GREAT BOWLER.
BARNES AND HIS METHODS.
OFF AND LEG BREAKS.
HOW BATSMEN ABE DECEIVED.
7 August 1912
The most talked of bowler since A. C. MacLaren sprung him on the world of cricket ten years ago has been S. F. Barnes, of Warwickshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, and England. He was, when discovered,
the best right-handed medium paced bowler in England. He is now the best of his type in the world; and has been so for some years wrote E. H. D. Sewell in the 'Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic' recently.
Barnes claim to the position of best bowler in the world is based on his ability to pitch a leg-break a good length on the wlcket, conjoined with the power to spin the ball for that break enough to make the ball turn on a good wlcket. Some have bowled the legbreak as fast or faster than he, notably Joseph Vine, but nobody has been able to make the ball deviate after pitching on a run-getting surface to the same extent as he.
That Is why I treat his leg-break as Plate 1 In Barnes menu. Good length varies according to the state of the pitch and the stature of the batsman, but for a bowler of Barnes' speed I have taken six yards trom the stumps as Barnes best length. The ordinary leg-break pitching six yards from the stumps may be played with safety for ever by a good batsman, chiefly by employing back play. But Barnes' bowling is so quick off the pitch that he compels forward play from nearly enveryone except players like Fry, Faulkner, and Spooner, who are the best exponents of the art of watching the ball from the pitch now playing......
In the last test match at Lord's Barnes bowled one off-break to Schwarz which pitched fully eight inches outside the off-stump and missed the leg-stump. The batsman having no time to get his leg across. He would have cost his side four byes and himself a stinging crack on the thigh had he done so. This ball followed very shortly a good specimen of the one I have diagrammed in Plate I, and that, as Mitchell told me directly afterwards, he couldn't touch once a year.......
Besides his ordinary (extraordinary?) leg-break and off-break, Barnes can also bowl the In-swerve. It often happens that a bowler, after applying leg-break spin, sees the ball 'float' inwards toward the batsman, or if It started on his leg-stump, away from him on the leg side. Against a head wind, or one blowing from third-man, Barnes can do this at will; indeed, be can do It on a still day.
The particular deception in this is that after long bored to death with fast leg-breaks and off-breaks, the batsman, on seeing the ball In the air well outside his off stump, apparently over-teased, gets across his wicket to collect the four runs offering through the covers. But this is no half-volley. Losing its initial momentum, but retaining much of its lateral spin, the ball now becomes more susceptible to the air preasure which is acting with great force on its righthand surface (looking at it through the would be striker's spectacles) - and therefore deviates suddenly from the off into the batsman. If he is too planted on his feet, set for the offside four, the umpire generally errs and gives him out lbw because such a ball will never hit the stumps after pitching a goodish length. If the batsman just sees in time what is happening, and is very quick on his pins to boot, he may get tack in time and make short-leg do the rest, or get out of his trouble as best he may. In any event this inswerver is not an easy ball. In considering it one has to remember especially that it is bowled more or less with leg-break action. This being so the batsman thinks, if It is pitching short, that here is a certain four cut, and if well up a driven four. Whereas it is neither, and thus determined attack has to be changed while the ball is travelling about four yards into solid defence. In the face of these facts, is Barnes' success to be wondered at?.....
07 Aug 1912 - A GREAT BOWLER. - Trove
