BEST SLOW BOWLER

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 20 April 1935, Page 13

BEST SLOW BOWLER

QRIMMETT’S CHIEF ATTRIBUTE THRIVES ON ACCURACY. CREATOR OF THE “GOOGLY.”

Who is the most accurate slow bowler to-day? writes C. G. Macartney. I expect the most popular answer to that question would be Clarrie Grimmett, ajid in my opinion it would be correct. Grimmett thrives on accuracy, and that is his chief attribute. Naturally, he applies spin, and variation\ in pace adds to his general destructiveness; but accuracy in every delivery makes him the menace he is.

It is interesting to see how Grimmett would compare with some of the slow bowlers of the past. Warwick Armstrong was perhaps even more accurate than Grimmett.

I have watched and admired Armstrong bowling for hours, maintaining a magnificent length and direction, and keeping the opposition on tenterhooks all the while.

Warwick was so perfect in length that I am convinced he could hit a halfcrown more often than not.

In one particular match, against Surrey in 1921, he took six wickets in each innings at the low cost of 37 and 39 respectively. He gave nothing away and every batsman on the Surrey side had to work specially hard for runs.

Going back many years_an England slow bowler, Leonard C. Braund, was one of, the most accurate of the type. In my opinion Braund relied mainly on variation in pace, introduced more variety into liis slows than any other bowler of the kind I. can remember.

He frequently turned the ball from the leg side, but his most dangerous delivery was the which came straight through, making considerable pace from the pitch. Braund was the finest slip field in the world in his flay, and in my opinioD he has never been bettered. He was perhaps better known as a slip fieldsman than as a bowler. As a batsman he was most reliable, and of English allround cricketers Braund was one of the foremost.

Dr. Bert Hordern, better known to the cricketers of his time as “Ranji,” was the best and most accurate of the googly bowlers. During the first South African visit to Australia in 1910-11, those champions of the googly art, Voglcr, Faulkner, Schwartz and Pegler, promised big things when the big matches started.

Australia, however, made plenty of runs against them, but little did they think that in a little while after landing in this country, they were to encounter one who out-googlied them.

Bert Hordern did beat them at their own game, and he completely upset all their calculations when he came into the tests.

Hordern concealed the googly ball better than any man I have known, all the time maintaining an almost perfect length. Ho could deliver the leg-break or the off-break with the same action, and it was scarcely discernible. I have played against many googly bowlers in my time, and Hordern was the most difficult to find.

Perhaps the creator of the googly ball was the most inaccurate of the lot. B. J. T. Bonsanquct has the honour of being the first man to discover the googly or “bosey,” as it was first called.

There were occasions wTien he frequently dropped the ball short of halfway, and it came to the batsman on the second, or third hop. His direction was often astray, and once in a Test match in Sydney, Victor Trumper hit a four from a ball which ho chased in the direction, of point.