Part 11

The amusing part is, that this cry of “What rubbish!” has been going on for years, and still the same error prevails. Experience is not like anything hereditary: the generations of eels do not get used to being skinned, nor do the generations of men get tired of doing the same foolish thing. Each must suffer _propriâ personâ_, and not by proxy. So, the gradual development of the human mind against Clarke’s bowling is for the most part this:--first, a state of confidence in hitting every ball; secondly, a state of disgust and contempt at what seems only too easy for a scientific player to practise; and, lastly, a slowly increasing conviction that the batsman must have as much head as the bowler, with patience to play an unusual number of good lengths.

Slow bowling is most effective when there is a fast bowler at the other end. It is very puzzling to alter your time in forward play from fast to slow, and slow to fast, every Over: so, Clarke and Wisden work well together. A shooter from a slow bowler is sometimes found even more difficult than one from a fast bowler: and this for two reasons; first, because the batsman is made up for slow time and less prepared for fast; and, secondly, because a good slow ball is pitched further up, and, therefore, though the fast ball shoots quicker, the slow ball has the shorter distance to shoot into the wicket.

Compare the several styles of bowling in the following diagram. A good length ball, you see, pitches nearer to the bat in proportion to the slowness of its pace. Wisden is not so fast, nor is Clarke as slow, practically, as they respectively appear. With Wisden’s straight lines, it is far easier to calculate where the ball will pitch, than with the curved lines and dropping balls of Clarke; and when Wisden’s ball has pitched, though its pace is quicker, the distance it has to come is so much longer, that Clarke, in effect, is not so much slower, as he may appear. Lillywhite and Hillyer are of a medium kind; having partly the quickness of Wisden’s pace, and partly the advantage of Clarke’s curved lines and near pitch. From this diagram it appears that the slower the bowling the nearer it may be pitched, and the less the space the bat can cover; also, the more difficult is the ball to judge; for, the curved line of a dropping ball is very deceiving to the eye.

In speaking of Clarke’s bowling, men commonly imply that the slowness is its only difficulty. Now a ball cannot be more difficult for hand or eye because it moves slowly. No; the slower the easier; but the difficulty arises from the following qualities, wholly distinct from the pace, though certainly it is the slowness that renders those qualities possible:--

1st. Clarke’s lengths are more accurate.

2dly. He can vary his pace unobserved, without varying his action or delivery.

3dly. More of his balls would hit the wicket.

4thly. A slow ball must be played: it will not play itself.

5thly. Clarke can more readily take advantage of each man’s weak point.

6thly. Slow bowling admits of more bias.

7thly. The length is more difficult to judge, owing to the curved lines.

8thly. It requires the greatest accuracy in hitting. You must play at the ball with short, quick action where it actually is, and not by calculation of its rise, or where it will be.

9thly. Slow balls can be pitched nearer to the bat, affording a shorter sight of the rise.

10thly. Catches and chances of stumping are more frequent, and less likely to be missed.

11thly. The curved lines and the straightness preclude cutting, and render it dangerous to cross the ball in playing to leg.

One artifice of Clarke, and of all good slow bowlers, is this: to begin with a ball or two which may easily be played back; then, with a much higher toss and slower pace, as in the diagram, he pitches a little short of the usual spot. If the batsman’s eye is deceived as to the distance, he at once plays forward to a length which is at all times dangerous; and, as it rises higher, the play becomes more dangerous still.

The difficulty of “going in” to such bowling as Clarke’s, depends on this:--

The bat is only four inches and a quarter wide: call half that width two inches of wood. Then, you can only have two inches to spare for the deviation of your hit; therefore, if a ball turns about two inches, while you are in the act of hitting, the truest hitter possible must miss.

The obvious conclusion from these facts is,--

1st. That you can safely go in to such balls only as are straight, otherwise you cannot present a full bat; and, only when you can step right up to the pitch of the ball, otherwise, by a twist it will escape you; and slow balls turn more than fast in a given space. 2ndly. You can only go in to such lengths as you can easily and steadily command: a very long step, or any unusual hurry, will hardly be safe with only the said two inches of wood to spare.

Now the question is, with what lengths, against such bowling as Clarke’s, can you step in steadily and safely, both as far as the pitch, and with full command of hand and eye? Remember, you cannot begin your step till you have judged the length; and this, with the curved line of a slow dropping ball, you cannot judge till within a little of its grounding; so, the critical time for decision and action is very brief, and, in that brief space, how far can you step secure of all optical illusions, for, Clarke can deceive you by varying both the pace and the curve of his ball?--Go and try. Again, when you have stepped in, where will you hit? On the ground, of course, and straight. And where are the men placed? Besides, are you aware of the difficulty of interchanging the steady game with right foot in your ground, with that springy and spasmodic impulse which characterises this “going in?” At a match at Lord’s in 1849, I saw Brockwell score some forty runs with many hits off Clarke: he said to me, when he came out, “Clarke cannot bowl his best to me; for, sometimes, I go in to the pitch of the ball, when pitched well up, and hit her away; at other times, I make a feint, and then stand back, and so Clarke gets off his bowling.” He added, “the difficulty is to keep your temper and not to go in with a wrong ball.” This, I believe, is indeed a difficulty,--a much greater difficulty than is commonly imagined. My advice to all players who have not made a study of the art of going in, and have not fully succeeded on practising days, is, by no means to attempt it in a match. It is not so easy as it appears. You will find Clarke, or any good slow bowler, too much for you.--“But, supposing I should stand out of my ground, or start before the ball is out of the bowler’s hand?” Why, with an unpractised bowler, especially if in the constrained attitude of the overhand delivery, this manœuvre has succeeded in producing threes and fours in rapid succession. But Clarke would pitch over your head, or send in a quick underhand ball a little wide, and you would be stumped; and Wisden would probably send a fast toss about the height of your shoulder, and, being prepared to play perfectly straight at the pitch, you would hardly raise your bat in time to keep a swift toss out of the wicket-keeper’s hands.

The difficulty of curvilinear bowling is this:--

1st. As in making a catch, every fieldsman finds that, in proportion as the ball has been hit up in the air, it is difficult to judge where to place himself: by the same law of sight, a fast ball that goes almost point-blank to its pitch, is far easier to judge than a slow ball that descends in a curve.

2ndly. As the slow ball reaches the ground at a greater angle, it must rise higher in a given space; so, if the batsman misjudges the pitch of a slow ball by a foot, he will misjudge the rise to a greater extent than with a fast ball, which rises less abruptly. Hence, playing forward is less easy with slow, than with fast, bowling.

3dly. As to timing the ball, all the eye can discern in a body moving directly towards it, is the angle with the ground: to see the curve of a dropping ball you must have a side view. The man at Point can see the curve clearly; but not so the batsman. Consequently, the effect of the curve is left out in the calculation, and the exact time of the ball’s approach is, to that extent, mistaken. Every one knows the difficulty of making a good half-volley-hit off a slow ball, because the timing is so difficult: great speed without a curve is less puzzling to the eye than a curvilinear movement, however slow. It were odd, indeed, if it were harder to hit a slow than a fast ball. No. It is the curve that makes difficult what of its pace alone would be easy. All forward play, with slow bowling, is beset with the great difficulty of allowing for the curve. And what style of play does this suggest? Why, precisely what Clarke has himself remarked,--namely, that to fix the right foot as for fast bowling, and play with long reach forward, does not answer. You must be quick on your feet, and, by short quick action of the arms, hit the ball actually as it is, and not as you calculate it will be a second later. This is the system of men who play Clarke best; of Mr. Vernon, of Fuller Pilch, of Hunt of Sheffield, and of C. Browne: though these men also dodge Clarke; and, pretending sometimes to go out, deceive him into dropping short, and so play their heads against his. The best bowling is sometimes hit; but I have not heard of any man who found it much easier to score off Clarke than off other good bowlers. To play Clarke “on any foregone conclusion” is fatal. Every ball must be judged by its respective merits and played accordingly.

Again, as to cutting, or in any way crossing, these dropping or curvilinear balls. As a slow ball rises twice as much in a given space as a fast ball, of course the chances are greater that the bat will not cover the ball at the point at which, by anticipation, you cut. If you cut at a fast ball, the height of its rise is nearly uniform, and its course a straight line: so, most men like very fast bowling, because, if the hand is quick enough, the judgment is not easily deceived, for the ball moves nearly in straight lines. But, in cutting or in crossing a slow ball, the height of the rise varies enough to produce a mistake while the bat is descending on the ball.

Once more, in playing at a ball after its rise, a safe and forcible hit can only be made in two ways. You must either meet the ball with full and straight bat, or cut horizontally across it. Now, as slow balls generally rise too high for a hard hit with perpendicular bat, you are reduced generally to the difficulties of cutting or back play. Add to all this, that the bias from the hand and from the inequalities of the ground is much greater, and also that a catch, resulting from a feeble hit and the ball spinning off the edge of the bat, remains commonly so long in the air that every fieldsman can cover double his usual quantity of ground, and then we shall cease to wonder that the best players cannot score fast off slow bowling.

CHAP. IX.

BOWLING.--AN HOUR WITH “OLD CLARKE.”

In cricket wisdom Clarke is truly “Old:” what he has learnt from anybody, he learnt from Lambert. But he is a man who thinks for himself, and knows men and manners, and has many wily devices, “_splendidè mendax_.” “I beg your pardon, sir,” he one day said to a gentleman taking guard, “but ain’t you Harrow?”--“Then we shan’t want a man down there,” he said, addressing a fieldsman; “stand for the ‘Harrow drive,’ between point and middle wicket.”

The time to see Clarke is on the morning of a match. While others are practising, he walks round with his hands under the flaps of his coat, reconnoitring his adversaries’ wicket.

“Before you bowl to a man, it is worth something to know what is running in his head. That gentleman,” he will say, “is too fast on his feet, so, as good as ready money to me: if he doesn’t hit he can’t score; if he does I shall have him directly.”

Going a little further, he sees a man lobbing to another, who is practising stepping in. “There, sir, is ‘practising to play Clarke,’ that is very plain; and a nice mess, you will see, he will make of it. Ah! my friend, if you do go in at all, you must go in further than that, or my twist will beat you; and, going in to swipe round, eh! Learn to run me down with a straight bat, and I will say something to you. But that wouldn’t score quite fast enough for your notions. Going in to hit round is a tempting of Providence.”

“There, that man is purely stupid: alter the pace and height with a dropping ball, and I shall have no trouble with him. They think, sir, it is nothing but ‘Clarke’s vexatious pace:’ they know nothing about the curves. With fast bowling, you cannot have half my variety; and when you have found out the weak point, where’s the fast bowler that can give the exact ball to hit it? There is often no more head-work in fast bowling than there is in the catapult: without head-work I should be hit out of the field.”

“A man is never more taken aback than when he prepares for one ball, and I bowl him the contrary one: there was Mr. Nameless, the first time he came to Nottingham, full of fancies about playing me. The first ball, he walked some yards out to meet me, and I pitched over his head, so near his wicket, that, thought I, that bird won’t fight again. Next ball, he was a little cunning, and made a feint of coming out, meaning, as I guessed, to stand back for a long hop; so I pitched right up to him; and he was so bent upon cutting me away, that he hit his own wicket down!”

Look at diagrams page 179. Clarke is there represented as bowling two balls of different lengths; but the increased height of the shorter pitched ball, by a natural ocular delusion, makes it appear as far pitched as the other. If the batsman is deceived in playing at both balls by the same forward play, he endangers his wicket. “See, there,” continues Clarke, “that gentleman’s _is_ a dodge certainly, but not a new one either. He does step in, it is true; but while hitting at the ball, he is so anxious about getting back again, that his position has all the danger of stepping in, and none of its advantages.”

“Then there is Mr. ----,” naming a _great_ man struggling with adversity. “He gives a jump up off his feet, and thinks he is stepping in, but comes flump down just where he was before.”

“Pilch plays me better than any one. But he knows better than to step in to every ball, or to stand fast every ball. He plays steadily, and discriminates, waiting till I give him a chance, and then makes the most of it.”

Bowling consists of two parts: there is the mechanical part, and the intellectual part. First, you want the hand to pitch where you please, and then the head to know where to pitch, according to the player.

To LEARN THE ART OF BOWLING.--1. First, consult with some Lillywhite or Wisden, and fix on one, and one only, plan of holding the ball, manageable pace, and general style of delivery. Consult and experiment till you have chosen the style that suits the play of your muscles and your strength. If you choose a violent and laborious style, you will certainly become tired of it: but a style within your strength will be so delightful that you will be always practising. Secondly, having definitely chosen one form and style of bowling, the next thing is to fix it and form it into a habit: for, on the law of Habit a bowler’s accuracy entirely depends.

To form a steady habit of bowling, the nerves and muscles being a very delicate machinery, you must be careful to use them in one way, and one way only; for then they will come to serve you truly and mechanically: but, even a few hours spent in loose play--in bowling with few steps or many, or with a new mode of delivery--will often establish conflicting habits, or call into action a new set of muscles, to interfere with the muscles on which you mainly depend. Many good players (including the most destructive of the Gentleman’s Eleven!) have lost their bowling by these experiments: many more have been thrown back when near perfection. Therefore,

2. Never bowl a single ball but in your chosen and adopted form and style--with the same steps, and with the ball held in the same way. “If these seem small things, habit is not a small thing.” Also, never go on when you are too tired to command your muscles; else, you will be twisting yourself out of form, and calling new and conflicting muscles into action.

As to Pace, if your strength and stature is little, your pace cannot be fast. Be contented with being rather a slow bowler. By commencing slowly, if any pace is in you, it will not be lost; but by commencing fast, you will spoil all.

3. Let your carriage be upright though easy; and start composedly from a state of perfect rest. Let your steps, especially the last, be short; and, for firm foothold, and to avoid shaking yourself or cutting up the ground, learn to descend not on the heel but more on the toe and flat of the foot, and so as to have both feet in the line of the opposite wicket. For,

4. A golden rule for straight bowling is to present, at delivery, a full face to the opposite wicket; the shoulders being in the same line, or parallel with, the crease. That is the moment to quit the ball--a moment sooner and you will bowl wide to the leg, a moment later and you will bowl wide to the Off. Observe Wisden and Hillyer. They deliver just as their front is square with the opposite wicket. They look well at their mark, and bowl before they have swung too far round for the line of sight to be out of the line of the wicket. Observe, also, bad bowlers, and you will see a uniformity in their deviation: some bowl regularly too much to the On; others as regularly to the Off. Then, watch their shoulders; and you will recognise a corresponding error in their delivery. The wonder is that such men should ever bowl straight.

Also, adopt a run of from five to seven yards. Let your run be quite straight; not from side to side, still less crossing your legs as you run.

5. “Practise,” says Lillywhite, “both sides of the wicket. To be able to change sides, is highly useful when the ground is worn, and it often proves puzzling to the batsman.”

6. Hold the ball in the fingers, not in the palm, and always the same way. If the tips of the fingers touch the seam of the ball, it will assist in the spin. The little finger “guides” the ball in the delivery.

7. The essence of a good delivery is to send the ball forth rotating, or turning on its own axis. The more spin you give the ball, the better the delivery; because then the ball will twist, rise quickly, or cut variously, the instant it touches the ground.

8. This spin must not proceed from any conscious action of the fingers, but from some mechanical action of the arm and wrist. Clarke is not conscious of any attempt to make his ball spin or twist: a certain action has become habitual to him. He may endeavour to increase this tendency sometimes; but no bowling could be uniform that depended so much on the nerves, or on such nice feeling as this attention to the fingers would involve. A bowler must acquire a certain mechanical swing, with measured steps and uniform action and carriage of the body, till at length, as with a gun, hand and eye naturally go together. In rowing, if you look at your oar, you cut crabs. In skating, if you look at the ice and think of your steps, you lose the freedom and the flow of your circles. So, with bowling, having decided on your steps and one mode of delivery, you must practise this alone, and think more of the wicket than of your feet or your hand.

To assist the spin of the ball, a good bowler will not stop short, but will rather follow the ball, or, give way to it, after delivery, for one or two steps. Some bowlers even continue the twisting action of the hand after the ball has left it.

9. Commence with a very low delivery. Cobbett, and others of the best bowlers, began underhand. The lower the hand, the more the spin, and the quicker the rise. Unfair or throwing bowlers never have a first-rate delivery. See how easy to play is a throw, or a ball from a catapult; and simply because the ball has then no spin. Redgate showed how bowling may be most fair and most effective. No man ever took Pilch’s wicket so often. His delivery was easy and natural; he had a thorough command of his arm, and gave great spin to the ball. In Kent against England, at Town Malling, he bowled the finest Over on record. The first ball just grazed Pilch’s wicket; the second took his bails; the third ball levelled Mynn, and the fourth Stearman; three of the best bats of the day.

10. Practise a little and often. If you over-fatigue the muscles, you spoil their tone for a time. Bowling, as we said of batting, must become a matter of habit; and habits are formed by frequent repetition. Let the bowlers of Eton, Harrow, and Winchester resolve to bowl, if it be but a dozen balls, every day, wet or fine. Intermission is very prejudicial.

11. The difficulty is to pitch far enough. Commence, according to your strength, eighteen or nineteen yards, and increase to twenty-two by degrees. Most amateurs bowl long hops.

12. Seek accuracy more than speed: a man of fourteen stone is not to be imitated by a youth of eight stone. Many batsmen like swift bowling, and why? Because the length is easier to judge; the lines are straighter for a cut; the ball wants little accuracy of hitting; fast bowlers very rarely pitch quite as far even as they might, for this requires much extra power; fast balls twist less in a given space than slow balls, and rarely increase their speed at the rise in the same proportion as slow balls; fast bowling gives fewer chances that the fieldsman can take advantage of, and admits generally of less variety; fewer fast balls are pitched straight, and fewer even of those would hit the wicket. You may find a Redgate, a Wisden, or a Mynn, who can bring fast bowling under command for one or two seasons; but these are exceptions too solitary to afford a precedent. Even these men were naturally of a fast pace: swiftness was not their chief object. So, study accurate bowling, and let speed come of itself.

So much for attaining the power of a bowler; next to apply it. Not only practise, but _study_ bowling: to pelt away mechanically, with the same lengths and same pace, is excusable in a catapult, but not in a man.--Can your adversary guard leg-stump or off-stump? Can he judge a length? Can he allow for a curve? Can he play well over an off-ball to prevent a catch? Can you deceive him with time or pace? Is he a young gentleman, or an old gentleman?--

“_Ætatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores._”

1. Pitch as near the bat as you can without being hit away. The bowler’s chance is to compel back play with the shortest possible sight of the rise.

2. If three good balls have been stopped, the fourth is often destructive, because the batsman’s patience is exhausted: so take pains with the fourth ball of the Over.

3. The straighter the ball, the more puzzling to the eye, and the more cramping to the hand of the batsman.

4. Short-pitched balls are not only easier to hit, but have more scope for missing the wicket, though pitched straight.

5. A free leg-hitter may often be put out by placing an extra man On side, and bowling repeatedly at leg-stump--only do not pitch very far up to him. Short-pitched leg-balls are the most difficult to hit, and produce most catches. By four or five attempts at leg-hitting, a man gains a tendency to swing round, and is off his straight play.