Ten-pin bowling

“ There is the fortitude which sustains the bowler as he finds his best efforts fail in making an impression upon the wicket, and teaches him to persevere with a heart that is still composed and undaunted. He in truth calms the flutter which will occasionally seize him at such a time; and despite the conviction painfully forced upon him again and again, that his bowling has been mastered, he still manfully endeavours, and frequently succeeds, in pitching the ball on the one spot which above all others serves to afford a crucial test of his opponent's mettle and prowess. ”

“ Break, spin, and quickness from the pitch are common to both styles, but certainly the two latter are made easier of acquirement by the round-arm style; and with regard to break—an easier matter for the under-arm bowler—the ball that breaks or twists the most is not as a rule the ball that gets the most wickets. To a fast under-arm bowler the variations in flight and pace, so well known to the best round-arm bowlers, are unknown. Slow under-arm bowling, of course, must be excepted from these remarks ”

“ There is one species of ball which we have not discussed, deadly as it is, both in fast and slow bowling. This is the ball which, after the pitch, never rises, but shoots along the surface of the ground, and is commonly called a 'shooter.' The reason why no notice was taken of this when the different kinds of ball which may be bowled were being dealt with is because no amount of practice or skill can enable a bowler to bowl thus. It depends for existence upon inequalities in the ground. ”

“ Perhaps it may be a smaller pleasure than batting, somewhat as to besiege an enemy may be a smaller pleasure than to resist the siege or to make a sally. But bowling allows more errors—a single bad ball, unlike a single error in batting, need not be the end of the performance. Anyhow, bowling is a pleasant change from fielding, and gives one an extra chance of playing for a team. And, unless one plays for a team, Cricket is not much sport! A fair bowler is becoming more and more useful to his side every year, with these billiard-table wickets. ”

“ This state of things has driven bowlers to other expedients. They bowl in a great many cases beyond their strength so as to produce fast balls and length, and the science of the art is thereby lost. To bang down long hops for the purpose of terrifying batsmen and in the hope of getting the ball to bump and the batsmen to be caught behind the wicket, is not bowling in the true sense. ”

“ Most bowlers dislike bowling to him. He treats them all with the scantest courtesy. The better they bowl, the harder he hits. He is particularly strong on the on-side, and applies a marvellous pullstroke to good-length balls just outside the off-stump. He hits such a ball as if it were a half-volley to leg—a beautiful stroke if it comes off; when it does not, the critics shake their heads and say "Shocking." But perhaps bowlers with a sticky wicket and everything to favour them have been shocked by this stroke to better purpose. It has turned the tide in many a match. ”

“ It is no uncommon occurrence to see this ball, bowled by one who has tried it in practice, travelling somewhere near to where point is standing. There are some slow bowlers who have become fairly proficient at it, and who have enjoyed at various times, and especially against batsmen they have never met before, a certain amount of success; but it is a style of bowling which should only be encouraged to the extent of enabling every bowler to use it occasionally. ”

“ He is a cautious player, the man at this end, and the bowling is straight and well pitched.
After five balls, a man who has been standing by the bowler with his coat on, and seeming to take no interest in the game, turns his back on the bowler and batsman, and strolls off as if tired of looking on. Then the fielders seem to be playing at "pussy wants a corner," for they walk about and change places, and then another man begins to bowl from the other wicket. ”

“ So fast bowlers pound the ball down, very short, very fast, with the hand as high as nature will allow, to get the batsman caught behind the wicket; but the ball is nothing more nor less than a long hop, and to bowl a series of long hops is not bowling, according to all well-established canons of the art. In the same way slow bowlers, in endeavouring to get as much twist on the ball as possible, have sacrificed all length and precision, and in some cases are driven to bowl outrageous bad balls in order to tempt an Abel or a Noble to hit the ball up. ”

“ In reality such balls are the easiest in the world to play. They want no judgement as to playing backwards or forwards. They only want a good full-faced bat put to 'em upright, with a bit of a drive forward. Play of that kind will beat any Bowler of that style. Though bowling shall be ever so bad, I don't say you shall hit away every ball. No, for it may by chance get up at the proper place, and make itself a good one. ”

“ The fact that it causes the ball to keep low, though detrimental to the mowing style of batsman, allows a good player to meet it confidently with a hard forward-stroke. Balls that keep low are easy to drive along the ground. Over-arm bowling—fast, medium, and slow—is the kind most generally adopted now. Almost certainly it is the best. The bowler who has the higher action, if he has the other requirements of good bowling, attains the better results. As to pace, relatively fast bowlers are, as a rule, most successful upon fast fiery wickets; slow and medium upon sticky or crumbling wickets. ”

“ Appleby, of Lancashire, is an example of this style of bowler, as is Barlow, of the same county, though he hardly comes within the definition of fast bowling. We have occasionally seen a left-arm bowler, like Emmett, of Yorkshire—who relies exclusively on the off break, which, to a right-handed batsman, brings the ball from leg to off—involuntarily send down a ball that, instead of taking the bias imparted to it, for some strange and unaccountable reason went the other way, an accident which places the batsman in a most awkward fix. ”

“ To play tosses, and ground balls, and hops, and every variety of loose bowling, by the rigid rules of straight and upright play, is a principle, the neglect of which has often given the old hands a laugh at the young ones. Often have I been amused to see the wonder and disappointment occasioned, when some noted member of a University Eleven, or the Marylebone Club, from whom all expected of course the most tremendous hitting "off mere underhand bowling," has been easily disposed of, by a toss or a ground ball, yclept a "sneak." ”

“ It seems almost incredible that men who have over and over again handled the bat should doubt the tendency of some kinds of bowling to twist or curl in the air. Nearly all leg-break slow bowlers curl inwards towards the batsman before the pitch, and no one who has ever played against W. G. Grace's bowling can doubt that the real secret of his success as a bowler has been in the peculiar flight his action gives the ball, causing it to curl before it pitches. ”

“ They like bowling as a relief from the monotony of fielding, not for its own sake. It is curious that people do not reflect more seriously upon the fact that the best batsman sometimes receives only two balls in a match and hits neither of them, whereas a good bowler can nearly always rely upon at least half an hour's fun. Indeed, any bowler who is put on at all cannot be ousted from his proud position until he has sent down a full over. ”

“ All these peculiarities account for a fact, strange but true, that the best batsmen are often out with the worst bowling. Bad bowling requires a game of its own, and a game of the greatest care, where too commonly we find the least; because "only underhand bowling,"—and "not by any means good lengths;" it requires, especially, playing at the ball itself, even to the last inch, and not by calculation of the pitch or rise. ”

“ It is probable that overhand bowling may be the most difficult to play, but in adopting entirely the overhead system of bowling and discarding round-arm bowlers have in my opinion made an error. The whole essence of modern bowling is variety. We see all paces, all heights, and all the different forms of twist and break, but the stamp of bowler, who bowled round the wicket, and kept the arm on a level or a little below the level of the shoulder, and made the ball come with his arm, is practically extinct. ”

“ The boy at the head of the line takes the bowl, blows a bubble, and drops it on the table. The girl opposite tries to fan it under the arch before it breaks. Tally is kept with pink and blue paper disks on little tally cards which may be attached to the fans. Pink means a successful bowling; blue, a failure. As each two players complete their trial, they go to the foot of the line, which moves up to let the next two try. The game may consist of five rounds, or four if there are many players. A ribbon-bedecked pipe and a pretty fan might be the rewards given to the winning bowlers. ”

“ Well, such a bowler is seldom any use on level or soft grounds. There is no fire in the ball. It won't get up, and being pitched rather short to keep it from being hit forward, can't do any execution. But on hard, uneven or glibby ground such bowling often tells well, but I question if under like circumstances a better style would not tell better. ”

“ The professionals are now the equals of the amateurs in batting and fielding, and their superiors in bowling. And I am very much afraid it is likely to continue so for a considerable time. Amateur bowling is weaker to-day than it has been for many years, while the outlook for the future is not particularly bright. It used to be said, some twenty years ago, that it was always safe to back the Players against the Gentlemen. ”

“ The bowl of soapsuds is placed upon a small stand by the side of the bowling-table, and the next in rank to the captain, belonging to same party, dips his pipe into the suds and blows a bubble, not too large, which he then tosses upon the table in front of the captain, who as first bowler, stands ready to blow the bubble on its course down through the goal. Three successive trials are allowed each player; the bubbles which break before the bowler has started them, are not counted. ”

“ This position is necessary because many more balls hiss low along the grass than rise into the air from a snick, and if they do rise, short-slip can rise too and be in time for them; but if he has to stoop he will be too late. So for fast bowling stand finer than most short-slips do, and if the ground is very hard keep a long way off—eight yards is often not too long a distance. But the difficulty in this respect is much greater when the bowling is slow. A late cut adds materially to the speed of a slow ball, though it has scarcely any effect on a fast one. ”

“ Most amateurs take no trouble whatever with their bowling, except in matches. It would be far better if bowling were zealously cultivated during ordinary net-practice. The usual thing is to take up the ball in a lazy, careless fashion, without any attention to the length of run, or indeed to any of the requisites of bowling save sending the ball somehow towards the striker's wicket. Sometimes the bowler takes upon himself to demonstrate the peculiarities in the styles of various great bowlers in a manner which does infinite credit to his imagination but none at all to his power of imitation. ”

“ To-day our large schools, as a rule, boast perhaps three or four professional bowlers; the boys who have the privilege of being coached by them daily get their half-hour's batting practice from their straight accurate bowling, and then usually their lesson is finished. Perhaps a boy may take a ball and bowl for a short time to a companion at the same net as the professional, but it is generally done, if done at all, in a careless, haphazard sort of fashion, there not being the same inducement to bowl straight and well as there used to be when professional bowlers were more scarce. ”

“ No one can be called a good bowler until he has the power at will of bowling ball after ball of this sort. It often happens when two batsmen are well set, and every wile and 'dodge' of the bowlers has been tried without avail, that two bowlers will have to go on to bowl, or try to bowl, nothing else but good-length balls, in the hopes of keeping down the runs. If this can be done effectually, a batsman is bound through impatience to make a mistake which in time may cost him his wicket. ”

“ Bowling practice is generally starved, while batting practice is crammed, like the unhappy geese of Strasburg; and to this fact the dearth of amateur bowling may be largely attributed, though an important and not-to-be-forgotten fact is, that any boy who really can bowl is nearly always over-bowled from lack of coadjutors. If boys are to be trained to bowl, they must bowl at the nets as they would bowl in a match—i.e., in overs—instead of sending up a random ball according as it is returned to them by the batsman or the fags. ”

“ There is no doubt a greater difficulty in attaining to perfect length and command over the ball when the body of the bowler is not square at the moment of delivery; but if these essentials to good bowling are obtained by patience and constant practice, the bowler has this great advantage that his balls are more difficult for the batsman to judge accurately. It seems strange that not one of the numerous published books on cricket has ever suggested the advantage to the bowler which is obtained in this way. ”