Though placed in point of order second to Fielding, I must be allowed to qualify somewhat the observations before made upon the relative importance of the two. In giving Fielding the first place, I looked at the game as it is, and not as it might be. Of course if you will get bowlers so accurate that every ball should be straight to the wicket, and pitched directly in the manner most difficult to play, then the field might become a subordinate part; but even against bowling such as this a batsman with no fear of the field before his eyes might knock up a very pretty score before finally disposed of.
Moreover, very few men can go on bowling their best when chances from the bat are not taken, or when runs are thrown away through bad fielding.
Even the best bowlers must miss the wicket sometimes, and if the wicket-keeper is a muff, and long-stop incompetent, the runs from byes quickly assume formidable dimensions. The bowling of the present day is of two kinds - Bound Arm and Underhand.
NOTE: This was in 1900s. Underhand is no longer legal and you can ignore the following paragraphs in italics
Of those two, the first is the only form tolerated by young players, and even by many of more experience, who ought to know better. Doubtless, round-arm bowling, like that of a few of the leading 'cracks,' is ahead of underhand, but these are exceptional cases; Men with Special Gifts; And even with them the art was not acquired nor kept up with out an amount of patient practice, for which few can or ought to spare the time.Underhand bowling, on the contrary, requires no extraordinary exertions of the muscles, no swing of the body, the arm being allowed to swing in its natural line of motion, as a pendulum, and yet it allows of great precision, gives room for the development of bias in the ball, far more destructive than mere speed, is not incompatible with a very considerable degree of swiftness; and finally, but not least, is not by many degrees so fatiguing as round-arm delivery.
Should round-arm bowling then; be laid on one side in
favor of the underhand? Certainly not; if a young player has the talent and
takes to round arm naturally, finds it not too fatiguing, and feels it an
actual muscular pleasure to bowl in this way, he would only be thrown
away as an underhand bowler.
But let each follow his own beat - his physical bent, I mean; and let
there be no more forcing of round arm bowling, just because it is 'the thing.
Men are to be found, like Blondin or Leotard, who can perform the most extraordinary feats, and do with apparent ease what the vast majority of ordinary mortals could never do at all. But we cannot be all Leotards or Blondins. Ambition is all very well in its way, but we should remember there is such a thing as aspiring too high, and toppling over on the other side. My advice to the beginner is, to make up his mind quickly as to what style he will adopt. If round-arm bowling comes naturally and easily to him, and if he has time for the constant practice necessary for him to acquire the art and keep it up, let him not be content with underhand. But if there be any failure in one of these items he had better abandon the idea of round-hand bowling for once and forever, and strive to attain what excellence he may be underhand. In the latter style, he may do something, even, perhaps, great things, while he is sure to do little or nothing in the former.
We will suppose that round-arm bowling has been found
within the
compass of the beginner's capabilities: how should he
proceed in
order to make the most of his powers?
First, then, to hold the ball.
The ball should be held in the fingers, not the palm of
the right hand
- if right-handed - the fingers being well wrapped round
it - and should be lightly retained in its place by the thumb.
Many bowlers hold the ball in its place with the fingers
of the other
hand till the ball is swung back for delivery. In
delivering the ball,
the arm must be swung round in a semi-circle and stretched
right
out from the shoulder; the nearer the arm is to the
horizontal the
more bias will there be on the bowling,
and the ball must
be delivered as the chest and arm come square with the wicket. If the
delivery be earlier than this the ball will have a tendency to go wild
to leg, and if later to visit the slips.
The body must be held well upright, the chest projected,
and great care must be taken to avoid stiffness of action; the play
of all the joints should be quite free and unrestrained. It is well
to acquire a fixed habit of delivery, to accustom oneself to a certain
unvarying regularity as of a machine.
The slight variation necessary to change the pitch, etc.,
of the ball will in a very short time become a mere matter of
volition. Even the number of steps in advancing to the wicket should be made
a matter of custom to be rigidly adhered to. The ball should not be
allowed to leave the fingers all at once like a stone from a sling, i.e.
with no motion but a forward one, a ball thus delivered is
a very simple and easy one for a batsman to deal with.
The fingers must be
unwrapped from the ball, as it were, singly, and its final
impulse should come from their tips; this will impart to it the
rotation on its axis or bias, in which lies all the life of good bowling.
A ball thus rotating will not rise from the ground after
the pitch at the same angle, and in the same line of direction as
before, it will take a new course altogether, more or less erratic
according as its rotation was more or less rapid.
Exactly, after the manner, in fact, and upon precisely the same
principle as a billiard ball with the 'screw' on it, or a bowl with a
bias.
Then, the plainest bowling becomes dangerous, and deadly to all, but the most rigidly exact defense.
A lively bias super added, backed by sufficient judgment to direct it, and the finest batting in the world will make but little head against it.
The exact spot upon which to pitch the ball varies very much with
the speed of the bowling. The faster the bowling, the shorter must be the
pitch, and vice versa.
From medium pace bowling, and to a batsman of ordinary stature,
the pitch may be from ten to eleven feet in front of the wicket.
In mere practice it is a good plan to fasten a piece of white paper, or
put a dab of whitewash, to mark the exact spot, and the bowler
should then endeavor to pitch every ball as nearly upon it as possible.
A few half hours of sedulous practice in this way will, if the bowler
has it in him, produce results that will surprise even himself.
But he must not be satisfied with an occasional drop upon the spot.
At least three balls out of every four should be within an
inch or so of it - an amateur must not hope to attain perfect accuracy before
he rests content.
And even then his 'rest and be thankful' should be only a
rest preparatory to further and more sustained efforts.
I am thus particular upon this point because accuracy in it is the
one essential without which all other qualities are simply thrown away.
And, moreover, it is only when a bowler has
mastered all the mere mechanical details, that he can begin to use his head in
bowling.
Then he can venture to try various lengths and curves upon the batsman; for it is no use discovering a weak point if there is not mechanical skill and precision enough to take advantage of it.
As I said before, for every batsman there is a special point on or about which the ball ought to pitch, so as to prove most troublesome to the batsman. A ball pitched exactly upon this spot is called a 'length-ball' - all others are non-lengths.
If they fall nearer the batsman they are said to be
over-pitched, if further away they are called short-pitches, or long-hops.
A ball that does not rise after it takes the ground but
runs along it,
is called a 'shooter,' and is one of the most difficult
possible to play.
Length balls are thus the perfection of bowling, and
it must be the
bowler's first object to find out the exact length most
puzzling to each individual batsman.
Only he should remember this, that the nearer he can pitch
to the bat without being hit away, the more difficult will his bowling prove.
First class men, in the past generation, like Lilliewhite,
Clarke, and their compeers, and a few in the present, will advance the
pitch of the ball, inch by inch, to the extreme verge of safety, and having
discovered the raw, cooly peg away at it until
the batsman makes a mistake, which, as Artemus Ward says, must be
eventually if not sooner, and then there is trouble among the wickets.
The rationale of this is, that with good bowling the ball
can only be
judged from the pitch; the least bias making its rise and
subsequent
flight out of all calculation.
The first pitch of the ball, therefore, only indicates the
point of
departure of the ball in its second and more important
flight.
With downright fast bowling all the resources of the
bowler are, by
the very nature of things, confined to variation of time
and pitch,
both very useful in misleading a batsman, but still,
against a good
defense, not by any means so destructive as the more
delicate
weapons of finesse in the power of the bowler of more
moderate
type.
The swift bowler, in fact, trusts for success mostly to
his mere swiftness, while the medium and slow bowler trusts to head
work and delicate manipulation of the ball.
The one is pure brute force, very telling in the hand of
peculiarly gifted men, especially on rough ground, while the other
may be called The Chess of Cricket.
Fast Bowling, moreover, has one failing which is, in my opinion,
except in cases like those above mentioned, a very great objection
to it, unless it is very good it loses more in runs than it gains in
wickets, however good may be the fielding.
The cause of this is, that the bowler is dependant upon the
wicket-keeper and long-stop to save byes, a work of unparalleled
difficulty with fast bowling, unless the ground be of the truest and
the bowling of the straightest.
All these considerations lead me to advise the amateur not
to attempt any great pace, unless it comes naturally, not to rest
content with a medium and more manageable pace.
There is a style of bowling coming very much into favor of
late years, about which I must say a few words. I mean Slows -
though why called slows I cannot quite understand.
Some men undoubtedly do bowl most unmitigated slows; but the
great masters of the art certainly do not bowl slows; but the great
masters of the art certainly do not bowl slow.
It is a great puzzle to many people how bowling of this
simple (looking) kind can prove so exceedingly formidable to the
batsman. I have heard it seriously maintained even by seasoned
cricketers -victims themselves more than once to these 'deadly slows' - that
the whole danger of them lies in the over-confidence bred in
the batsman by their simplicity.
Being a bowler of this type myself, I have had to bear much contumely and neglect, to listen to numberless lectures, even from men whose wickets have paid penalty to my bowling, that is not cricket, and only fit for 'duffers. However, the fair conviction is gradually forcing its way that fair underhand bowling is better and more cricketer-like than poor round-arm; the only thing tolerated a few years back. And more and more every season is there to be found fast bowling at one end of the wickets, and slow at the other. The once-condemned art is now an object of envy to its possessor, and those who once despised it come to learn its elementary principles.
Since 'slows' are thus rising into importance, let us inquire into the
art and philosophy of them. I must request by readers to remember,
that in cricket, as in war, time is everything.
All that a batsman wants is time to judge the ball; grant that, and the
variest duffer in creation could keep his wickets up for ever.
But what the batsman wants is exactly what the bowler must
not give him.
The bowler's first object, therefore, after securing tolerable
accuracy of direction, is to give the batsman as Little Time as
Possible in which to make up his mind; and he attains it in one of
three ways:
Granting equal proficiency in the bowling, and the result is much the same. But there is this to be remembered, that the fast and medium pace round-arm is altogether an artificial production, depending entirely upon an unnatural use of the muscles of the arm and shoulder, capable of being brought to perfection but by few. The percentage decreasing rapidly as the pace is increasing. Not that the slower bowling is easy or of simple acquirement.
A swift ball pitches shorter, but comes in quicker; a slow
ball pitches farther, but takes a longer time getting over the
same distance.
But the real power of slow bowling lies in the following:
He can puzzle the batsman by varying curves and delivery,
as to the exact spot on which each ball will pitch, and by eccentric
bias, puzzling him still more afterwards, force him to meet the
ball with a straight bat, and play well down every ball that cannot be
fairly hit, under the penalty of giving a chance to the field.
A spinning ball has, unless the batsman be very careful a
very uncomfortable habit of running up the bat and flying off
at quite an unexpected angle into the ready hands of point or slip,
the easiest catch possible - a circumstance, the mortification of
which is not decreased by the accident being laid to the account of the
bad batting instead of to the credit of the good bowler.
This, then, is the stronghold of the slow bowler.
To the spectator at the side this ruse will be at once
detected - but the batsman, it must be remembered, sees the ball end on,
and therefore has scarcely any data to guide him except the height of
the ball in its first flight.
If this, therefore, be varied in inverse order to what
would be the ordinary rule, it is not remarkable that he should be
sometimes at fault.
The bowler that can bowl most length balls - straightness
being understood - is the best bowler in the end whatever his pace.
Advice to Young Bowlers. Having adopted your style - form
it, if possible, upon the model of one of the leading bowlers of the day,
fast, medium, or slow, as the case may be - be careful to bowl in as
plain a manner as possible.
All mannerisms are either the result of affectation, and
consequently simply detestable, or of mere unmeaning habit, and
therefore unnecessary - away with them.
Bowl as upright as possible; every inch of height is an advantage, and moreover, the more upright you stand the better your command over your muscles. Finally, keep the body as steady as you can, compatibly with free and easy movement of the muscles.
Remember, that in underhand bowling, especially, the shoulder is the fulcrum from which the power is obtained, and if that be unsteady, ow can the arm depending therefrom work truly?
A steady arm and hand, a ready wit, and a good eye, not to forget an even temper, with attention and practice are the making of a good bowler.