neville cardus
International Debutant
Echoed. Let's have some more!Always loved that one.
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The greatest-ever left-arm finger-spinner
- Thread starter neville cardus
- Start date
neville cardus
International Debutant
Interestingly, in 1882, Peate was rated ahead of even Spofforth in some circles (among them the much-lauded Charles Pardon of Bell's Life).
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Never seen the latter, and have only seen one or two clips of the former TBH.
neville cardus
International Debutant
I've taken four stills of Blythe and compared them to four frames from newsreel footage of Wardle. It's hardly ideal, but it should give some idea.
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SJS
Hall of Fame Member
The basic similarity is in that both of them start with the hand with the ball starting from far behind the back as they are looking over the right shoulder.
Blythe's action looks more smooth with the body more erect and yet the bowling arm slightly away from the perpendicular. Wardle's action, on the other hand, looks slightly more energetic with the body leaning to a bit to the right but the bowling arm very erect.
I also noticed in another picture how Wardle's right toe was pointing towards fine leg - not exactly classical
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The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
Because he's obviously a better bowler than anyone on that list except Underwood, Verity and Rhodes. The people have spoken.
neville cardus
International Debutant
That was the decisive factor in my observation. It is a highly idiosyncratic little oddity, and it struck as strange that two such prominent bowlers as Blythe and Wardle should have shared it and yet never, to the best of my knowledge, had the similarity remarked upon.
Blythe was obviously a treat to watch, one of that rare strain of movingly elegant practitioners to whom the repulsive term "bowler" does zero justice. I would have paid a large portion of my limited funds to have seen him in action.
Wardle was more utility, craft and efficacy than graceful panache. His was a rough and ready approach, wholly befitting his personality -- much as Blythe's soft symmetry suited his.
The same, indeed, might be said of Wilfred Rhodes, who was even less an aesthetic turn-on than Johnny. The quintessential Yorkshire pro, Rhodes simply got on with the job at hand and bothered with nowt else. His run-up was almost non-existent -- two steps at most, then a small, childlike hop --, and the arm's hurried whipping-over left nothing to Cardusesque flights of romantic fancy.
They really are a fascinating breed, these slow left-armers.
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Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Fascinating (even if the Wardle frames are a bit blurry). And even more so given I've never seen Wardle in colour before now.
neville cardus
International Debutant
Isn't it just?
That, alas, is the best that PowerDVD could do for me.
There's a surprising wealth of colour footage from the 1950s. Those particular frames come from '55.
I've been trying to get some idea of how each of the slow left-armers bowled. Lord Hawke (of all people) describes Ted Peate's action as "the most perfect", but Yorkshire 'keeper David Hunter leaves it at "beautiful".
R. H. Lyttelton reckons that "his bowling arm never raised above his shoulder" -- and Allan Steel confirms it, telling us that he bowled round-arm. Steel goes on to record that he "did not toss the ball at all high in the air [....] He was an exceptional good length, difficult to see, and had a lot of work on. Some of his performances against the Australians are truly wonderful. When Peate first began to play cricket he was a very fast, high-actioned bowler, and the writer remembers finding him on the slow sticky wicket of the Carlisle ground very nasty to play. He subsequently altered his pace to slow, and it is a remarkable fact that after this alteration he completely lost the power of sending down a really fast ball."
I'll bring forth my findings on Peel at a later stage.
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shortpitched713
International Captain
neville cardus
International Debutant
Why do they not do that anymore?
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Caused too much backache?
A surfeit of cricket bad for Umpires as well as players?
I always knew there were less errors back in t' day!
(Note: this last line isn't entirely ironic. While we can never know for certain how many Umpiring errors there were before cricket got proper coverage - probably around the start of the Nine era - it does seem conceivable to me that there were indeed fewer errors in halycon days)
A surfeit of cricket bad for Umpires as well as players?
I always knew there were less errors back in t' day!
(Note: this last line isn't entirely ironic. While we can never know for certain how many Umpiring errors there were before cricket got proper coverage - probably around the start of the Nine era - it does seem conceivable to me that there were indeed fewer errors in halycon days)
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Gives me an idea actually...
chris.hinton
International Captain
Who is the greatest Left arm Wrist spinner?
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
Here is another umpire "bending his back" to get it right.
Who can tell who this famous umpire is ?
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