A Gallery of Cricketers
The Book of Cricket. By Denzil Batchelor. (Collins. 42s.) MANY years ago G. W. Beldam, who played for Middlesex, produced a book called Great Batsmen ; Their Methods at a Glance, which vas followed by another devoted to bowlers. Beldam was a pioneer in action photography, and his two volumes came to us as revelation. So far we had needed to be content with " plates " of our herm, representing, say, Tom Richardson erect and stationary, one hand aloft to denote that he was a right-arm fast bowler. Or it might be Johnny Briggs, his other arm aloft indicating that he personally bowled left-arm and slow. I remember a front view of Lilley key- ing wicket with an ornamental lake directly behind him. G. W. Beldam gave animation to our memory's wax-works. There wai a superb photo of Richardson just about to bring his arm over, leaping at the bowling-crease like Nijinsky.
Mr. Denzil Batchelor doesn't include this " living picture ".in ris sumptuous art-gallery of some two hundred cricketers of all periods and climes from " W. G. " and Spofforth to P. B. H. May aid Rainadhin. We are given a " head " of the most lion-hearted of fast bowlers, handsome but sedentary and dressed for domestic Ise. Mr. Batchelor contributes the letterpress to every photograph, as C. B. Fry did to Beldam's. It is not easy to stop turning over tinse pages ; the book will bring back half-forgotten greatness of per- sonality, and also will quicken our vision of present performaire. We can study, too, the progress of camera technique, its ability to seize the flying moment and to hold it. Bowes is caught in a perfect state of suspended animation, in the air, legs crossed, left shoulder forward, arms in ideal position, and balanced like scales, jaw and teeth set, spectacles vehement. Grimmett is " discovered " (the only word for it) after he has released the ball ; his whole body is peering ,clown the pitch to find out if once again the batsman aas fallen into the snare.
Naturally we have to do some imaginative collaboration with the pictures from early times. But to this present day no camera or " movie man " has taken a more thrilling shot than the famous photo of Victor Trumper at the Oval, at the end of a drive, the bat finishing above and over his left shoulder—he is yards out of his crease, confident and easy of power. The incomparable glance to leg of " Ranji " is preserved for sceptical contemporary eyes to see ; would the magic of it have blinded and put under a spell the " leg-traps " of 1952 ? For such a book selection was bound to be difficult and leave some of us conscious of irreplaceable gaps. H. Martyn is not amongst the wicket-keepers enshrined here, and he " stood up " to N. A. Knox and W. Brearley at Lord's against the Players, the match in which one distinguished and sensible master professional walked towards square-leg while Knox bowled him, saying : " Ah've got a wife and family waitin' for me at home." S. M. J. Woods is also missing • but he defied any inventor's power to reduce an impression of him to the merely representative and visual. Mr. Batchelor's pen-pictures are vivid and often penetrating. Now and again we could wish for a little more technical definition and information. Parkin, once of Lancashire, is not catalogued at all unless emphasis is laid on.lis offbreak, bowled round the wicket, and the pace of it. And is it true that S. F. Barnes " cut " the ball " from the on to invite the dolly catch to the leg-field." ? Were the batsmen of the Golden Age unsophisticated enough to play against the spin and late swerye ? Mr. Batchelor is certainly wrong to refer to the " cunning slow bowling " of J. N. Crawford, whose genius it was to cause the ball to whip back even on the flawless grounds of Australia where in the rubber of 1907-1908 he took thirty wickets in five Test matches, with these immortals amongst his victims : Trumper (thrice), Clem Hill (twice), Armstrong (five times), S. E. Gregory (twice), Macartney (thrice) and Noble (thrice). It is the opinion of Strudwick, who kept wicket many times to Craw- ford, that his bowling was nearly as fast if not as fast as Bedser's.
Mr. Batchelor, as a kind of end-piece to a book of value and distinction, chooses a " Team of the Half-Century." It is as follows: Hobbs, Trumper, Bradman, Fry, Worrell, Compton, Tate, Oldfield, Lockwood, Larwood and Mailey. " My goodness !" he writes ; " the men I've left out ! " He has left out Barnes, the greatest of all bowlers, and embarrassed himself (or his captain) with three who would each like to go on with the new ball. For every con- dition of wicket give me Barnes and Rhodes ; Larwood or Mac- Donald, would see to the fast stuff ! And is Compton preferred to
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