CAUGHT AND BOWLED

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1922, Page 14

CAUGHT AND BOWLED

MEN WHO FIELD THEIR OWN

BOWLING.

If you look at the old score-sHeets of some fifty years ago, you will find that the expression " caught and bowled " is much in evidence in them—much more than it is to-day, says Colonel Philip Trevor, C.8.E., in the " Daily Telegraph." , Two technical reasons —good technical reasons, no doubt—there are for what you will find, but those two reasons do not furnish a complete explanation. Wickets-were not perfect in those " days, and batting , instructors firmly insisted upon their pupils playing forward to good-length bowling, according to Cocker. That is to say, you were bidden to keep your right foot down, to advance the left as far as possible, to turn the. left wrist, and to hold the bat straight. If you obeyed these instructions to the best of your abiliy you^very often gave the bowler a catch in consequence, and the .strkighter you held your bat the more likely was the catch you gave to go to the bowler than to anyone else. One of two things could (and did) easily happen. /The ball would. " cock up" or you would pla*y the minutest fraction of a second too quickly • at it. "W.0."-could play this stroke if he chose "-without making a mistake, but practically no one else could. Incidentally, I would remark that " W. G." dealt in footwork before it was talked about, and so as often as not he would step in and hit' the straight 'ball' Which the instructors'gravely adjured their pupils to play in the manner I have described.

However; fobtwork is, not,at the mo- : meht my theme. The chances of..bowlers .bringing off a "c. 'and ; b.", are less.to.- ] day than th^y were;-when the champion was young,, because''the footwork' of: the modern batsman is better than e of .'his predecessor. -■;Still, ias.J.'have said, •the reasons T haye mentioned ( are not the only : reasons why the ' batsman. is not caught by the .bowler /as often.as he usea to. be. There is contributory negligence, on the part of the bowler to. be - considered. I can well remember when I was a boy , hearing my elders cricket, and team choosing was to all intents and purposes as popular a pastime ■: then as it is now, and ; though feWer^ people indulged lin it,, for 'the simple reason: that fewer people -were then interested in cricket. The proportion, however, was about the same. 'In those.days some of the!best professional bowlers had the unenviable 1 notoriety of being bad fieldsmdn, apd I remember of ten: hearing the remark; made, " You. can't'put him in; he's*such a bad,field to his own bowling." . ' ''. ;: ■ I make the accusation that to-day that remark is applicable to the large_ mar jority, of bowlers in, first-class cricket, ■amateur as well as .professional. ; If you trust .your own experiences' as .spectator and reflect upon,.: them- you will' not, I think, be inclined to '.refute- it. /-'.You' can easily name the men who field their .own bowling uncommonly' well, and you will find that some-of the best of them are fast bowlers—J. M; Gregory; Hitch, and ArthuraGilligan, to wit.. : ; Set all of thbse, three men, 1 so to speak,- pverßowl themselves. However, their quickness of s recovery counterbalances the initial error in, delivery,-.and they, are ready to field', or catch the ball just, as soon, as'the batsman returns it. to.them. But the large majority of bowlers' seem by;the disposition, of their .fieldsmen .to admit their own shortcomings in this' matter: When Warwick Armstrong'(a very slow bowler, be it remembered) performed,last summer, he. was, well over x forty 'years of. age, and-1 believe about 17st ,or 18st in weight. Stationed behind his right arm ■he had a man \vho-might, technically: be called " long-on jsomewhat deep," but '.whom I' call "bowler's orderly." /Hls: :job was to stop the ball which' the bats-' man hit back to the bowler, for not once 'a month, I should think, will a catch (in first-class cricket) go to a man standing in that, spot. .However, you will' find-(if you will take; the trouble to. .observe) that to-day the v majority of ' bowlers; whose weight: and . age", are not much'more than half the weight and age pf Armstrong, "provide themselves with a bowler's orderly quite regardless of the pace at which they bowl. If they coTild field their, own bowling as. well as Greg-, ory, Hitiih, or- Gilligan (I could, of. .course, quote others) field theirs, they would have an extra fieldsman available in consequence,, for that " lbng-ori.. some-:' , what deep " could then go to mid-on j and for tactical catching purposes it is ' generally, at mid-on that! he is wanted.' . I have done my best to make a careful study of this matter. I have'made notes day by day, and I; find that the wastage caused by .bowlers not being good fields- : men- to their own bowling is infinitely in excess of what I have previously imagined it to be. I have observed, too, what a number of possible .catches there • are to the bowler if only he had recovered himself (as he, ought to feel it „obligatory upon himself to learn to do) :. in time to be in a position to deal with ! a catch. Armstrong was the only one of the, Australian bowlers who had a bowler's orderly just in tlie rear of him, but I repeat that my observations lead me to the conclusion that to-day it is the exception and hot tije rule for a bowler not to. provido himself with that orderly.. If I wanted to try to be funny, 'I; might hazard the suggestion that he j was there to make things equal—to be i the opposite number to the other people's J "batman.'" ■ „ ! i . i