Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

78 Raikes’ Metamorphosis As A Bowler The art of bowling leg-breaks had fallen into relative disuse in the days predating Bosanquet’s revolution. Ranjitsinhji, writing in 1898, stated: “Of later years Mr Charles Townsend has been the only [leg-breaker] who has done exceptionally good work.” However, the Daily Telegraph of 29 July 1901, reported on an increase in the frequency of leg-break bowling, citing the need for greater variety in bowling attacks. No mention was made of a ‘googly’ but Joe Vine and Len Braund were singled out as successful practitioners of the leg-break – their career averages of 28.52 and 27.27 are a little high and suggest that both might have benefitted from the ability to bowl a googly as a variant. Two generations later, Ian Peebles wrote of the absolute need for a leg-breaker to have a googly or a top spinner as an alternative to the stock delivery but, as late as 1947, Springbok Ian Smith managed to catch the Test selectors’ eyes without having command of the ‘wrong ‘un’. It remains conceded that, except for C.S. ‘Father’ Marriott, who employed an effective finger-spun off-break, and the highly atypical Shane Warne, the ‘googly’ is a vital part of a leg-spinner’s armoury. George Raikes, posed at the bowling crease. His grip does not appear to be one that one would associate with the production of a leg-break.