Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

have some practice once at Canterbury when I played there, and being much struck with the gracefulness of his forward play.’ Fuller Pilch scored nearly 14,000 runs, perhaps more, in all grades of cricket in his career, including ten centuries, in an age when three figures was as rare as a triple-hundred is today, but there was one stroke that he never mastered. Nicholas Felix learnt of it by accident when researching for his ‘scientific inquiry into the use of the Cricket Bat’ titled Felix on the Bat . It appears in the section dealing with the correct stance that should be taken by a batsman when waiting to receive: I was invited to play in a match at Malling, near Maidstone, in the days when (under the auspicious patronage of Thomas Selby Esq, and other gentlemen of equal zeal) Fuller Pilch had the ground. The match [Town Malling v Kent 1836] being over in the early part of the third day, I accompanied him, with some of his patrons, to his little receiving-parlour in the High Street. The conversation happened to turn upon this Publication and then came a few pros and cons. Pilch was requested to assume his attitude of Play, with which (with his usual suaviter in modo ) 3 he complied. He admitted the difficulty of preparing himself so immediately for the back cut as might be done by the bending of both knees. And it was a remark, that, with all his stupendous hitting, decision and reach, he could not make the back cut equal to the other parts of his batting; and it was agreed, that this circumstance arose from the fact of his keeping his right leg perfectly straight. Such an admission from such a Cricketer was not to be disregarded, and I trust I do not take advantage of this confession to the deterioration of his acknowledged skill; for, let our excellences be ever so bright, we are none of us perfect; no, not one. One year later, thanks to an invention by Nicholas Felix, the skills of Fuller’s batting technique were placed under scrutiny again, this time with a more positive result. Felix realised that net-practice bowlers lacked the accuracy and uniformity needed to help a batsman perfect a particular stroke. So he invented the catapulta , a mechanical contraption that could bowl balls on a length towards a batsman in the nets. One of several public demonstrations was arranged by William Caldecourt, the long-serving and popular practice bowler employed by MCC at Lord’s, and a report duly appeared in the The Sportsman newspaper : The delightfully laid-out grounds at the Victoria Gardens, Gravesend, were numerously attended on Monday, October 9th, Caldecourt having announced his intention of bringing the newly-invented bowling-machine called the Catapulta into operation against the cricketers of Gravesend, on which occasion Fuller Pilch came from Town Malling to assist Caldecourt in the proceedings of the day. Nearly all the most famous batsmen of Gravesend and for many miles round Batting evolution 16 3 From the Latin suaviter in modo, fortiter in re : gently in mode, firmly in action.