Sporting Aspects
The Unfriendly Bumper
By JOHN ARLOTT DURING the rubber of cricket Test Matches played in Australia in 1924-25, Maurice Tate took thirty-eight wickets, the most ever taken by any bowler in a single Test series. This was observed and recorded at the time. It was not then known that his bowling on that tour exemplified the historic grounds for the debated cricket tactic usually now called the " bumper."
Despite the record number of wickets credited to Tate, much of his best bowling was wasted. It is generally agreed that the finest single delivery in his method was the out-swinging ball which, leaving the bat late in its flight, moved with Tate's characteristically great pace off the wicket, towards the slip- field. This had always been the most effective delivery of the great fast bowlers who, inviting the batsman to play a late cut, then betrayed him, by speed or swing, into the minute misjudgement which caused him to edge a catch to the slips or the wicket-keeper. H. L. Collins, then the captain of Australia, recognised Tate as the major danger to his team's success and undertookthe task of checking him. Collins' method was to refrain, whenever possible, from playing any stroke at all to Tate's outswinger during the period when the ball was new and the bowler at his freshest and most hostile. Twice during the series he was bowled by deliveries from Tate which he had decided to leave unplayed. He soon learned, however, to cover up with his pads against the possibility of the breakback which, pitching outside his off stump, turned into the wicket.
This method was not entirely new, but it now spread through almost all first-class cricket. The late cut became almost an obsolete stroke : once part of the normal practice of the game, its execution became a rare and spectacular occurrence. The faster bowlers, in reply, began to employ, to an increasing extent, the inswinging ball or the " classic " method of the breakback with which Spqfforth had bowled out the English team in 1882. The batsmen's counter was literally to play the ball with their pads. Bowes, of Yorkshire, told me he once bowled five of the finest balls of his career, consecu- tively, to one of the best of all batsmen. Each pitched on a perfect length at great pace; outside the line of the off stump and turned in so as to have hit the middle stump. Each was calmly and deliberately fended off by the great player with his right pad. Bowes frequently bowled short-pitched balls along the line of the leg stump to force batsmen into using their bats, if only in self-defence. Thus the entire shape of fast and fast-medium' bowling was changed. In August, 1932, at Cardiff, the Nottinghamshire opening bowlers, Larwood and Voce, bowled a day-long series of short-pitched balls to the late Maurice Turnbull of Glamorgan. Turnbull, a strong player of fast bowling, played an innings of 205 against them. Spectators were puzzled that two bowlers of such standing should bowl " harmless " long- hops to a batsman so capable in the execution of the hook stroke. The fadt that they stationed the majority of their fieldsmen in 1 the close catching positions on the leg side appeared unfoundedly optimistic.
Within three months, this type of bowling, labelled by the Press "bodyline," was being employed by the same two bowlers to win a series of Test matches in Australia. One main reason for its success was, undoubtedly, the greater pace of Australian wickets at that time by comparison with those in England. I is also relevant that the shortage of fast bowlers in Australian cricket of the period led to their batsmen being out of practice against such pace. The same method was used by the West Indian fast bowlers against England in 1933, when D. It. Jardine, who had directed Larwood and Voce in Australia, mastered it to the extent of scoring a century in the Test Match at Old Trafford. This was the type of attack which the M.C.C., in legislating against it in 1935, defined as " persistent and systematic bowling of fast short-pitched balls at the batsman standing clear of his wicket," and described as " unfair." This year the words " standing clear of his wicket " have been deleted.
There can be no doubt that this form of attack arose entirely from the defensive tactics adopted by the batsmen. Charles Kortright, who was generally said to be the fastest bowler cricket had known, once told me that fast bowlers in his day —the 1890s—did not use the " bouncer " because " we did not need to—we bowled fast outside the off stump and the batsman tried to cut us : that was all we wanted."
That the bowler needed assistance against " modem " batting methods was, in fact, tacitly admitted by the M.C.C. in their simultaneous legislation to introduce the " new " lbw law, which made it possible for a batsman to be out leg-before-wicket to a ball which pitched on the off side of the wicket. It was clearly. although unofficially, indicated by leading cricket administrators that neither orthodox leg-theory, nor the fast bowler's age-old right (as Wisden said) to put a batsman on the qui vive" was in question. Indeed, such bowlers as the Australians Gregory and Macdonald in 1921 had, from time to time, deliberately dropped a ball short against batsmen who showed a tendency to flinch. The ethics of this tactic have never, apparently, been seriously questioned. It may yet, however, be pertinent that the law speaks of the attack being " persistent and systematic" and not " persistent or systematic." Thus, the continued bowling of fast and short- pitched balls at the batsman does not in itself constitute an offence. This may result froth inability on the bowler's part to control his length. There must, presumably, be evidence that the practice is " systematic "—part of a plan. Moreover, as the law reads, it is the unfairness, and not the danger, of the method that is condemned. This poses for the umpire the question of evidence, which, it seems, must be the posting' f leg-side fieldsmen in such positions as to catch the batsman out from strokes made in self-defence. Yet that disposition would differ little from that employed for ordinary leg-theory.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that English crowds at the moment resent the bowling of an occasional short- pitched ball. On only one occasion—and that limited to five deliveries—has any Australian bowler in England since the war employed the " bumper " in any concentrated form. Lindwall, in particular, used it very sparingly, and was judged often to take wickets because the batsman was looking for the " bouncer " which did not come. Here it might be argued that the flying ball kept as a surprise is more dangerous to the batsman than a series of such deliveries, bowled to a field which warns the batsman in advance of the likelihood of such a ball.
Above all, much of the lack of sympathy in this country for short, fast bowling arises from the fact that our players and spectators, like those of Australia in 1932-33, are not condi- tioned to fast bowling in our normal domestic play. The batsmen's reactions to this bowling, as apparent to the crowd, are disturbing to a far greater extent than they would be if the players were in practice against bowling of such speed. In 1948, our leading batsmen were unsure against the bowling of Miller and Lindwall in the early part of the season but subsequently, and with practice, came to play them quite soundly. Unfortunately the Test rubber was lost while they learnt. There is unhappily reason to believe that the good young players .developed in England in the past three years, however great their natural and technical gifts, may also need practice to develop the speed of their reflexes. Once again, only the Australian bowlers provide that practice—and then it is match-practice, with Test Match defeat always its possible price.
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