Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

Chapter Three Technique and Style King was of a rare breed, a successful double-left-handed all-rounder. 8 There are only four such who have scored 10,000 (all actually over 20,000) runs and taken 1,000 wickets in the County Championship. Besides King there are John Gunn of Nottinghamshire, Frank Woolley of Kent and James Langridge of Sussex. 9 All four were middle-order batsmen and slow or medium-paced (or both with the exception of Langridge) bowlers. Since Gunn’s career spanned almost exactly the same years as King’s, occasional comparisons with him are made in this chapter. If account is taken of the fact that Gunn played for a far stronger team, and thus had much better support, it can be said that Gunn 28 8 A natural left-hander will automatically throw by preference with his left arm, and as a consequence the very first time he tries to perform the skill, will bowl left-arm too. He will also probably put his left hand below his right when holding a bat since his instinct will be to hit the ball in the air with a cross-bat to his right side, which is easier to accomplish if the stronger and more ‘dexterous’ hand is nearer the splice. Cricket is, however, a perverse and unnatural hitting game in that for nearly all strokes the ball should be kept on the ground. To achieve this, the upper arm, significantly called the leading arm, is of more importance. This should be obvious as any competent batsman who is forced by injury to play with only one hand, especially when the situation calls for an emphasis upon correct cricket rather than the scoring of a quick couple of fours, will use his able arm as the leading arm with corresponding stance even if that is contrary to his custom. Since, however, the grip with the left hand lower on the handle is called that of the left-hander, almost all parents of naturally left-handed children will not direct their children to hold the bat with the left hand above the right (and, of course, vice-versa for natural right-handers). It is idle to speculate how many players, King included, would have been more proficient batsmen if guided in infancy to hold their bats the right way for playing cricket strokes rather than in accordance with the terminology of ‘right-handed’ and ‘left-handed’ batsmen. To change in later boyhood or at an even higher age is hard. Sadiq Mohammad, it is said, was persuaded by brother Hanif to change because Pakistan lacked a ‘left-handed’ batsman, but, since Hanif (though far from a regular bowler) is reputed to have bowled left and right in two first-class matches, there was probably ambidexterity in the family. 9 The two great Yorkshire left-arm bowlers Hirst and Rhodes batted right. Of Leicestershire all-rounders (with generous application of the term) only King, Coe, Walsh and Munden were double-left-handers, but Pougher, Wood, Astill, Geary, Shipman (A.W.), Lester, Jackson, Palmer, van Geloven, Knight (B.R.), Marner, Illingworth, Clift, McVicker, de Freitas, Lewis, Simmons, Maddy, Wells and Kasprowicz were double-right-handers. It is perhaps significant that the only all-rounders who, according to the traditional description, batted one way and bowled the other have been of recent vintage: Lock, Steele, Balderstone, Potter and Henderson were or are right-handed batsmen and left-arm bowlers, Birkenshaw, Millns, Parsons and Dakin left-handed batsmen and right-arm bowlers.