Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/150

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86
CRICKET

as you face him, for he stands full fronted to you, it seems to leave by the back door, as it were, that is, over the knuckle of the little finger. I have played with him many times, but he does not seem to me to do very much (of course I am speaking of a good wicket), but some come a little higher, others a little lower, some a little faster, some slower; on the middle leg is his favourite spot—two or three off the leg stick with a square deep who is not asleep, then a straighter one with a "bit of top on it"—the batsman tries to push to leg—there is a somewhat excited 's that? and the would-be run-getter is sauntering pavilionwards.

Certainly of all the slow bowlers I have met he is the most successful against new faces, whether they are young or old. He generally bowls them neck and crop, or else they are l.b.w., and it makes very little difference if the batsman is an Australian wonder, or a boy in a village school: they come in and they go out, and they can't understand it—it looks so extremely harmless. They forget the master-hand, with the master-mind to work it; they forget the wonderful perseverance! If you can't get them out over the wicket, try round; if you can't succeed this end, have a rest and try the other.

To-day he may bowl a trifle slower than he did twenty years ago. It seems to me, however, that he bowls with very much the same effect. He is a bowler that stands by himself. As long as I can remember, no one has ever compared "W. G." with any other bowler; he stands alone—it is a distinct