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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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