Lives in Cricket No 9 - JH King

[the ball] comes across quickly from the off and is inclined to keep rather low. Although he alters his action for this ball he does it so quickly towards the finish of the swing that the batsman is unprepared for it.’ In common with many of his left-arm colleagues of the time he bowled round the wicket; and just prior to delivery his position was very side-on, his shoulders arched backwards and his leading foot planted wide of the rear foot and as close to the return crease as possible. Even after delivery the left shoulder, as shown in the third photograph, had not come round very much. The final stage of his run-up was apparently very slightly diagonal, but, far more important, the resultant ball, since it started from well outside the line of wicket to wicket, came in to the right-handed batsman at an angle that it made it necessary for him to be extremely careful not to play outside it. If the ball did not deviate in line, it was next to impossible to win an appeal for lbw, but it could get between bat and a pad thrust outside the line of off-stump and bowl the batsman or force him to give a catch behind the wicket on the leg-side. Conversely, a left-hander had to be wary not to edge into the slips by playing inside. Various reports comment on the trickiness of his flight. Although the word ‘flight’ may have been used on occasion by some reporters to mean ‘line’, yet the high number of times that he caught a batsman off his own bowling does suggest that his flight through the air also was deceptive and that he could make the ball dip unexpectedly. The figure for such catches is 83 out of a total of 653 catches (12.7%), which is truly remarkable especially in comparison with both statistics to-day and the number of catches he persuaded batsmen to give the wicket-keeper, a mere four higher at 87. Gunn’s figures reveal a striking difference between the two bowlers with 117 catches by the wicket-keeper and only 47 by himself off his own bowling. King’s flight is probably in part responsible also for some of his dismissals stumped when the batsman either ran out of his crease or was lured too far forward when playing defensively. 69 of his victims were stumped (5.7% of his total dismissals). 19 On no fewer than ten occasions he also bemused a batsman into hitting his wicket. Although he had as victims his fair share of tail-enders, it is abundantly clear that King could pose problems for leading Technique and Style 40 19 Gunn’s percentage (8.5%) is more impressive here. That King was more likely to have a batsman stumped than be stumped himself is of little consequence since stumpings even then were less likely off fast than medium or slow bowlers.