THE ACTION OF BOWLING
has already been hinted at in these exercises. But, before the ordinary action, may come a few words about the lob, the use of which Mr. Edward Lyttelton advocates so well. The following ideas are mostly his.
We seldom see lob-bowlers to-day. Perhaps many promising boys have been discouraged by too much hitting of their lobs, or too bad fielding (or badly-placed fielding), or too little practice (at a stump and onto a small piece of paper). Yet lobs may be very useful when runs are coming fast; they are like slow twist-services at Tennis or Lawn Tennis—one is ashamed not to kill them. As a change at any time they may pay, since unlike most bowling they break either way and hang.
They must not be long hops; they must not be too slow. The slowest ball should be the one outside the off-stump, and twisting away. The spin is like that which one gives to a billiard ball with one’s fingers; or we might imagine the fingers to be doing to the ball what Pettitt’s racket sometimes does in one of his services at Tennis, and Mr. A. W. Gore’s in his forehand drive at Lawn Tennis. The high full pitch does not need any spin, except perhaps some drag in the air if one can manage that. The bowling should generally be round the wicket, and have a long run: its exact length should be measured and a mark made where one is to start. A stop must not be made at the crease except in order to vary the pace.
By practising lobs, at games of snob-cricket if not elsewhere, one can learn a great deal about the twist, the pace, the length, the height of the ball for various purposes. It forms an easy apprenticeship. If the bowling be with an indiarubber ball, and the batting be with a stick, then we have excellent practice for batting also, since the indiarubber ball gives confidence to the shrinking right foot and yet receives all the break that is given to it and so encourages the bowler.
The next kind of bowling to learn is the low-action round-arm type, such as W. G. and many of the old cricketers home from India indulge in. It breaks from the leg to the off, coming with the arm as well as with the wrist and perhaps the fingers also. It tempts to leg-hits, and needs good on-side fielding of the kind that E. M. Grace used to show at leg.
Then comes orthodox bowling with the high action, when the needed muscles are well under control. Do not settle on your action—unless you are a genius-bowler—until you have mastered the mechanism. If you do, you may throughout your career fail because some one or more of the important elements have not been brought into the work—perhaps those shoulder-muscles. Stretch your arm up and out and see if it is limber: mine used to be shockingly rigid and cramped. But having exercised the required parts fully and briskly, then find your action after experimenting with several. It is not likely that you will be able to bowl well with several actions, though in Tennis I find that at least three utterly different types of service (like those of Saunders or Fairs, Latham or Lambert, and Pettitt) can and almost must be used in the same set. And serving at Tennis is no less elaborate than bowling at Cricket. Indeed the two are closely parallel. At Racquets also I distinguish three or four different actions without appreciable disadvantage. Theoretically I do not see why a moderately good bowler (as distinct from the very best) should not vary his action.
XXII.—Bowling, first position; bowling arm back and down, body facing sideways, weight on back leg.