amount of luck. All out 15; and it would have been so had
not Hayward stayed forty-five minutes, amassing another 8, and for
Tom Richardson’s pluckily slogged 17. The total, I think, reached by
devious and rugged, very rugged paths, 51—and so Yorkshire were robbed
of a well-earned victory. Rhodes had his own back, as he always does
have it back when sun and rain put their heads together and strive
strenuously for his welfare.
On another occasion that I recollect we made the handsome compilation
of 37 against him and Wainwright at Bradford. The score-sheet was
covered with “Stumped Hunter, b. Rhodes, 0.” It was a most catching
complaint, and five of us succumbed to it. It attacked us in two
distinct varieties. We either played forward and slipped—“Stumped
Hunter, b. Rhodes, 0,” or we charged gaily up the pitch for home or
glory. The result was precisely the same—“Stumped Hunter, b. Rhodes,
0.”
But enough of Rhodes. Helped by his two good god-parents, sun and rain,
the subject is a painful one to us of the south.
His co-helper in this match, Wainwright, is another bowler to whom the
varying conditions of weather, and consequently of wickets, makes a
phenomenal difference—perhaps more strikingly pronounced even than to
Rhodes.
Harmless enough on a good wicket, on a bad one he could make the ball
do what he liked. Many, of course, can do this; but they cannot make
it turn with the astonishing rapidity from the pitch that Wainwright
could. Slow in its flight, yet on touching the mud it would rush at
you—I had almost said bite you—at any rate bowl you as you were
playing back for the hang.
And now, my indulgent reader, we will make full sail southwards, with
the brave north wind full astern, to the headquarters of the cricketing
world, the abode of the all-powerful M.C.C. Here we find a slow bowler;
I call him slow, for though bowling every conceivable pace, I always
maintain that he is at his best when four or five out of the six sent
down are leisurely in their progress up the pitch, mixed up with one or
two so exceedingly fast that “eye cannot follow them in their flight.”
I refer to Trott, or “Alberto,” as he is generally called.
[Illustration: _WILLIAM LILLYWHITE._]
[Illustration: _WILLIAM CLARKE_,
_Famous for Underhand Bowling_.]
A bowler of infinite resource—at times no doubt he gives many runs
away through the persistence with which he tries new theories, new
dodges, or a new action; but he is one of the few bowlers that
the batsman is compelled to watch more closely than many another.
Personally, I have retired from the conflict with Albert through
every one of the exceedingly varied methods by which he has removed
obstructing batsmen. As a rule he bowls with a decidedly low action,
with any amount of off break on—with every degree of pace. Again the
ball is held in the last three fingers, and a powerful upright thumb
confronts the player opposed to him; this is generally a “pull-backed”
one which hangs most uncomfortably in the air. The next comes as the
lightning, and as likely as not catches you full pitch on the toe,
or hits the bottom of the stumps as you are lifting the bat to play.
At his best (for sometimes I have seen him bowl for hours without
employing his fast one) it is as fast a ball as one wishes to meet,
and its pace is made in the last of the few short steps Trott takes.
Should he be unsuccessful, he will suddenly raise his arm and deliver
one right over his head at a medium pace, which very often whips back
sharply from the off, or, reverting to something like his original
action, he will bowl an over or two of slow leg breaks, which, if their
length is not all it should be, break about as much as Harry Trott was
wont to break, and that is saying a good deal.
He is a bowler that I have never seen tired, and a wonderful gatherer
of unconsidered trifles in the way of almost impossible “c. and b.’s.”
He stands in front of you like a brick wall, and you’ve got to hit
it mighty hard for him to let it go by. Truly a great worker, this
Anglo-Australian, as the papers so frequently call him.
At Taunton, a year or two ago, we invariably came across the slowest
overhand bowler that has played in first-class cricket for ten years or
so. Tyler was for a long time the stumbling-block in the way of many
sides, more particularly of Surrey. Time after time he has bowled us
out on all sorts of wickets—it was too slow, too high in the air, and
consequently such a long time coming to you. Dozens of players I have
seen bowled trying to sniggle one to leg, and if they were not bowled
they were out l.b.w. Of course he has been “planted” again and again
into the churchyard, but he knew what he was doing, and a ball a little
higher or a little shorter found a resting-place in the safe hands of
Palairet or Daniell on the pavilion rails. He has much to thank Sam
Woods for. Wicket after wicket has he got at mid-off through Sam’s
fearless fielding, and run after run has he been saved. A great many
cautious batsmen, too, have been irritated into hitting through the
close proximity of Sam at silly point, and this silly point to a bowler
of Tyler’s pace is no sinecure, even with the most gentle of batsmen.
I often wonder that this placing of a man right under the batsman’s
nose is not more often adopted, as the result seems always to justify
it, for whether you get the man out or not, he is most decidedly put
off his game. It is not, however, a place to go to sleep in, even with
the mildest of performers. I was sorry that Tyler should have been
no-balled at the close of his career, for the day on which he was
penalised there seemed to be no difference whatever from the action he
always had, and which was universally passed for years.
Of the leg-break bowlers there is Braund, one of the best all-round
cricketers of the day. He is second only in the matter of pace to Vine,
and he is easily first in the matter of length and direction—perhaps
not so difficult as Vine is at his best, but he always bowls well,
consistently well, on all sorts of wickets, and he is never punished to
the extent the other bowlers of this class are when one is lucky enough
to catch them on an off day.
There are many other slow bowlers of whom I should like to scribble,
but time presses, and we must pass on to our second division, to the
bowlers of the medium pace, whose numbers are as sands on the seashore.
There is very little doubt that the bowlers who comprise this our
second division are in the majority of instances of more general value
to their side than the faster bowlers, for the obvious reason that they
can always obtain a foothold.
They can also bowl longer at a stretch, they can vary their pace,
they can alter the whole principle of their attack to suit the varying
stages of a wicket in a way that is given to very few of our really
fast bowlers. There are, too, so many that one must include in this
class, that it is a matter of considerable difficulty to make anything
like an adequate selection. There are some, however, whose names will
immediately occur to the minds of every average cricketer.
I asked W. G. Grace not long ago, “Who was the best medium-paced bowler
you ever played against?” Almost without thought the answer came back,
“George Lohmann”; and there is many another player who, asked the same
question, would make answer in a similar strain.
We all knew that tall, fair-haired, broad, rather high-shouldered
figure—a splendid worker in every section of the game. Great as the
pleasure was in studiously watching the man bowl, or watching him bat,
taking the extraordinary risks he did, to my mind an almost equally
enjoyable thing was to watch him at extra slip. Before his time there
were good slips, bad slips, fast-asleep slips, and since his time every
variety of “slipper” has passed across the stage, but none ever had the
same catlike activity, the same second-sight to practically foretell
the flight, the pace of a ball, and the same safe pair of hands to hold
it in.
But I am presumably writing on bowling and not fielding. The following
description of George Lohmann by C. B. Fry is one of the very best
things of the many that he has done:—
He made his own style of bowling, and a beautiful style it was—so
beautiful that none but a decent cricketer could fully appreciate
it. He had a high right-over action, which was naturally easy
and free-swinging, but, in his seeking after variations of pace,
he introduced into it just a suspicion—a mere suspicion—of
laboriousness. Most people, I believe, considered his action to have
been perfect. To the eye it was rhythmical and polished, but it cost
him, probably, more effort than it appeared to do. His normal pace
was medium; he took a run of moderate length, poised himself with a
slight uplifting of his high square shoulders, and delivered the ball
just before his hand reached the top of its circular swing, and, in
the act of delivery, he seemed first to urge forward the upper part
of his body in sympathy with his arm, and then allow it to follow
through after the ball. Owing to his naturally high delivery, the
ball described a pronounced curve, and dropped rather sooner than the
batsman expected. This natural peculiarity he developed assiduously
into a very deceptive ball which he appeared to bowl the same pace
as the rest, but which he really, as it were, held back, causing the
unwary and often the wary to play too soon. He was a perfect master
of the whole art of varying his pace without betraying the variation
to the batsman. He ran up and delivered the ball, to all appearances,
exactly similarly each time; but one found now that the ball was
hanging in the air, now that it was on to one surprisingly soon. He
had complete control of his length, and very, very rarely—unless
intentionally—dropped a ball too short or too far up. He had a
curious power of making one feel a half-volley was on its way; but
the end was usually a perfect length ball or a yorker. He had that
subtle finger power which makes the ball spin, and consequently he
could both make the ball break on a biting wicket and make it “nip
along quick” on a true one. He made a practice of using both sides of
the wicket on sticky pitches. If he found he was breaking too much,
he would change from over to round the wicket, and on fast pitches he
soon had a go round the wicket at a batsman who appeared comfortable
at the other sort. But he was full of artifices and subtleties, and
he kept on trying them all day, each as persistently as the others,
one after another. With all his skill, he would never have achieved
his great feats but for his insistence of purpose. He was what I call
a very hostile bowler; he made one feel he was one’s deadly enemy,
and he used to put many batsmen off their strokes by his masterful
and confident manner with the ball. He was by far the most difficult
medium-pace bowler I ever played on a good wicket.
In the spring of a year eighteen summers ago three or four of us were
playing cricket on the wilderness of Clapham Common. A young man
watched the game for a little, and eventually took a hand. He bowled to
us and he batted for us, and we learnt something. At the end of half an
hour he left. We asked his name. “Lohmann,” came the reply. We said,
“Good-morning, and thank you.” And to-day I think that there are dozens
of committeemen all over the country, and especially in the county of
Surrey, who would like to go out into the same or a similar wilderness
and encounter another George Lohmann. They may go out hot haste to find
one, but they will return empty-handed.
In reply to the same question that I asked W. G. Grace, Ranjitsinhji
said, “Noble.” Now of Noble I have not had sufficient experience to
write, so I asked him again, and the next answer was, “Jack Hearne”;
and for perfection of action, with its open-shouldered, almost
three-quarter arm swing, I have never seen his equal. He has every
variation of pace, and, on a wicket that suits him, as much off break
as he wants; and he bowls, or did bowl at his best, a length that only
a very few bowlers like Alfred Shaw ever excelled. It has been said
that on a perfect wicket he plays a man in. Well, perhaps he does; but
those of us who on a sticky wicket at Lord’s—and at Lord’s a sticky
wicket spells perdition—have had the temerity to stand up against him,
bowling as he nearly always is from the pavilion end, know with what
difficulty he can be stopped, and with what superhuman effort scored
off.
Two other great medium-paced bowlers appeal immediately to the player
of cricket—Attewell and Mead—both of a wonderful length, and doing a
bit either way, not in the same way as Jack Hearne, who is practically
an off break bowler, with a fast ball going with his arm, but with
distinctive finger or hand break going both ways.
Who does not remember Attewell’s easy, full-faced run up to the wicket,
the splendid control of length—a very machine, but a machine with an
untiring human intelligence. Both these two are perfect gluttons for
work—this end, the other end, both ends, all day and probably all
night if the span of the hours for play were lengthened. Attewell I
should have taken on a good wicket, and Mead on a bad.
The latter I remember years ago at Broxbourne, where he and I led the
attack for the local club, and wonderfully successful he was; but
in those days he bowled almost entirely leg breaks, and it was only,
I believe, after journeying Leytonwards, that he developed the off
theory, with an occasional straight one and with an occasional leg
break, that ultimately gave him the position amongst great bowlers that
he holds to-day.
Lancashire some seasons ago possessed a quartette that very few sides
have been able to equal. I refer to Briggs, Hallam, Cuttell, and Mold.
Each of the four obtained a hundred wickets. Lancashire were playing
at the Oval; the wicket was on the slow side, not very difficult and
not very easy; each of the four had a turn, and in this particular
match Hallam bowled extremely well. In my own mind he was at his best
one of the most difficult of medium-paced bowlers, for the flight was
so deceptive. He has a good variation of pace, but the bad luck he has
had in his health has clung to him in the matter of bowling—there seem
to be more missed chances, more balls that beat the bat and evade the
wicket, than fall to the lot of many another bowler in the same class.
[Illustration: _LORDS GROUND EARLY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY._]
[Illustration:
_From a Water-Colour by_ _H. Alken._
_ONE ARM AND ONE LEG MATCH._]
In the matter of length, in the knowledge of the art of bowling, in
his phenomenal success, there is one man in this our second division
who occupies an almost unique position—Alfred Shaw. Every one knows
the records that he holds, but there is one thing that at the time of
its occurrence certainly was the subject of much gratifying comment,
and this was Alfred Shaw’s astonishing resurrection in first-class
cricket, which hardly to-day receives the recognition that it merits.
Sussex journeyed to the Oval. Shaw, who for a considerable time had
given up first-class cricket, was included in the side, and those of
us who were playing against him saw and realised one of the finest
pieces of bowling ever given on a perfect Oval wicket. Surrey’s score
was well over 300. Shaw bowled one end and then the other till he had
completed 50 overs. _During this time only 60 odd runs had been scored
from him_, and there were seven Surrey victims labelled Shaw in the
score-sheet. He bowled as only a marker could bowl, and every man that
proceeded to the wicket either played a bit too soon or a bit too late
at some period or other of his innings. It was a remarkable bowling
performance, and remarkable evidence of stamina of a bowler not in the
first flush of youth.
Another in this same class, and who at the start of his career was
engaged on the staff at the Oval with his future club-mate Hulme,
was George Davidson, a fast medium bowler with a longish run and an
imperturbable length—full of life and vigour, and a man whose place in
the side Derbyshire have not yet been enabled to fill.
Tate, like Rhodes, is again a cricketer to whom the state of a wicket
makes a phenomenal difference, even more so than is usually the
case. Given suitable conditions, there are few bowlers that can make
the ball come up faster off the pitch than Tate. He bowls a really
good length, and can apply the off break at will, and for years has
stepped into the breach for Sussex and saved the rest of his side
many many wearying hours of fielding. And now to make an end of our
second division we will include F. S. Jackson and J. R. Mason. It is a
very moot point whether they should be termed fast or medium—let us
say they are fast-medium. It really does not matter much what we call
them, for any one whose patience has held out thus far in this article
has no doubt seen them both bowl again and again. F. S. Jackson is a
confident bowler; he bowls with a confidence born of the past, and
with an unlimited confidence in the future, and to this self-reliance
I attribute a large proportion of his success. Bowling fast-medium,
with an occasional off break and an occasional slow ball, he invariably
manages to keep the runs down, and at the same time to take his quota
of wickets; and a bowler that can go with Sam Woods through the whole
of a Gentlemen _v._ Players match unchanged must be a really good
bowler, even though as we watch him we cannot exactly determine how he
succeeds as he undoubtedly does.
J. R. Mason is probably a bit faster than Jackson. He has a free
upstanding delivery, an easy run up to the wicket, and a full-arm
swing. He bowls a good length just off the off stump, and on his day
and with a wicket in his favour can make the ball do a lot from the
off. Sam Woods said that he had never in his life seen much better
bowling than Mason’s in the Somerset _v._ Kent match at Taunton in
August 1901. The home side were dismissed for 74 and 78, Mason’s share
of the wickets being four for 26 and _eight for 29_, an excellent
performance for any amateur on any wicket.
The last of our three divisions now claims our limited attention, and
here it would be as well if I made yet another apology: the names of
many of the great Australian bowlers have been omitted from these
pages, from the fact that I have so seldom played against them. Of
Giffen, Palmer, Turner, Ferris, Jones, and the “Demon Spofforth” I
wish I could write, but what I could say of them would be as the sum
of the runs I should in all probability have made against them. As I
said before, to the cricketer who has got his heart and soul in the
game, there is nothing much more exhilarating than the sleepy field
being rudely awakened to a just sense of his duties. Speaking from a
spectator’s point of view, there is nothing more exciting than to watch
the uprooting of the sticks, to note their gyration in the direction of
the glorified long stop, and to follow the flight of a bail for fifty
or sixty yards. To this end we must possess ourselves of a really fast
bowler.
The best natural fast bowler, taken at the zenith of his fame, was
Tom Richardson. Those of us that have watched him pounding away hour
after hour and day after day at the Oval, have marvelled much at
the wonderful natural spin, and have marvelled perhaps more at his
inexhaustible energy and neverending fund of good-humour. He was never
tired and never out of sorts, and when the wicket was badly broken
I have known him time after time slacken his great pace for fear of
injuring an opposing batsman. Always, and rightly too, one of the most
popular players that ever stepped on to a cricket-field, still to-day,
when perhaps his prime is past, there is no figure more welcome to the
thousands that throng our grounds than the figure of “Long Tom,” as the
crowds delight to call him. It was indeed a gustable tit-bit to watch
him in 1894 bowl Essex out at the Oval, taking the whole ten wickets
himself.
A noteworthy fact in connection with Richardson, in the four years when
he aggregated over 1000 wickets, was the great success he met with on
all sorts and conditions of wickets. He could be quite as deadly in the
slime or on a drying wicket as on the fieriest piece of asphalt. Now
this ubiquitous wicket-taking is given to practically no fast bowler
that I have ever seen, with the exception of Spofforth, and he did it
not by bowling his usual great pace, as was the case with Richardson,
but by slowing himself down to the speed of a Haigh or a Jack Hearne.
It is the general opinion of many of our greatest cricketers—W. G.
Grace and Ranjitsinhji, for example—that on a fast good wicket, and
when bowling at the top of his form, we have never known the equal of
Lockwood. Bowling with a long bouncing run, he can make the ball flick
higher and faster from the pitch than any other bowler in this our
third class. There is at times the very devil in it, and when the ball
is not rapping incontinently at your fingers, it is hitting the middle
and leg from well outside the off stump. One of the finest balls bowled
that failed to get a wicket was bowled by Lockwood to Ranjitsinhji at
the Oval three or four seasons ago.
[Illustration: _From an Engraving Published in 1784._
_A MATCH AT THE GENTLEMAN’S CLUB, WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE, ISLINGTON._]
I was standing at mid-off, and can see it to this day. Ranjitsinhji had
just come in to bat, and was, I think, still on the mark. It was very
fast; it pitched three to four inches off the off stump, and came back
like lightning. I listened for the pleasing rattle of the sticks, but
at the eleventh hour—no, I had better say the last hundredth part of
a second—Ranjitsinhji’s right leg was bent across, and he received
it full on the thigh. There was no other player living who, having
failed to stop it with his bat, could have got his leg there in time.
He certainly acquired a bruise, but the pain of this surely and swiftly
dwindled in an innings of over 190!
One of the finest victories Surrey ever won over Yorkshire was at the
Oval. On a perfect wicket Surrey scored over 300 on the first day and a
portion of the second. Richardson at the pavilion and Lockwood at the
gasometer end started the attack, and on the same magnificent wicket
_dismissed Yorkshire for 78!_ Of these, Jack Brown made 48! Those of us
who were playing, and those who were lucky enough to have visited the
Oval that day, could never in their lives have seen finer fast bowling.
Both bowled at a tremendous pace, both bowled at the top of their form;
they seemed almost to be bowling man against man, to be vying for
supremacy. It was a great day to catch the finest natural fast bowler
in conjunction with the finest cultivated fast bowler making sad havoc
of a very powerful side. It was in the second innings of Yorkshire that
poor Frank Milligan made his last appearance at the Oval, and right
well he played, making 64 out of a total of 170 odd. (I should have
mentioned before that F. S. Jackson was unfortunately incapacitated
from batting through an injured thumb. This of course greatly weakened
the Yorkshire batting, but at the time Lord Hawke said he had rarely
seen finer bowling.)
Of Arthur Mold this can be said with absolute certainty, that no bowler
ever attained a similar pace with such a minimum of exertion—two or
three long loose strides, two at a trot, and an arm swinging round
like a flail, a good length, great pace, and on any wicket at times a
considerable flick back from the off—a bowler that, like Richardson or
Lockwood, might bowl a man at any period of his innings, however well
set he might be. For as many of us know, there are certain bowlers,
generally of the slow or medium class, that a respectable batsman,
after an hour or so’s stay at the wicket, can negotiate with safety,
unless of course some violent risk be taken. With these three, and
perhaps one or two more, it is quite possible to be bowled neck and
heels when taking no risk whatever.
Of all the other fast bowlers I have met, the majority, and it is a
large majority too, either go with the arm or go up the pitch straight
as a die. Wass and Barnes are exceptions to this general rule, for
under favourable conditions they bowl with a distinct leg break, and
very difficult to play they are.
George Hirst, I think, stands in a section of fast bowlers entirely
his own. It is a curious thing that we possess so few really fast
left-handers. Hirst is equipped not only with great pace, but also
with an extraordinary swerve, that is to say, he does not always have
it under his immediate control, but when starting fresh and with a new
ball, he swirls inwards in a stump-uprooting manner, and the swerve
seems to take place in the last two or three yards of the ball’s
flight. I remember seeing Captain Bush confront him last year at Leeds
for the first time. Hirst came up to the wicket with his swinging run,
the ball left his hand; Bush’s left leg shot out for his slashing
stroke by cover, and it was only by astonishing luck that at the very
last moment he stopped a yorker almost behind his right foot, and in
stopping it overbalanced and lay prone—thus emphasising the luck
he had experienced and the amount of the swerve. With a new ball it
usually stays with him from twenty minutes to an hour, and it can occur
again after a sufficient rest and the acquisition of another new ball.
I think I am doing Rhodes no injustice when I say that for some time
now Hirst has dismissed, largely through this swerve of his, more of
the first five or six batsmen than have fallen to his, Wilfred’s, lot.
Of all the really fast amateur bowlers none have given me so much
pleasure to watch as Sam Woods. At Brighton College they tell me he was
quite as fast as he ever was afterwards all through his first-class
career as a bowler. Personally I experienced the same luck as many
another would-be run-getter who met him for the first time, that is to
say, I went in to bat and came out again without having heard the sound
of the bat striking the ball, b. Woods 0! The pace was bewildering. At
his best and in full health he was as fast as an ordinary player cares
to encounter. Exceedingly even in temper for a fast bowler, there were
only one or two little things that really worried him. One, however,
was to see a man draw away as he came up to the crease with those short
shuffling strides he always adopted. I shall never forget one day at
Fenner’s in some trial match a rather nervous performer against fast
bowling wobbled to the wicket. Sam was bowling _over_ the wicket, and
the newcomer, who practically relied on a very late cut for scoring
purposes, promptly planted him for two or three fours through the
slips, having first withdrawn, at the approach of “the Terror,” in the
direction of the square leg umpire. The same sliding motion at right
angles to the wicket, the same stroke, the same lucky four, and Sam
goes round the wicket. If fast at first, he is faster now, and the
nervous player is still more nervous. The ball comes down well clear
of the leg stick, and is cut _behind the wicket and between the wicket
and the stumper!_—a truly miraculous stroke, and one that I have never
seen executed save on this solitary occasion. Four! but the next was
straight, and it crept a bit, and the nervous batsman retired, having,
however, before his departure credited himself with fifty or so on the
sunburnt “tins.”
Of W. M. Bradley, there is nothing to be said—a natural fast bowler
with the mind of a man and the strength of a bull. I faced him two
years ago at Canterbury. He was bowling against the pavilion and
against the sun; the slope of the ground went with him, a new ball was
in his hand, and it whizzed down the pitch as it left it. It was about
the most uncomfortable ten minutes I ever spent. They came “down the
vale” with a four-inch off break; they grazed one’s ribs, one’s chest,
one’s nose; and at last I was caught in the slips protecting my eye
with my hand. It was on this occasion that I was truly convinced of
what a grand player Tom Hayward is against really fast bowling. Though
we were easily beaten, he made 97 not out! Good boy!
There are many more in this our third class that I should like to write
about, but space and the clock forbid, and so perforce am I compelled
to halt awhile and wait for the little cavalcade of “lobsters” that
are so far behind, so very far behind, the pressing throng of modern
bowlers. To quote from _Wisden_:—
We, the solitary few who still strive to hold upright the tottering
pillars in the ruined temple of lob bowling, unto whose shrine the
bowlers of the olden time for ever flocked, to-day we are but of
small account; there is scarcely a ground in England where derision
is not our lot, or where laughter and jaunting jeers are not hurled
broadcast at us. To-day perhaps to an all-powerful side we are of
little use—to a side that is weak, to a side whose special weakness
is its fielding, we are the strychnine of tonics. By himself stands
Simpson-Hayward, for he “flicks” the ball as we have all seen many
a wrathful billiard-player do when returning the white from a most
unexpected pocket—it spins and spins and breaks sharply from the
off, and it sometimes hits the wicket. There are two more, Wynyard
and myself, and we both bowl in the old, old way, and we bowl with
a persistence born of tentative success—occasionally we hook a
fish, and great is our rejoicing. We are both fond of this bowling,
I particularly so, and when on many a ground throughout the country
there has arisen on every side the gentle sound of “Take him orf! Take
him orf!” were it not that the side ever comes before oneself, I would
bowl, and bowl, and bowl, until at eventide the cows come home.—
D. L. A. J., _Wisden_, 1902.
[Illustration:
_From a Painting by_ _C. J. Basébe._
_KENNINGTON OVAL IN 1849._]
[Illustration]