R. Foster — a prince of the Golden Age
Rowland Ryder, 1976
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It is difficult to assess F. R. Foster in terms of cricketing greatness, owing to the comparative brevity of his career. It is chiefly as a bowler that he will be remembered; second as a dynamic captain, third, as a batsman.nThis at least can be said: as a bowler he went through an Australian tour with Sydney Barnes at his zenith, and wicket for wicket, proved himself his equal; as a captain, he evoked comparison with the young W. G. Grace; as an attacking batsman he was not far short of Jessop.
How did Foster bowl? This is what he wrote himself: "I took a short eight-yard run, holding the ball always in my left hand with 'seam-up' and I always delivered the ball from the very edge of the bowling crease." Foster also felt very strongly that no left-hander should ever attempt to bowl over the wicket.
This is how P. F. Warner describes Foster's action. "Bowling left-hand round the wicket with a high delivery -- he was six feet tall -- his action was the personification of ease. A few short steps, a graceful skip, an apparently medium-paced ball through the air, but doubling its speed as it touched the ground, he kept an exceptional length. He did in fact once bowl two consecutive maiden overs to Jessop!"
And a wicket-keeper's eye view -- "I remember the first time I 'kept to him" wrote Herbert Strudwick. "It was at Lord's in an England v The Rest match. Seymour (Kent) was batting. The first ball Mr. Foster bowled appeared to be well on the leg side. Seymour shaped to play it to leg and I moved that way, but, believe me, we were both surprised when the ball flashed over the off stump, and when it went for four byes I thought I was in for a good afternoon."
Foster bowled at the leg stump, and he certainly hit the wickets pretty frequently. In 1911 74 of his 116 victims were clean bowled and 10 were l.b.w. -- a left-hander bowling at the edge of the crease could hardly expect more.
Foster would seem to have developed his leg theory bowling during the Australian tour; in certain respects he did what Larwood was doing in Australia twenty-one years later; if Foster's thirty-two wickets, for an average of 21.62, were obtained at a slightly higher cost than Larwood's thirty-three wickets at 19.51, perhaps, all in all, Foster had a greater team to bowl against.
In his field placing for the Tests in Australia, Foster had a mid-off, cover and deep third man; wicket-keeper, long leg, a semi-circle of four close in leg side fielders (two in front of the wicket and two behind) and a mid-on. Foster's four death trap fieldsmen, as he called them, were George Gunn, Frank Woolley, Bill Hitch and Wilfred Rhodes: they took nine catches off his bowling in the Tests.
As a right-handed batsman he was stylish, vigorous and attacking, though Wisden says that his bat was not quite straight and that he took too many risks. An unfortunate motor-cycle accident in 1915 terminated his cricket career. His book of cricketing memories was published in 1930. Frank Foster died in 1958.
He was, above all, a joyous cricketer, who played the game with splendid verve. During the wonderful summer of his achievement that lasted from May 1911 until March 1912, he was probably without equal on the cricket field.
Wisden - F. R. Foster — a prince of the Golden Age
