BELL LOST HIS PACE

Northern Advocate, 20 July 1935, Page 2

BELL LOST HIS PACE

HOW HE FOUND IT AGAIN. In Australia, “Sandy” Bell was quite a fast bowler. When he started bowling in England he semed to have lost half his pace. Luis Duffus (in the Johannesburg “Star”) says that his more intimate friends began to chaff him by saying, “Hullo, this looks like a turned wicket; let’s put on Bell and Balaskas.” And Bell bowled on valiantly, mystified that the ball would not hum through the air as it did at Melbourne and Sydney . '■ It must be the slower English wickets, he lamented to himself. Then suddenly he made a startling discovery in his bedroom. ■For some days after practice began he was conscious of a slight pain in his left side, just below the rib. Bowling an imaginary ball before the mir-

rcr one morning, he noticed that his left elbow, instead of swinging clear of his body as he delivered, came down in contact with the tender spot. In ether words he was wheeling his bowling arm forward while the other arm jarred against his body and held him back. On the eve of the Worcester match he put the erring elbow in its place, and those who had scoffed spent uncomfortable moments trying to keep their wickets intact in the Lords’ nets.