Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

4 Journals and websites Henderson, Peter, Cricket in Canterbury since 1836: A History of Beverley Cricket Club , www.polofarm.org/cricket Howat, G.M.D. ‘Fuller Pilch (1804 -1870)’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004, reference number 22263 Taylor, Terry, ‘Fuller Pilch: The Champion of Bury St Edmunds’ in Cricket Lore , 5 (6), 2000, pp 38-41 Warsop, Keith, ‘Bowling Evolution: From Rolling to Pitching’ in The Cricket Statistician , 150, 2010, pp 21-24 Warsop, Keith, ‘Batting evolution – its effect on run-scoring’ in The Cricket Quarterly , 4, 1966, pp 203-210 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack Wynne-Thomas, Peter, The Early County Championship, in The Cricket Statistician , 32, 1980, pp 2-7 cricketarchive.com www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk Note : Fuller Pilch was one of some sixty cricketers who were among the 54,900 subjects in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , published in 2004. Gerald Howat reported there in his article on Pilch that in 1870, shortly before his death, ‘he published his Whole Art of Cricket , a brief manual of instructions on how to bat and bowl’. In 1875, four years after Fuller’s death, a coaching manual was published with the title The Whole Art of Cricket . It contained ‘instructions on how to bat and bowl and directions to wicket-keeper, long-stop, short-slip, and each member of the cricket field by the late Fuller Pilch.’ At the conclusion of the text the name J.Roche appears, which suggests that the contents had been written during Fuller’s retirement. The date of composition can be confirmed as preceding 1864, the year that MCC legalised over-arm bowling, as Fuller’s instructions to bowlers only refer to round-arm and under-arm bowling. Five years earlier, another book with the same title had appeared, but without any names attached. The text of both books is almost identical, which raises the question why there was no attempt in 1870 to capitalise on Fuller’s reputation. His declining health and ‘Victorian values’ regarding his involvement with William’s bankruptcy may have played a part in the publisher’s decision to keep the authorship anonymous. Sadly, the text of these booklets give no indication that Fuller Pilch’s own views had been taken into account in compiling the advice and there are no references which suggest ‘my way’ or ‘in my experience’ or anything as revealing as ‘when facing a bowler like Lillywhite’. Bibliography 137