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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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