John and James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion 1882

38 enough, that the “ blind spot Mwas really a spot, and not two or three fC0t o f ground between him and the batsman. One day a howler of some reputation among second-rate players was very ambitious of a place in C larke ' s Eleven. “ I guessed,” said he, “ the sort of bowler he was, so I waited till there were P ilcii and J oe Guy to howl against, and the result was that the bowling was hit all over the field. At supper that night 1 said, ‘ Perhaps you were not quite up to your be.st bowling to-day ; how was i t ? ’ ‘ The truth is/ said the disappointed man ‘ I never howled better in my life ; but heretofore, when I bowled within an inch or two of the stumps, that passed as a good ball, but with P ilch and G uy this was as sure to he hit as a bad one.’ “ That is just what I wanted to teach you,” said C larke ; “ it is just that inch that is wanted for first-rate cricket.” C larke said, from no man did he ever learn as much as from the once famous L amukrt . L amrerl , like B ui > d and C larke , bowled from the hip. C larke said nothing delivered knee high would ever he first-rate, lie had various imitators, T inlky , Mr.V.E.WALKER, I ddison , and others. I have always observed that, whenever in these days slows are tried, they are alw ays treated with much respect, while they are really good. There must be a certain elevation, most indispensable to leave the batsman in doubts of the length till very la te ; and, said C larke , “ it takes a certain amount of pace to make a good hall.” As to abrupt rise and spin, C larke used to be pleased when he sent men hack for their gloves, the spin of his balls proving too much for bare fingers. lie wras not tediously slowr, for if too slow, the bats­ man can get in and take the ball at full pitch. Whenever I have seen a going-in game answer, the bowler has wanted C larke ’ s “ powrer to defend himself” by suddenly sending in a very fast one. Add to this, a slow bowler ought to he able to alter his pace without betraying it by his action, a decided advantage which no fast bowler—not even S poffokth — if care­ fully watched, could attain. The Australian Eleven, after their good fight at the Oval, were at Brighton so far puzzled by H umphrey ' s slows, though of a very uncertain kind, that the game wras drawn much in the favour of Sussex, weak as that county had then become. When 1 see a man intentionally hit slow's high in air out to long-field, I know he has one point yet to learn, namely— first, that slow s always seem about to drop nearer than they d o ; and secondly, that to time the hit after a run in is not so easy, and the danger of missing greater than men think. Nowr, the man who hits on the ground describes so large a swreep with his bat that an erroneous judgment of length and pace makes little difference, while the man who hits to mount a ball describes so small an arc with his bat that he may easily hit over the hall, or send it skying among the nearer fieldsmen. In proof of this, consider how often we are surprised at seeing a good hitter miss the ball when he goes in. This is almost invariably because lie tries to hit over the fieldsmen’s heads, and is not contented with driving with a straight hat along the ground. P ilcii was once asked in the Pavilion what he thought of reviving the old underhand howding. “ Why, gentlemen, if vou put me in on Monday morning you might get me out by Saturday night.” But he had not the1 met such a master of the art as C larke , and P ilch ’ s straight play a®” early practice would have been equal to any fast underhand bowling C larke said no one else played him so wrcll. But P ilch could not piny 1