Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

62 carefully and combined the data thus obtained with those dependent upon his experience of different types of pitches and their changing conditions. The thought that he put into his own bowling gave him a sometimes almost uncanny insight into his opponent’s intention. 118 He had all the strokes, or nearly all, for his reluctance to loft the ball and to get in line against a fast bowler discouraged the hook. He excelled in the drive from cover to midwicket, but with a decided preference for the off side, and was not afraid to dance down the wicket with short steps to drive to either side or, more rarely, straight. The fact that only 3.38% of his dismissals were to a stumping is testament to his agility since most of these were simply a result of his reaching too far forward in defence. Despite his physique he could drive with considerable power, and this power was visible, although part of the speed of the ball off the bat was a consequence of good timing. As he approached the age of 50 he was, however, in Dawkes’ words, though ‘quite a solid batsman, not really aggressive … mainly a pusher rather than a hitter … an accumulator of runs’. Although drives caught much of the attention of match reporters, Philip Snow maintained that ‘his principal shot, in which he clearly delighted, was a late cut, or less frequently a square cut … He was an expert in the latest and most delicate kind of late cut that you could imagine … 118 The graphologist Bob Malloney surmised that he was ‘of above average intelligence, certainly of “graduate” level’. The Batsman and Fielder A late pull? This rare photograph of Astill in action shows him guiding the ball to leg.