Although power of pace, straightness, and command over the ball are the really essential qualities of good fast bowling—as, indeed, of all sorts—there are many occasions when fortune smiles upon bowling which possesses none of these good attributes. And it is for this reason, we think, that every cricketer should be able to bowl when called upon to do so by his captain. Every man who has played cricket has bowled at a net, and he certainly has an action which is different from everybody else’s. As a rule, men who are not considered regular bowlers can send the ball in somehow or other at a fairly fast pace more or less straight, and these unknown, wild, and erratic bowlers often succeed in getting rid of well-set batsmen who have defied all the efforts of the recognised bowlers of the side. There are numerous instances of a side being deeply indebted to a bowler who never before nor afterwards showed the slightest ability to get wickets. In Australia in 1882, when Ivo Bligh’s English team was playing combined Australia, on a certain occasion two of the best Australian batsmen—Murdoch and Bannerman—seemed immovable. They had been in for about an hour, and every one of the regular English bowlers had been on and off. A suggestion was made to try C. F. H. Leslie. Now this gentleman, with all his great merits, was never, even in the estimation of his best friends, a great bowler. But on he went with pleasure, as every cricketer should when ordered. The first ball was a very fast one, rather wide, the second ditto, but the third one—‘Ah, the third!’—was a head ball, designed after the manner of Spofforth’s best; and it pitched on the middle of Murdoch’s middle stump! The next comer was Horan, at that time the reputed best player of fast bowling in the Colonies. A very fast long-hop, wide on the off side, was prettily cut straight into Barlow’s hands at third man, and Mr. Leslie had secured two wickets for no runs. He continued for another over or two, had Bannerman beautifully stumped by Mr. Tylecote off a fast wide half-volley on the leg side, and then retired in favour of one of the regular bowlers, after having, simply by wild erratic fast delivery, lowered three of the best Australian wickets. We give this as an example of the principle that every cricketer should try to bowl, and if he finds that he cannot attain to any efficiency, even with constant practice, then let him try to ‘sling in’ as hard as ever he possibly can; he will often be of use to his side when in a fix.
Before leaving the subject of fast bowling a word must be said about what—some years ago, and again now—may be called the great cricket bugbear of the last few years—viz. throwing. It is worthy of notice that when over-arm bowling was first allowed a great outcry arose, and there were not wanting those who prophesied that this ‘hand over head’ style would ultimately result in ‘a mere over-hand throw—a kind of pelting, with a little mannerism or flourish to disguise it.’ Now it is an astonishing thing that, in a great variety of cases, this is just what actually has happened. Some of the bowling that has been allowed to pass unnoticed by umpires is well described by the phrase quoted; but, although this is so, there are many minor offenders whom all would like to see pulled up short, not out of any ill-will to them personally, but in the interests of the game. Now throwing is most pernicious to cricket, and is calculated, if allowed to increase (as it surely will unless promptly suppressed by the authorities, backed by public opinion), to exercise a most disastrous effect on the game. The subject of throwing is sometimes pooh-poohed by prominent cricketers, who have remarked, ‘What does it matter whether a man bowls or throws?’ If it makes no difference, by all means let the M.C.C. at once expunge the rule relating to throwing and jerking. But let us pause for a moment to see if there are any reasons to suppose that it does make a difference. There are, in truth, two very good reasons why throwing should be stopped. First, if it were allowed it would seriously interfere with the art of bowling. The reasons for this proposition are as follows: In throwing there is no scope for dissimilarity of style. All men who throw must, from the very nature of the delivery, send the ball on its course with exactly the same description of spin. It is impossible for a thrower to make the ball go across the wicket from the leg to the on side; every ball which leaves a thrower’s hand has the off-side spin on it, and none other is possible. Any style which tends to cramp bowling, as this does, must be bad. Again, a throwing bowler cannot change his pace as other bowlers do; he dare not bowl the slow high-dropping ball so successfully used by Spofforth and others, because he knows that when his arm and wrist move slowly the unfair jerk of the wrist and elbow will be more manifest than when it is partially concealed by the usual quick movement of his arm. If throwing tends to cramp bowling, as it does, and render certain essentials for the development of the science impossible, then it must be injurious to the game. Secondly, if throwing were allowed the batsman would be in a position of considerable danger. Many cricketers say, ‘Let throwers alone, they are always easy to play;’ and this, no doubt, is so, for the reasons given above, especially when every thrower must, for the sake of appearances, adopt some slight measure of disguise in his action; but once let it be recognised that throwing is part of the game, and a race of sturdy chuckers will spring up, whose pace will be so terrific that the best and pluckiest batsman will not be able to defend his body, much less his wicket, against their lightning-like deliveries. Imagine what it would be if Bonnor, or Forbes, or Game were to be allowed to throw, all of them having thrown in their best days as much as 120 yards—is it likely that a batsman at a distance of only twenty-one yards could be quick enough with his bat to stop such bowling? Even with an ordinary fast bowler a batsman has sometimes difficulty in preventing himself from being struck by the ball, and with an undisguised thrower the danger would be tenfold.
The question then arises, what can be done to stop the throwing nuisance? And it is one which every member of the cricket-loving community should ask himself. It is a question of the greatest difficulty, as is evident from the fact that the committee of the M.C.C. have so far found it impossible to legislate with regard to the nuisance. The committee has done everything in its power; it has instructed the umpires to watch closely the delivery of every doubtful bowler, and probably the umpires have acted fully up to their instructions; but they have stopped here, and absolutely refused to report to the world the result of their careful observations. It is a fact that of late years no professional umpire in a first-class match has no-balled a professional bowler for throwing. This is not to be wondered at: professional umpires themselves have been professional bowlers, and they cannot bring themselves to take the bread out of the mouth of one of their own class by no-balling him, and stigmatising him at once and for ever as a ‘thrower.’
We cannot get amateur umpires to stand: these would, no doubt, fearlessly no-ball any unfair bowler; but if we could, we should probably find that the quantity of bad decisions in the course of the year would be greatly increased. An umpire wants practice and experience in keeping his attention and whole mind fixed impartially on the game, and this can only be acquired by those who stand day after day in that capacity.
The only way, then, to our mind, to stop throwing, as the M.C.C. cannot and the umpires will not, is to get public opinion to step in and sweep it off our cricket grounds. Let every amateur cricketer, whether he plays for his county or his village club, set his face resolutely against the evil, and do his utmost to discourage it. If an ‘Anti-Throwing Society’ could be established amongst cricketers, we firmly believe it would effect its object.
In the North of England, where the game is ever increasingly popular, there are many ‘chuckers’ to be met with. The clubs who do not possess, to say the least, a doubtful bowler are, we should say from our experience, in the minority. Young professional bowlers see the general laxity that prevails, and adopt the peculiar flick of the wrist and elbow, hoping thereby to get more twist on the ball, and this sooner or later develops into a throw. Young bowlers of this description get drafted from their village clubs into the county team, and thereby augment the number of ‘doubtful’ bowlers in first-class matches. Now if every amateur stood out against this system, and even went so far as to say, ‘I will not be one of a team that wins its matches by such means,’ unfair bowling would soon die out.
It may be accepted as an absolute truth that the greatest bowlers do not throw, and never have. Spofforth, Turner, Palmer, Lohmann, Richardson, Morley, and a host of others are true bowlers, and to the credit of the Australians it may be said that till 1896, when Jones and McKibbin came over, there had been no suspicion against any Colonial bowler, and it is a matter of great regret that both Jones and McKibbin must be described as very great offenders in the matter of throwing.
Doubtful delivery.
It will be well for everyone to realise that, if this question is allowed to drift on from year to year without any serious protest from public opinion, it will become absolutely necessary for the committee of the M.C.C. to do something in the matter. What this should be is, as we have said, very doubtful, and many and varied would be the opinions of competent judges as to the form of legislation that would meet the evil. It can almost be taken for granted that it is impossible satisfactorily to define a throw, and even if this were not so the solution of the question would be no nearer, as there would be just the same difficulties in the way of an umpire saying that a bowler came within the definition as there is now in saying that he throws. What is wanted is to get rid of throwers in small club and village matches, and then we should never get them drafted into first-class cricket. If the umpire at either end were allowed to no-ball, we believe the system of throwing would receive a serious blow. It often happens that the thrower can only bowl at his own umpire’s end; if he attempted it at the other end he knows what would await him; and if both umpires had the right to no-ball for throwing, this difficulty would be overcome by his not being able to bowl at either end. It is, however, earnestly to be hoped that no change of any sort in the rules will be necessary, but that all true cricketers will unite in discountenancing that which is always a source of wrangling and dispute.