Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

22 of twenty runs got from his bowling, and every second hit was a bad one, made rashly, and by the merest accident in the world escaped the consequences usually attending scrambling cricket. Clarke was aged 53 when the booklet appeared. Felix seems to have believed that there was no end to Clarke’s cricketing career for he completes his book with: If a due appreciation of one of the foregoing remarks shall cause one notch to be scored in favour of the hundred cricketers who may yet live to play against him, I shall be well rewarded for the trouble I have taken, and the great Bowler himself happy, in any suggestions which shall tend to disseminate the seeds of this chief of England sports. William Clarke stated that he learnt more from Lambert than any man alive. In 1816, William Lambert, then the equal of any all-round cricketer in England, had published The Instructions and Rules for Playing the Clarke as a Bowler The title page of Nicholas Felix’s book – he wrote it himself – of advice to other batsmen.