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.
LORDS GROUND EARLY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.