Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/169

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BOWLING
101

often wonder that this placing of a man right under the batsman's nose is not more often adopted, as the result seems always to justify it, for whether you get the man out or not, he is most decidedly put off his game. It is not, however, a place to go to sleep in, even with the mildest of performers. I was sorry that Tyler should have been no-balled at the close of his career, for the day on which he was penalised there seemed to be no difference whatever from the action he always had, and which was universally passed for years.

Of the leg-break bowlers there is Braund, one of the best all-round cricketers of the day. He is second only in the matter of pace to Vine, and he is easily first in the matter of length and direction—perhaps not so difficult as Vine is at his best, but he always bowls well, consistently well, on all sorts of wickets, and he is never punished to the extent the other bowlers of this class are when one is lucky enough to catch them on an off day.

There are many other slow bowlers of whom I should like to scribble, but time presses, and we must pass on to our second division, to the bowlers of the medium pace, whose numbers are as sands on the seashore.

There is very little doubt that the bowlers who comprise this our second division are in the majority of instances of more general value to their side than the faster bowlers, for the obvious reason that they can always obtain a foothold. They can also bowl longer at a stretch, they can