A very novel style of this kind of bowling was seen on English cricket
grounds in the summer of 1884, when the Australian team of that year
included W. H. Cooper, so well known to all our cricketers who have
visited the colonies. He bowled round the wicket, and nearly every ball
almost a wide to leg. There was more spin and twist on the ball than
had ever been seen in this country before (excepting, perhaps, in the
bowling of Mr. Stratford, who played for a year or two for Middlesex,
but who never made his mark in first-class cricket). The ball seemed
to be twisted or screwed out of the side of his hand in the way a
billiard-marker will screw a billiard-ball along the table to a certain
spot, and then bring it back to him. But, unfortunately for him, he was
unable to combine any pace with this tremendous twist. The ball was
extraordinarily slow in the air, but directly it pitched it would spin
off the ground comparatively quickly, twisting into the batsman on the
faster wickets, sometimes as much as a yard or more. All his men except
two were on the on side, and he expected his wickets to be obtained
by the impatience of the batsman causing him to rush out, miss, and
get stumped, or else by wide hitting at the pitch of the ball on the
leg side, where there were seven fielders with seven pretty sure pairs
of hands waiting for it. In Australia he had met with a fair share
of success, especially against some of the English elevens which had
been over there. It was this latter consideration which induced the
Australian authorities to believe that he would be a useful addition to
their team. His bowling was most unsuccessful in this country. Whether
this was due to an accident to his hand on the voyage to England, or
from the light here being not so glaring and bright for our English
eyes as it is in Australia, cannot be said for certain, but I have a
strong opinion from my own experience that the reason of his success in
Melbourne against Englishmen was owing to the dreadful glare on that
ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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