HOBBS ON CRICKET

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 26

HOBBS ON CRICKET

SURVEYING HIS ERA

BATSMEN AND BOWLERS

CHANGES IN THE RULES

One of the most interesting of the many good things contained in the latest issue of "Wisden's" is an article by Jack Hobbs, in which he gives some personal impressions of what has been referred to as the "Hobbs era," says a writer in an Australian exchange. His philosophy on cricket is shown by his attitude on his retirement from first-class cricket: "The era to which my name has been given by you, Mr. Editor, covers first-class cricket from 1903 to 1933. The war came to rob all of us of four solid years of the game, and although I played a little last summer I think that I really finished in 1933, when at fifty years of age, after roughly thirty seasons at the Oval, I was beginning to feel that the strain of the game day after day was getting just a little too much for me. There was also the fact that younger players were knocking at the door, and that it did not become me, having had a longer innings than most cricketers of modern days, to stand in the way of promising recruits who wanted to feel that their positions in a county eleven were secure. "So even though I scored one century last season, I still fall short by three of the 200 I had fondly hoped to obtain. Records after all are ephemeral; they are only made to be beaten by somebody else, and while it is nice to think that one has, accomplished something out of the common, there are other and more important considerations to bear in mirid.' The new leg-before-wicket rule, which is being tried experimentally, may, if adopted, have a far-reaching effect on batsmen.but at the back of my mind there is the impression that someone will come along one of these days arid surpass the 197 hundreds which now stand to my credit. CHANGES IN THE GAME. Discussing changes in the game, he writes: "I have always regarded it as curious that while most of the changes in criStet in my thirty years have been in favour of the bowler, such as the smaller ball and wider wicket, bowling generally, in my opinion, has deteriorated. There are very few outstanding bowlers of real class today, and I remember that just after the war, when admittedly things had changed a good deal, bowlers opened for their sides who weren't considered good enough prior to 1914. Everyone nowadays seems to want to bowl the in-swinger. This is absurd, for my experience is that this particular ball is not so dangerous as the one which goes away from you. It has led to what I should call'negative cricket.' "Bowlers adopting this method try rather to keep the batsmen quiet than to get them out. The result of this is that back-play has developed to a large extent, and on-side play has increased out of all proportion, to the detriment of off-side batting. But then it must be remembered that it is very difficult indeed to drive an inswinging ball on the off-side, and with bowlers keeping just short of a length, as modem bowlers do, the natural tendency of a batsman, at any rate since the war, has been to step back and play the ball to the on. • MORE DIFFICULT. "In regard to this it would seem that the new leg-before-wicket rule is going to make things difficult for opening batsmen, and the in-swinging ball is more dangerous under this rule than the off-spinner. You can see and, to a degree, anticipate off-spinners better, and an in-swinger seems to come off dry ground much quicker. That, therefore, is one of the big changes I have noticed in the style of batting during my era. \ln my early days youngsters were taught to play forward, and it was the accepted theory that one only played back when the wicket was soft and the ball was turning. Now, batsmen play back on a hard wicket largely because, as I have said, of the preponderance of in-swinging bowlers, seeing that this type of attack cannot be driven to the off, very rarely try to make themselves spin bowlers pure and simple. I know, of course, that it is not given to everyone to keep such a perfect length as J. T. Hearne or Albert Relf used to. "They would bowl all the afternoon and scarcely give you six balls that you could hit with safety. The means have been found to contend with the swing, but at the expense of many of those glorious off-side strokes for which our: predecessors were famed, and it is only when an over-pitched ball comes along that you can drive it to the off. Even then, when it does come, your feet may be wrong, and you are too late to get into position. "There is one point about the improvement in batting to which I should like to draw attention, and that is that it is not confined^to those in the first half of the order.' -Even in: my early days we seldom-expected or saw. the last four, men stay very long. Nowa-' days Nos. 8, 9, 10, and 11 all come in, not so much to have a wild swipe,. but. to play for-runs. They very rarely..' obtain them. This, of; course, may be considered to be partly due to the difference in bowling. Back play, too, has been the means of driving the offspinner largely out of the game, and figures clearly show that batsmen, even when allowance is made for a great deal of extra cricket which they play, generally get far more runs now than they used to do.": ON FIELDING. "On Fielding" Hobbs is especially worthy pf attention: "It is a little difficult to say definitely if fielding has improved. Individually, it may not have done, but collectively I think it has. Thirty years ago, the positions of mid-on and short-leg were both known as 'Mugs' Corner.' Captain looked round, and almost invariably put his two incompetent fieldsmen in those places. I have never agreed that midon's was an easy job. You have to watch the batsman and anticipate his stroke, and you have to be quick off. the mark when you field there. Only in recent years have we awakened to this fact, while men like 'Bill' Hitch made short-leg an honourable position in which to field. Hammond is my ideal fieldsman. '■ He would 'be great,anywhere, and Mitchell, of Yorkshire,.runs him very'close. No matter where they are put, these two men can be right at the top, and it has often struck me that Hammond's fielding would very likely have been far more extensively talked of had he been an' out-fielder, while it is certain he would do wonderful work at coveV-point.

"With regard to the placing of the field there can be no question at all that this has engaged the at^ntion of captains to a far greater degree than it used to, and consequently it is better. The Australians, for instance, have developed a study of this to such an extent that they are now much better than we in England at placing their fieldsmen to stop runs, and the • increase in . on-strokes by batsmen has led to two or three men being placed on the leg side, when in my early days there was only one, ... "This is not meant as a reference to body-line bowling. My views on that are well known. I deplore its intro-

duction. I think it has done great harm to the game, because it fosters a spirit foreign to the tradition of cricket, and which certainly never existed when I first came to the scene." HAMMOND AND HENDREN. Hobbs goes on: "Since I started the hook and the leg glide have become common strokes, and I always had the idea, too, that before my time it was considered rather infra dig to hook a ball round to the leg side. Nowadays batsmen will step right across and hook a ball from wide of the off stump round to square leg.. Hammond is-the great exception. He won't hook. He considers it a dangerous stroke, and I remember once, the first time I saw him, he persisted in playing balls which the ordinary batsman would have hooked hard back either to midon or mid-off. But then Hammond, as a batsman, is a law .unto himself. He can step right back and force a short ball to the off, but not many men possess such power of wrist and forearm and quickness on the feet to be able to do that. "Pat Hendren is my ideal batsman, for I think he has every stroke for all sorts of wicket against all types of bowling. Had he played 30 or 40 years ago he would, I think, have been equally effective. "We saw last season one noticeable feature about the batting of the Australians in the power they put into their strokes. . When young they are taught first to hit the ball; we in England are taught defence. The wickets in Australia are, of course, easier as a general rule than ours. They are the same pace, and the ball comes along at a uniform height. Because of this Australian batsmen are for the most part more confident." "SWINGERS'? AND "GOOGLIES." Writing under the heading of "Swingers" and "Googlies," the champion batsman says: "I have already said that one of the most notable changes in cricket with regard to bowling has been the introduction of 'swing' or 'swerve.' No doubt long before my time bowlers were able to, and probably often did, make the ball swing," but it was not known then how this was brought about, and quite likely when it occurred bowlers put it down to an extra strong current of air or some other outside influence. "The secret of being able to make a ball move about in the air was acquired during my era, and at the present time almost anybody with any knowledge of bowling can send down 'swingers' of one sort or another. It is all a question of how the ball is held in the hand.at the moment of delivery, and bowlers of this description now comp under the general heading of 'seam-up bowlers:' Shortly after I began to play first-class : cricket came the googly, known in Australia as the 'bosie,' because it was first discovered by B. J. T. Bosanquet. The South Africans were quick to realise the deadliness of this ball once a command of length had been gained. On the matting wickets in their country they soon perfected it, and in G. A. Faulkner, A. E. Vogler, Gordon White, and R. O. Schwartz they produced the .finest array of googly bowlers ever seen together in one team. W. G. Grace did not, I think, play in an important match against googly bowling, but obviously he must have been so very good that he, like many ol us later on, would have mastered it. He would have played every ball on its merits. LOSING AN ART. "While on the question of bowling I am definitely of the opinion that during my career the art of flighting the ball has steadily deteriorated. We have nobody .now so good at this as Colin Ely the. He was one of the world's greatest bowlers of his type, and, unlike most of the present-day exponents'; was Aever afraid of being hit. Of fast bpwlers, the only ones of recent years' at all comparable with those giants of the past have been Liarwood arid McDonald. Being a member of the same county side, I only played against N. A. Knox in Gentlemen and Players matches and games of a similar description when he was probably past his best,; but I think he was the best fast bowler I ever saw. He brought the ball down from such a great height that he could often make good-length deliveries rear up straight. "The widening of the wicket, which previously had not been advocated, did not, when it came into general use, help bowlers to the extent that had been anticipated, and, although a batsman, I am all lor still wider wickets. When the alteration was made I thought at the time the decision had not gone quite far enough—not far enough, at any rate, to achieve its main object of putting the bowler on more level terms with the batsmen. Events have, I think, proved me to be right." In his concluding paragraph, Hobbs writes: "In- the last quarter of a century—and perhaps during a longer time—there has come about a great change for the better in the relations existing between amateurs and professionals. County committees have realised that both on and off the field their players are all members of the same .team, and professionals are not, as was largely the case some years ago, relegated to incommodious dressing rooms with no amenities, while, as a general rule, amateurs and professionals now take their luncheon and tea .together in ;the same room. The inatural;.consequence'of this, of course,, has been a prbnounced improvement in the bearing.of professional cricketers off the field. The average professional :npwadays can, I think, hold his own {as a man in any company."