Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800

be straight. By the time our period begins in 1772, bowlers had already made the transition from ‘bowling’ in its original sense – that is, rolling the ball along the ground in the manner familiar from skittles and bowls, although perhaps at greater speed than is usual in those sports – in favour of the more modern practice of projecting the ball through the air, and pitching it near the batsman. The emergence of pitched bowling is a crucial development in the evolution of the game, arguably even more so than the later shift first to roundarm bowling, then to overarm. It is deeply frustrating that evidence is so sparse of exactly when and how this transition took place. A poetic account of a school match in 1756 shows that both types of bowling were in use at that time, although the danger need hardly be stressed of placing too much reliance on a single account of a game between schoolboys. At any rate, pitched bowling seems to have become general by the 1760s, probably as bowlers such as the celebrated ‘Lumpy’ Stevens learned to exploit the novel factors of ‘length’ and ‘break’ that the new technique opened up. The bat, which in the 1720s had still been shaped like a hockey stick in order to meet a ball approaching (perhaps rapidly) at or near ground level, evolved through the middle part of the century to its familiar upright shape. A bat dated to 1774, preserved at Lord’s, is strikingly modern in its overall appearance. The new code of laws adopted in 1774 was the first to restrict the width of the bat. Modern research has failed to confirm the story that this followed an incident in which Thomas White came to play with a bat as wide as the wicket, and the document dated 1771, in which the width restriction was allegedly ordained by the Hambledon Club, is definitely a forgery. 29 The evolution of the bat. (1) 1743: The bat has begun to develop from the old ‘hockey stick’ shape, but still exhibits a marked curvature. (2) 1771: The bat approaches its modern shape, but it was still a single piece of wood, weighing (in this case) a hefty 5 lbs. (3) 1790: A bat with a modified handle to meet the requirements of its owner, who had a crippled hand. (4) 1792: John Ring’s bat. (5) 1800: Weight about 2 lbs, 12 oz. (6) 1827. (7) and (8) are later bats displaying a spliced handle. David Frith Collection.