Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

possible time to guard. ‘If I can catch Pilch in two minds what to do’, said the artful dodger, ‘I shall have him to a certainty.’ Wishful thinking or bravado on the part of the bowler, it seems, as it didn’t quite work out like that. The pair faced each other in 89 first-class matches and out of 165 of Fuller’s innings, Lillywhite is known to have dismissed him on only 49 occasions, although it is likely that Fuller was caught on other occasions off Lillywhite when the bowler was not credited with the wicket. At Canterbury in 1845, Fuller gave Gale a lesson in batting, beginning with taking guard: There now, here’s the wicket as you are a-going in to; you go behind the wicket and find out where the bowler’s hand will be, get the middle stump in a line between yourself and the bowler’s hand, and you sight the ground. Then ask for your block, and if you have hit it right, put your right foot firm behind the crease clear of the on-stump, and take your block right on the crease, and throw your left foot forward and keep your left shoulder up, and never let the bowler’s hand be off it; and as long as you don’t draw your left foot on the on-side you can’t play with anything but a straight bat. Keep yourself free and firm; but be sure if you drop your shoulder or draw your left foot you are a dead man. He then went on to give advice on making the off-drive: Don’t be too anxious about hitting an off-ball until you are well set; and then, if you feel your hand and eye are together and know she is wide of the off-stump, throw your left leg forward and let her have it. I didn’t do so myself, as I could reach her off or not, and make the drive, or place her where I could see an opening; it is safer, though less showy. You take care in playing forward against good bowling to watch the pace; for just as you are pleased as Punch at your defence, a good bowler will drop one shorter and slower, and it will be his turn to laugh if he bowls and catches you, as he very likely will. Fuller had more to say about facing left-handed round-arm bowling: Take the guard to the bowler’s hand as in right-hand bowling, and mind you don’t play outside the ball when she breaks; try to watch the line of the pitch, and put the face of the bat on her, but you MUST learn that by PRACTICE; and all I can say is what the schoolmasters used to say to you over your Greek letters – and a very ugly family they are, I only saw them once – ‘If you don’t mind your book you will get the stick,’ and if you don’t learn to put the face of the bat on the ball off the left-hand bowler you will lose your wicket. Even Richard Daft was impressed by the Pilch technique, although Pilch had retired before Daft began playing, so he never actually saw him out in the middle. In Kings of Cricket he commented: ‘but I remember seeing him Batting evolution 15