FUTURE IN DOUBT

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1933, Page 15

FUTURE IN DOUBT

ENGLAND'S STAR BOWLER

LARWOOD INTERVIEWED

"I doubt if I shall ever again ;b6wj fast," said Harold Larwood, the great fast bowler of Nottinghamshire and hero of England's^mighty"' success/, ii Australia last winter, in an iitervie^ with a "Daily Mail" representative. This is the price that Larwood has had to pay for all the'wonderfuT:thinjjshe did for England—his left.-foot is: battered and broken from :the pounding^ and hammering it received 'oh the cement-like Australian wickets. That injured foot, which brought" him.home before his colleagues, is no, better today than it was when .the accident happened. Nor does, itr : seem that it will ever fully recover. rLarwood has been to surgeons and specialists.; They tell him that two small,'•'"'bones' are broken, "but the great tragedy"is that the joint of the big toe is gone. ; ' • "They tell me,", said "Larwood, "that time and rest may put, things right. When I "asked outright, 'What chance is there of complete recovery?' I could get no answer (writes W. F.; Sanderson). •: ' ''-"-.!./■■• "It has been suggested that the two small bones should be taken away, but no one.knows what the result, would' be, and the joint - cannot be replaced with a new'one. You ask what I feel! I will tell you the truth. At! this moment I could not run a yard,'and every morning when I wake the pain in my foot is terrible. lam doubtful about my future. It is no use con:.' cealing the fact any longer. Sooner or later it will have to come out that, after nearly six months' my foot is as bad as ever it was; and that the onlyuse I can put it to at the presents .time is for walking."TRAGEDY AT 28. I have been with Larwood in his home, walked-in the garden of •which he is so proud, and- there we talked. I, who have known him since his'first real county: - match ' at', Sheffield ■ s'oirio years agO,: have never known him. as despondent; as, he is now.1 ' ■ ."'^j '.-.■ The news is" a cricket tragedy.'"Larwood beat Australia with his brilliant bowling. Next year the Australians are to visit us again—and his amazing speed bowling will be a thing for reminiscence only. Yet Larwood, who is only 28, has just reached mature years in a cricket sense. He has been compared with all the speed demons of the past. After his success in Australia has come to him one great tribute —Larwood as a fast bowler is t comparable with the greatest of. any. time. True, he was the centre of the legtheory storm. His deadly accuracy and terrific speed set the cricket world ablaze. He had perfected a new form of attack. But all that is gone too. There is no other fast bowler in the world with Larwood's accuracy, and without accuracy leg-theory bowling is useless-. THE CHANCE HE WANTED. It is idle to try to describe his emotions, biit this feeling was paramount as I talked with him:— "All I wanted was a chance to bowl in England as I did in Australia," he said. "Then my own people could have passed judgment on my methods. I am afraid, however, that something like a miracle will have to happen if lamto do that^S'/ Q-/ ~',"' .. - \ '"-'. There :is only^;6ne;satisfactOTy thing to tell. Larwood.may ; ?nCver'-&gain. bowl fast, but he will Tbowl 'again for Nottinghamshire, and-perhaps .for England. Ho can spin the ball. He can make it turn both ways, and it may well be that he will prove a dangerous mediumpaced bowler. And it must not be forgotten that he is a brilliant bat. HIS TEST RECORD. Larwood's success in Australia last winter is strikingly emphasised by his Test match analysis. He bowled 220 overs in Test matches —49 more than his companion ■>. fast bowler, G. O. Allen— ; and his 3$ wickets cost less than 20 rups each: • [!';•''4 His batting .was, "llso. very"; useful. In seven innings he had an average of 2* runs, his highest score being 98 in the first England inningsv.of the fifth Test. ..:.:>.;;.... „ • .■-*•': ' "y *'.';;.- Of his^.33 Test.victims 17 were;, clean bowled^ He twica hit -; Bradman 's wicket.and twice the -Australian superbatsman was caught off his Larwood, who has appeared in 15 Tests altogether, first played for Engr. land in the Lord;'sy»an4'o,val;?matches of 1926, w^en the.Ashesfwerte regained. He aecompannjd^jA.i P. F., Chapman 's team to Australia in 1928, Sand playedfor England again in three Tests" In--1930. '_______