This is a brief account of the evolution of round and over-hand
bowling. As to slow and fast bowling, Lord Frederick Beauclerk and
one of the Walkers were very slow bowlers in old days. William Clarke
(_b._ Dec. 24, 1798) was the classical slow bowler. Clarke was not a
regular lob bowler, but, like Lambert, delivered ‘about midway between
the height of the elbow and the strict under-hand, accompanied by a
singular peculiarity of action with the hand and wrist just as the
ball is about to be discharged.[26]’ He had a tremendous twist, and
great spin and ingenuity. Perhaps his success was partly due to the
rarity of slow bowling in his time. Men imitated Mr. Mynn, who was as
big a man as Mr. W. G. Grace, and a very fast bowler. In old underhand
times, Brett had a ‘steam-engine pace,’ and later, Browne of Brighton
was prodigiously fast. The Bishop of St. Andrews remembers seeing a
ball of Browne’s strike the stumps with such force and at such a point
that both bails flew _back_ as far as the bowler’s wicket. That was at
Brighton. He also remembers how at Lord’s, when Browne bowled, all the
field were placed _behind_ the wicket, or nearly so, that is at slip,
leg, and long-stop, till Ward went in, who, playing with an upright
bat, contrived to poke the ball to the off, and Browne himself (a tall,
heavy man) had to go after it. But this having happened more than
once, a single field was placed in front. Yet Beldham, as Mr. Pycroft
tells, quite mastered Browne, and made 76 off him in a match. Beldham
was then fifty-four. Browne’s pace was reckoned superior to that of
Mr. Osbaldeston. It is not easy to decide who has been the fastest of
fast bowlers. In our own day, I think that Mr. Cecil Boyle, when he
bowled for Oxford (1873), was the swiftest I have seen, except a bowler
unknown south of the Tweed, Mr. Barclay, now a clergyman in Canada. Mr.
Barclay was faster with under-hand than with round-hand. Beldham and
his comrades played Browne without pads; I have seen this tried against
Mr. Barclay--the results were damaging. Famous names of fast bowlers
are Mynn, Marcon, Fellowes, Tarrant, Jackson, Freeman, Hope Grant,
Powys, and Robert Lang.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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