Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/174

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106
CRICKET

wonderfully successful he was; but in those days he bowled almost entirely leg breaks, and it was only, I believe, after journeying Leytonwards, that he developed the off theory, with an occasional straight one and with an occasional leg break, that ultimately gave him the position amongst great bowlers that he holds to-day.

Lancashire some seasons ago possessed a quartette that very few sides have been able to equal. I refer to Briggs, Hallam, Cuttell, and Mold. Each of the four obtained a hundred wickets. Lancashire were playing at the Oval; the wicket was on the slow side, not very difficult and not very easy; each of the four had a turn, and in this particular match Hallam bowled extremely well. In my own mind he was at his best one of the most difficult of medium-paced bowlers, for the flight was so deceptive. He has a good variation of pace, but the bad luck he has had in his health has clung to him in the matter of bowling—there seem to be more missed chances, more balls that beat the bat and evade the wicket, than fall to the lot of many another bowler in the same class.

In the matter of length, in the knowledge of the art of bowling, in his phenomenal success, there is one man in this our second division who occupies an almost unique position—Alfred Shaw. Every one knows the records that he holds, but there is one thing that at the time of its occurrence certainly was the subject of much gratifying comment, and this was Alfred Shaw's astonishing resurrection in first--