Artfulness Of C. V. Grimmett, Great Slow Bowler

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1934, Page 11

Artfulness Of C. V. Grimmett, Great Slow Bowler

, ■ As C. V. Grimmett, of the Australian cricket team, is not only the first right-hand slow bowler to take 100 wickets in Test cricket matches between Australia and England, but is also the first cricketer born in. New Zealand to achieve that feat, an essay on him and his craft in the game, by the most famous cricket writer of the day, is of special interest to New Zealanders. The appended article was written for the: “Manchester Guardian" by “Cricketer," who is Neville Cardus. It was written while this year’s series of Test matches was in progress.

TIE is an unobtrusive little man, with Ll a face that says nothing to you at all; seldom is he heard by the crowd wh?n he appeals for leg-before-wicket. He walks about the field on dainty feet which step as though with the soft fastidiousness of a cat treading a wet pavement. He is master of surreptitious arts; he hides his skill, and sometimes, when he is on guard at cover, he seems to hide himself. He knows a trick of getting himself unobserved, and he darts forward to run a man out like somebody emerging from an ambush.

“Gamp is my name and gamp is my natur’.” That is a dark metaphysical saying; the meaning cannot be put into words, but none the less we can grasp it by the instinct for eternal substances. It is like that with Grimmett; the name penetrates ■to the quiddity, like ‘‘curl, “twist,” “slithery";', his name is onomatopoeic. I love,to see him bowl a man out behind his back, so to say round the legs; the ball gently touches the stumps and removes, per haps only one bail; The humorous cunning of it reminds me that the Artful Dodger used to walk stealthily' behind his master and extract the handkerchief from the coat-tails' without making a tinkle on the little bell! , Bowls Gdogly Like a Miser.

Compare Grimmett with the wonderfid leg-spin bowler he succeeded in the Australian eleven, Arthur Mailey. An Australian wit once said to me: “Mailey bowled the ‘googly’ stuff like a millionaire; ‘Clarrie’ bowls it like: a miser.” Mailey tossed up his spin with all the blandness in the world; his fulltosses were like a generous sort of fattening diet—before, the killing and the roasting! Mailey did his mischief by daylight. Grimmett goes to work with a dark lantern; his boots are rubbered. Mailey’s wickets were like a practised and jolly angler’s “catch ; Grimmett’s wickets are definitely “swag?*, When he goes off the field after lie has had seven for 57, I can see the bag he is carrying over his shoulder. ' . He is the greatest right-handed spmbowler of our period. The comparison with Mailey was employed to stress not resemblance but difference; Grimmett is less a “googly” than a leg-break bowler. He uses the “wrong one sparsely; he is content to thrive on the hair which breaks away and leaves the bat; that is the best of all balls. A straight ball, wickedly masked, is Grimmett’s '.foil, to the leg-break. .He. makes a virtue of. a low-arm: his flight keeps so close to the earth that only a batsman quick of feet can jump to the pitch of it. And then'must he beware of. Oldfield-, the most gentlemanly of

WORD-PICTURE BY MOST FAMOUS ' CRICKET WRITER OF TO-DAY

wicketkeepers, who stumps you. with courtesy; he does not make a noise to the umpire, but almost bows you from the wicket. Or he is like a perfect dentist who says when your heart is in your mouth: “It’s all over; I’ve already got it out; here it is.” To play forward to Grimmett, to miss the spin, and then to find yourself stumped by Oldfield—why it is like an amputation done under an anaesthetic! Descent of Felicity.

Moments come to all of us when we are uplifted beyond the ordinary; we become touched with grace for a while; we become vessels of inspiration. Felicity descended on Grimmett at Trent Bridge in June, 1930, on the first day of the Test match. I have never seen cleverer bowling on a good wicket against great players.. Hammond was batting; he made two of his own great forcing off-side hits, off the back foot. These strokes told us that Hammond was in form. Grimmett bowled him a straight ball which sped sinfully from the beautiful turf. Hammond lbw to Grimmett. Next came Woolley. Lefthanded batsmen love leg-spin bowlers; the break turns the ball inwards to the middle of the bat. But Grimmett did not send a leg-break to Woolley; he sent the “googly,” whipping away. Woolley’s. forward stroke was seduced by the fulsome length. Woolley was stumped by Oldfield. A few minutes afterwards Grimmett drew Hendren a yard out of his crease like a mesmerist; then, having got Hendren where he wanted him, not far enough down the pitch, but yet too far. he bowled him. Grimmett will remember in his old age how he spun and “floated” the ball that day; by the chimney corner he will babble of the way he turned a batsman’s smooth lawn into a sticKy dog.” By sheer craftsmanship he overthrew three, great batsmen; nothing to intimidate, no brute force (as. George Lohmann called fast bowling of sorts) ; nothing but a slow spinning ball bowled by a little man with an arm as low as my grandfather’s. . The first sight of Grimmett bowling arouses mild laughter. His action recalls the ancient round-arm worthies, or it recalls cricket on the sands with a walking-stick for the wicket and a father of six playing for the first time for years. A few steps, a shuffle, and Grimmett’s arm seems to creak. But watch liis wrist and his fingers; they are sinuous and beautiful. The wrist twirls and swivels; the fingers seem to adore and caress the ball, with the touch of a parent. Grimmett’s fingers are always light and wonderfully tactile; when he passes the salt at dinner he imparts the “ ’fluence.” Master of Surreptitious Arts.

He is, I believe, a signwriter by profession. Can’t you see his right wrist at work, sweeping the brush along the ornamentation? Can’t V° u se ® the fingers intimately putting the finishing flick to a full-ston? Or can’t you see the skeleton key at work, turning the lock, finding the way through the bolted door, of Sutcliffe’s bat? He is, as I say, a master of surreptitious arts. His countenance expresses no joy when he confounds his opponents. But I imagine that long after close of play, as he lies in bed ’and thinks about it, he laughs far into the night. That apparent half-volley which Walters tried to drive; that obvious long-hop that

Hendren tried to hook. Confidence tricks!—O my lungs and liver, the wickedness of the world!

He seldom gets a man caught in the deep-field. That is an open and a brazen way to rifle the English house. Better by far a swift catch at first slip, or at the wicket; best of all- lbw! nobody knows anything about it away from the scene of the burglary. He is a great character, not only a. great bowler. Sometimes he fancies himself as a batsman. He thrusts his left foot across and drives. Or he waits for it and cuts elegantly. Occasionally he plays late and sees his stumps all awry. Then, and only then, does he .wear his heart on his sleeve. Everybody cherishes private ambitions; we all wish to be what we are not. Dan Leno sighed to play Hamlet; Henry Irving enjoyed himself best when he sat on his tophat and pretended to be Jingle in a farce derived from “Pickwick.” Grimmett made 50 in a Test match at Nottingham in. June; perhaps in his old age he will not remember Trent Bridge for his great bowling of 1930 but for his preposterously stylish and 'first-class half-century of 1934. The rest of the world will dwell for ever on his spin, learned in Australia, where a slow bowler must do his own work and not depend on nature and friendly wickets. For my part I shall think of him always as I saw him at Worcester in May, taking the county’s last wicket and winning the game. A catch was missed from him, and in the same over another lofty chance was skied near coyer. Grimmett would trust nobody ■ but Grimmett this time; he ran after the ball himself, and when he caught it he put it in his pocket and glided from the field, concealed entirely among 10 other victorious Australians.