Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

41 tried the occasional ball that fell vertically onto the stumps from a great height. By 1934 such a ball is being described as ‘one of his celebrated donkey drops’. 84 What a shame for the variety of cricket that its Laws now prohibit both the lob and the ‘dropper’! More commonly, however, Astill tried merely an unexpected full toss, often on the leg side and in the hope that ‘the batsman [would] step back on to the wicket, or … hit out and give a catch to the man placed specially at deep square-leg’. 85 A typical account, although no wicket was obtained on this occasion, comes from 1933: ‘Drawing away from a full toss by Astill, Sandham was very lucky not to be bowled … and at the same time it appeared that he might have been stumped’. 86 Purists did not approve of his deliberately loose balls. G.A.Brooking wrote of his bowling at Aigburth in 1926 that now and again he sent down a peculiar ball. The first time … it went into first slip’s hands without bouncing, and the umpire signalled ‘wide’. On another occasion Ernest Tyldesley let out at it, although it was well on the off, only to see Major Fowke make a splendid catch at deep mid-off. Again, Makepeace, using his bat like a spoon ladle, hit it over his head behind the wicket with an underhand stroke. At least, it secured Tyldesley’s wicket and created amusement, if it did nothing else. One such ball had an almost fatal consequence. At Leicester in early July 1933 Cyril Washbrook, having been warned by Eddie Paynter about this delivery in Astill’s armament, swung round and ‘hit it with all my strength’. 87 Unfortunately, however, Paddy Corrall, accustomed to batsmen not essaying a shot on these occasions, had moved to the leg-side to take the ball. Washbrook’s bat crashed into Corrall’s left ear, cracking his skull. The wicketkeeper’s life was in balance for some days and he played no more that season. Often mentioned in the reports of his bowling is flight, a thing that he was able to vary with consummate skill to deceive a batsman into misjudging length. He lacked the great height of Tom Goddard or the diminutive stature of ‘Tich’ Freeman, both of which posed great but dissimilar problems in flight owing to batsmen’s unfamiliarity with these extremes as the ball was delivered from a great height and then went even higher or bobbed up from perhaps even below eye-level and then fell down again; yet Astill surprised many opponents with variations of both flight and speed which his body- and arm-action largely concealed. Even well-set batsmen on occasion found themselves on a puzzled and despondent walk back to the pavilion after being ‘yorked’ or caught after playing too soon. ‘Nonplussed’, ‘bewildered’, ‘bemused’, ‘foxed’, ‘in a tangle’ and suchlike words and phrases stud match reports. Wyatt commented that ‘a lot of people think that flight is just a change of pace and trajectory, but it is more than that: [Astill] had a curious flight like a lot of the great bowlers such as Grimmett and O’Reilly and Wilfred 84 Leicester Sports Mercury , 16 June. 85 C.Washbrook, Cricket – the Silver Lining , p 35. 86 Leicester Mercury , 8 June. 87 Cricket – the Silver Lining , p 36. The Bowler