Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

48 John Lillywhite launched the first edition of his Cricketer’s Companion , the third section of which contains ‘Hints on the Game’: In commencing to bowl, never practise the high windmill sail delivery; it neither adds grace, effectiveness or pleasure to the game; … The great secret to be obtained is, a delivery which will cause the ball to rise about bail- high, and possessing a good twist; and to arrive at this point of excellence, practise delivery about the height of the shoulder. Reminiscing to A.W.Pullin (‘Old Ebor’) in the latter’s Talks with Old English Cricketers , Walker emphasised that ‘Willsher and Lillywhite were really very great chums, and they soon made up the little difference which this scene caused.’ The ‘little difference’ might have become permanent if Edgar had known that his old friend had previously defended the bowling of Tom Wills, the controversial Australian. Wills was finally no-balled for throwing in 1872, but back in 1853 he attended Rugby School, where Lillywhite was cricket master at the time. There was doubt about Wills’ action even then, and not just over whether he raised his arm too high. Correspondence in the pages of Bell’s Life suggested that his arm was bent on delivery, an accusation to which Lillywhite felt he had to respond: I can only say that the bowling of Wills … was perfectly fair, or the umpires at Lord’s would have no-balled [him] … I am professionally engaged by the school, and if gentlemen were less personal in their remarks … they would do less injury to us cricketers. Clearly Lillywhite’s eyesight had improved immeasurably in the intervening decade! It would have been natural for Edgar to feel rather bitter about the whole affair, but he seems to have borne it all with his usual stoicism. In the obituary of Willsher published in Cricket magazine , Robert Thoms, a leading contemporary umpire, said that he ‘often pathetically remarked that he had been born too soon’, and certainly his career was now half over. Yet, although he was now in his thirty-sixth year, and although Lord Harris thought that he was never the same bowler after 1862, his good form continued unabated in 1864, with 79 wickets at 13.48. This was despite having to modify his action, at least temporarily, in 1863. Every Boy’s Magazine commented on 1 July that during the season Willsher ‘had not apparently the same command or accuracy; but Overarm at Last