Is George Lohmann underrated?

[viriya]

Pre-1900 players are usually ignored since they bowled in sticky/uncovered pitches, but Lohmann's numbers are significantly better than any of his contemporaries:
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

His average of 10.75 is 53% better than Charlie Turner's 16.53. The equivalent of a bowler averaging 13.5 when the next best is averaging 21 (McGrath in the 2000s):
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

I realize he didn't play a lot of matches, but I would think if we're rating Sydney Barnes as one of the best ever these days we should give Lohmann his due as well?

 

[Howe_zat]

Well, 19th century cricketers are more often ignored because most people engage with sport through news and real-time narrative and there's no place at all in that for someone who lived before all living memory. I'd say, yes, he is underrated by this group as they've most likely never heard of him.

On the other hand he's usually significantly overrated by those who're intrigued enough by records to be aware of him but haven't, in my opinion, put 19th century test cricket in its proper place which is just one part of first class cricket. It was more akin to the way football works, in the sense that club performances in the top leagues can be thought of as just a high standard as internationals. Comparing Lohmann's county record to other stars of first class cricket at the time such as Spofforth or Briggs shows him to be among the best but not distinctly ahead.

 

[fredfertang]

Lohmann's real average is rather higher because he had some ridiculously cheap wickets against South African sides that were nowhere near Test standard, but he still had some bloody good figures against Australia. It's important though to look at the time he got his wickets - the "Golden Age", during which pitches improved dramatically, is supposed to have begun in 1895 and Lohmann played his last Tests the following year - I'd rank Barnes the better bowler by a distance

 

[91Jmay]

He had an average of 88 after 4 tests. That's quite the turnaround.

 

[viriya]

I'd rank Barnes the better bowler by a distance

I do too (not necessarily by a distance though), but Lohmann is rarely ever mentioned and even allowing for the time he played (1886-1896 vs 1901-1914 for Barnes) and cheap wickets vs the minnows of his time (he averaged 6 vs SA while Barnes also cashed in averaging 10), he did get his Aus wickets at 13.0 which is still much better than his contemporaries.. Barnes on the other hand averaged 21.6 vs Aus - not that remarkable.

 

[a massive zebra]

Comparing Lohmann's county record to other stars of first class cricket at the time such as Spofforth or Briggs shows him to be among the best but not distinctly ahead.

I disagree. In my opinion, Lohmann's bowling statistics in first class cricket suggest he was clearly the best English bowler in his peak years between 1885 and 1892, a significant span of eight years. He was the highest English wicket taker in first class cricket in 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890 and 1891 - a period of seven successive seasons. In some of these years, he was 25%+ ahead of the pack! In the eight seasons between 1885 and 1892, Lohmann took 1,415 wickets in English first class cricket at 13.59. Over the same time period, other leading English bowlers Johnny Briggs and Bobby Peel took 983 wickets at 14.31 and 838 wickets at 15.99 respectively. So Lohmann has the best average and took nearly 50% more wickets than the other leading bowlers of the era - a massive difference in penetration.

Having said this, I think those most qualified to place George Lohmann in the pantheon of greats must of necessity have seen him play. An obituary, written by Sydney Pardon, taken from Wisden 1902:

To those who saw him during the tour of the South African cricketers in the past summer--he was assistant manager to the team--the news of George Lohmann's death did not come as a great surprise. He was obviously broken in health, and the mere shadow of his old self. The fact of his dying of consumption affords strong evidence that his recovery from the illness which attacked him after the season of 1892 was only partial. Still, for the time he seemed fairly robust, and it will be remembered that when he came back from Matjesfontein in 1895, and again in 1896, he bowled with much of his old skill. Indeed, in 1896 he played for England at Lord's, and helped Richardson to get the Australians out for 53. Towards the end of the same season an unhappy quarrel with the Surrey Club brought his career in first-class cricket to a close, but into that matter there is no need to enter.

Born in June, 1865, he was only in his thirty-seventh year. He first played for Surrey in 1884, and did enough to convince good judges--W. G. Grace among the number--that an all-round cricketer of no ordinary promise had come forward. In 1885 he jumped at once to the top of the tree as a bowler, and at the top he remained without ever looking back, till his health first gave way. The great part of his career covered eight seasons in this country--1885 to 1892 inclusive--and during that time he paid three visits to Australia, going out in 1886-87 and 1887-88 with Shaw and Shrewsbury's teams, and in 1891-92 with the side got up by Lord Sheffield. That he crowded too much work into a few years there can scarcely be a doubt. No one played cricket more strenuously or threw himself more completely, heart and soul, into the game. It is the opinion of Alfred Shaw that he would have lasted longer if his energies had been more confined to his bowling. For a bowler who nearly always had to go on first, whatever side he played for, he got too many runs, and, as everyone knows, he was one of the most brilliant and untiring of fieldsmen. If he had not been able to bowl at all, his batting and fielding would have entitled him to a place in any eleven.

He made the position of cover-slip more important than it had ever been before his day, constantly bringing off catches that ordinary men would not even have tried for. In this part of the game he, perhaps, reached his highest point in the England and Australia match at the Oval in 1888. The catch with which he got rid of Alec Bannerman in the first innings of Australia approached the miraculous. It was said at the time that Bannerman talked of nothing else for the rest of the day. Still, it is upon his bowling that his fame will mainly rest. He was of the school of Spofforth, commanding great variety of pace, and being master of endless devices for getting batsmen out, but he in no way imitated the great Australian's delivery, nor was he able to bowl so fast a ball. All the same, he would hardly have been the bowler he was if Spofforth before him had not shown that the arts of the old slow and fast bowlers could be combined in one person. On a wicket that afforded him the least help he could get as much off-break as he wanted, and though he wisely did not use the leg-break to any great extent he had it in reserve. To put the matter in a few words, he was a completely equipped bowler, ready to make the most of any advantage that the ground or the weather might give him. On a perfectly true fast wicket he was not so difficult as Richardson or Lockwood, but even under conditions entirely favourable to batsmen he did many wonderful things. Take him for all in all, he was one of the most striking figures the cricket field has known. As a match winner we have in this generation had no one greater except W. G. Grace, and, possibly, A. G. Steel. To him more than to anyone else was due the restoration of Surrey to its old place at the head of the counties.

An appreciation of George Lohmann’s method and peculiar qualities as a bowler, written shortly after Lohmann's death by his eminent contemporary, C. B. Fry:

He made his own style of bowling, and a beautiful style it was--so beautiful that none but a decent cricketer could fully appreciate it. He had a high right-over action, which was naturally easy and free-swinging, but, in his seeking after variations of pace, he introduced into it just a suspicion--a mere suspicion--of laboriousness. Most people, I believe, considered his action to have been perfect. To the eye it was rhythmical and polished but it cost him, probably, more effort than it appeared to do. His normal pace was medium ; he took a run of moderate length, poised himself with a slight uplifting of his high square shoulders, and delivered the ball just before his hand reached the top of its circular swing, and, in the act of delivery, he seemed first to urge forward the upper part of his body in sympathy with his arm, and then allow it to follow through after the ball. Owing to his naturally high delivery, the ball described a pronounced curve, and dropped rather sooner than the batsman expected. This natural peculiarity he developed assiduously into a very deceptive ball which he appeared to bowl the same pace as the rest, but which he really, as it were, held back, causing the unwary and often the wary to play too soon.

He was a perfect master of the whole art of varying his pace without betraying the variation to the batsman. He ran up and delivered the ball, to all appearances, exactly similarly each time; but one found now that the ball was hanging in the air, now that it was on to one surprisingly soon. He had complete control of his length, and very, very rarely--unless intentionally--dropped a ball too short or too far up. He had a curious power of making one feel a half volley was on its way ; but the end was usually a perfect length ball or a yorker. He had that subtle finger power which makes the ball spin, and consequently he could both make the ball break on a biting wicket and make it " nip along quick " on a true one. He made a practice of using both sides of the wicket on sticky pitches. If he found he was breaking too much, he would change from over to round the wicket, and on fast pitches he soon had a go round the wicket at a batsman who appeared comfortable at the other sort. But he was full of artifices and subleties, and he kept on trying them all day, each as persistently as the others, one after another. With all his skill, he would never have achieved his great feats but for his insistence of purpose. He was what I call a very hostile bowler ; he made one feel he was one's deadly enemy, and he used to put many batsmen off their strokes by his masterful and confident manner with the ball. He was by far the most difficult medium-pace bowler I ever played on a good wicket.

A rather poetic analysis of Lohmann's bowling method, written by the Leicestershire batsman Albert Knight in The Complete Cricketer (1906):

... the greatest medium paced bowler of our time has been George Lohmann. He has been deemed by many critics a perfect bowler with a perfect action. Very high over-hand, swinging right over, his action never struck me as being without a soupcon of strain. As one stood by him, indeed, he appeared to force himself, somewhat as Mr King of Philadelphia was wont to do in trying to bowl a swerver. Probably a too easy delivery is not possible to the very greatest bowler, to one at once natural and cultivated, and without much being acquired and much originality given true greatness is not. There are many great bowlers, naturally gifted, but without thought and study they do not long endure at the highest level. For a modern type of a great "natural" bowler, I should think of Joe Hulme, the old Derbyshire player. He came up to the wicket and swung his arm over with the easy nonchalance of a man in a dream, but he bowled down many and many a great and unplayable ball. Perfect ease of delivery is probably as incompatible, however, with perfect bowling, as is perfect physical beauty with intellectual endowment. The thought, the worrying tenacity, the unnatural strains of great pace variations, are too full of effort to appear entirely unforced.

Lohmann was full of this brainy effort, of mental unrest, perpetually worrying batsmen with ever renewed and varied artifice and subtlety. The ball dropped in the same place, but from various heights, and came at different paces and at different angles from the pitch. In our day there is much preaching against athleticism and its idolatries. No one need shrink from an endorsement of the view that a pale faced spectacled student poring over his books, but with a vision in his mind, is a nobler creature than a brawny muscled maniac who can bat or bowl, and knows it, but can do nothing else and doesn't know of that. Such men as Lohmann are perfect answers to unfair critics of sport. To him, and to such as he, cricket is not particularly a game for muscle and brawn; the muscle is but the vehicle, the dead dust awaiting the inbreeding of spirit and mentality.

The strong frame is needed for the better embodiment of the more essential mind. It is equally true of all that really endures in cricket. The tides of the greatest natural power are too intermittent to bear us far; without cultivation and acquirement they quickly leave their possessor upon the strand. There was a note of high human pride in Lohmann; he felt the dignity and the greatness of his art. I well remember seeing him bowled neck and crop at Leicester by a bowler whose pace was rather intimidating. As he passed the wicket he surveyed the grinning bowler with an utter disdain, remarking in a tone of cynical bitterness, "Call that bowling? I call it brute strength!" It was a very true and relative criticism. I know not which were the more delightful: to watch the tall, fair haired, strong shouldered figure bowl with hand and brain in such sweet accord; to see him slog, for his bat was so free and took so many risks that one couldn't say he batted as one could say he bowled; or to see him in the slips. He had almost a cat's activity in that position, a supreme gift of divination for the flight and pace of the ball from the bat.

A pen portrait of George Lohmann, written by H.S. Altham in A History of Cricket (1925):

George Lohmann was the very personification of cricket. With his fair moustache and hair, his wide blue eyes set rather far apart, his broad shoulders, yet lithe and subtle frame, he was a wellnigh perfect example of the Anglo-Saxon type; his whole heart was in the game, which, indeed, he loved not wisely but too well, crowding into thirteen years more work than even his magnificent physique could stand. From the very outset there was no question as to his class. Given a trial towards the end of 1884, in the next season he leapt straight to fame, capturing over 150 wickets in county matches for just over 13 each. From that moment his name was made, and from that start he never looked back. For eight years he was incomparably the most successful bowler in England, capturing in each of the seasons '88, '89, and '90 over 200 wickets.

We have the testimony of both W.G. and C.B. Fry that Lohmann was the best medium-paced bowler they had ever met, a combined verdict, it will be noticed, that embraces half a century. In an age still wedded to the formalism of length, he was the first English bowler really to master the revolutionary lessons of Spofforth, and to make length the handmaid of variety in pace and spin and flight. He was on the slow side of what we now call medium; he could break the ball back as he chose from the off, could bowl a leg-break at will, and always had in reserve the ball that looked like spinning but went straight on. But subtlety of flight was his greatest asset; with his very high delivery he was always dipping short of what the batsman expected; he could suck him out with his held back slow ball, or get him driving at the half volley which somehow "swam" into a yorker. A gallant, dashing batsman, and possibly the greatest slip fielder the world has known, Lohmann stands out as a match winning cricketer with whom very few can compare. His bowling record in Test matches against Australia, 77 wickets for 13 each, is extraordinary. No one, not even Sydney Barnes, took his wickets so cheaply.

A non contemporary overview of George Lohmann with some background information, written by David Kynaston in Bobby Abel: Professional Batsman (1983):

The greatest of all these (late Victorian Surrey) professionals was Lohmann, whose career was at a relatively early age first stunted and then destroyed by tuberculosis. A superb medium-fast bowler, nerveless batsman, and unrivalled close fielder he was beloved by the Surrey crowd until his health began to break in the early to mid 1890s. His background was unusual in that his father was a stockbroker who had 'failed' soon after Lohmann's birth, probably in the Overend Gurney crash of 1866. Perhaps the fact that he was caught between two worlds accounts for Shuter's retrospective remark about Lohmann that 'his chief fault lay in the fact that he felt too keenly failures by other members of the eleven in the field.' But whatever the justice of this, there is no denying that, even more than Abel. W.W. Read, Lockwood or Tom Richardson, he was the Surrey cricketer in the silver age of Surrey cricket.

 

[Blocky]

Ask yourself why medium bowlers don't tend to do well anymore... then realise where a guy like Lohmann would end up today.

 

[harsh.ag]

Ask yourself why medium bowlers don't tend to do well anymore... then realise where a guy like Lohmann would end up today.

Why the assumption that he wouldn't bowl differently today?

 

[harsh.ag]

Lohmann has the best bowling Avg x SR of all time by a mile. Here is a table of his contemporaries:

Lohmann	367.13
Ferris	479.29
Barnes, SF	684.47
Barnes, W	697.88
Bates	776.33
Briggs	802.12
Spofforth	819.61
Blythe	846.91
Turner	850.30
Peel	876.84
Vogler	981.70
Saunders	1025.80
Ulyett	1071.81
Whitty	1089.79
Ironmonger	1139.29
Palmer	1245.42
Trumble	1250.74
Richardson, Tom	1288.74

 

[watson]

Ask yourself why medium bowlers don't tend to do well anymore... then realise where a guy like Lohmann would end up today.

After reading those descriptions he sounds likes a typical spin bowler to me - especially Altham's second paragraph.

He was on the slow side of what we know call medium; he could break the ball back as he chose from the off, could bowl a leg-break at will, and always had in reserve the ball that looked like spinning but went straight on. But subtlety of flight was his greatest asset; with his very high delivery he was always dipping short of what the batsman expected; he could suck him out with his held back slow ball, or get him driving at the half volley which somehow "swam" into a yorker.

 

[Migara]

Lohmann has the best bowling Avg x SR of all time by a mile. Here is a table of his contemporaries:

Lohmann	367.13
Ferris	479.29
Barnes, SF	684.47
Barnes, W	697.88
Bates	776.33
Briggs	802.12
Spofforth	819.61
Blythe	846.91
Turner	850.30
Peel	876.84
Vogler	981.70
Saunders	1025.80
Ulyett	1071.81
Whitty	1089.79
Ironmonger	1139.29
Palmer	1245.42
Trumble	1250.74
Richardson, Tom	1288.74

Better to adjust to the aveages of the era. I can remember that Barnes' 17 become 21 or 22 when you adjust for the era.

 

[91Jmay]

What a great thread this is, love reading about the old timers. Anyone got any links about old players from different countries? Would love to read about them.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Ask yourself why medium bowlers don't tend to do well anymore... then realise where a guy like Lohmann would end up today.

That doesn't matter because he didn't have to bowl in 2014

 

[Biryani Pillow]

Ask yourself why medium bowlers don't tend to do well anymore... then realise where a guy like Lohmann would end up today.

Lohmann finished just about the time that swing bowling was coming in - and very few could bowl that at the time (J.B.King and Hirst were probably the first two). Swing bowling didn't become a regular thing really until after WW1 - coincidentally the medium pace spin bowler, such as Lohmann appears to be, started to fade out of the game at the same time.

Cardus reflected that bowlers clearly found it easier, both to learn and control, to bowl cutters and this tended to work best at a quicker pace which took flight out of the equation.

It is also the case that, although pitches were uncovered there were many pitches that were very good in fine weather and the likes of Lohmann still preformed very well on those. I think some commentators at the time reckoned the likes of him and Spofforth were better on a quick pitch than a slow, wet one.

 

[harsh.ag]

Better to adjust to the aveages of the era. I can remember that Barnes' 17 become 21 or 22 when you adjust for the era.

I only posted contemporaries, so why the need to adjust?

 

[Migara]

I only posted contemporaries, so why the need to adjust?

Then he's the greatest among his contempories, hence appropriately rated. Tobe greatest ever medium pace bowler, you need to compare across eras.

 

[a massive zebra]

Wisden on Lohmann

Here are contemporary reviews of George Lohmann's performances in the English cricket seasons 1884 to 1893, taken from Wisden.

1884
G. Lohmann, a new man in the eleven, did good service for Surrey, both with bat and ball.

1885
The places as the two principal bowlers in the team were taken by Lohmann and Beaumont...Out of 462 wickets which fell to the bowlers, Lohmann and Beaumont took the large proportion of 275. Lohmann, who was tried a little in the previous year with moderate success, secured 152 at the comparatively small cost of 13.85 runs per wicket.

1886
There was perhaps more sting and devil in the (Surrey) bowling than in that of any other eleven. In proof of this latter assertion, it is only necessary to point to the bowling figures in all matches, from which it will be seen that Lohmann, Bowley and Beaumont took between them 374 wickets, the lowest (worst) average of the three being under 14 runs a wicket, Lohmann more than bore out the promise given by him in 1885, and his right to a place in the England Eleven in the three representative matches against Australia was scarcely questioned. For Surrey he did great things, both with bat and ball, taking in all 166 wickets at an average of 12.63, and scoring 711 runs with an average of 23.21.

1887
The honours of the season were divided between Lohmann, Mr Key, and Mr Walter Read. Lohmann did even better all-round work for the county than in 1886, and was indeed a tower of strength to the side. With a batting average of 28.9 in first class county matches and 26.32 in all matches, he would have been worth his place in the eleven for batting and fielding alone, but beyond this we have no hesitation in saying that on all wickets he was the best bowler in England. In the sixteen first class county matches he took 108 wickets for less than 14 runs each, and his record for the whole 27 engagements was 176 wickets at an average cost of 13.52. In the big county matches he made his average by some marvelous work in August, as it must be stated that he was a good deal knocked about on hard wickets in the early part of the season. Then, however, he was suffering from a damaged finger.

1888
Beyond everything else the feature of the season's cricket was Lohmann's bowling. With the wickets to help him, the great bowler surpassed all he had done in previous years for his county, and obtained a truly phenomenal record. In the fourteen first class county matches he took 142 wickets at a sensational average cost of under 9 runs each, and in the whole list of matches, from only one of which he was absent, he took 207 wickets for less than 10 runs each. Bowlers, of course, had very much their own way in 1888, but for all that it would be difficult to praise Lohmann beyond his deserts. Fortunately for him he was in perfect health all through the summer, and it was really a close thing between him and Turner, the Australian, as to which was the more consistently excellent. It was only natural that while bowling in such an extraordinary way he should to some extent fall below his batting form of the previous year, but on many an occasion when runs were wanted, he proved himself exactly the right man in the right place, while his fielding in the slips was something quite exceptional. It was in 1885 that Lohmann first established his reputation, and so far each succeeding year has found him greater than he was before.

1889
Lohmann was of course the bowling mainstay of the side, and though he did not equal his phenomenal record of 1888, his figures in themselves were remarkable. In the fourteen first class county matches he took 116 wickets; in all matches, 179. True to his traditions of the four previous summers, he did most when most when most was demanded of him. It was scarcely to be expected that in the drier summer he would get such an average as in 1888, and though some people expressed an opinion that he had fallen off, we cannot think that their view derives much support from figures. To our thinking he was still the best bowler in England, and in saying this we mean no disparagement to Briggs and Attewell. A bowler who tries so many experiments, and is always thinking more of getting wickets than keeping runs down, is bound at times to get punished, but with a match to win we would rather have Lohmann on our side than any English bowler we have known.

1890
More remarkable than any of the batting for Surrey in 1890 was the bowling of Lohmann and Sharpe. Of the work done by these two players it would be almost impossible to say too much, and their achievements were certainly among the very best of the season... Lohmann, though beaten in the bowling averages by his young colleague, proved himself just as great a cricketer as ever, and was far and away the best man in the Surrey eleven. Not only did he have the splendid bowling records of 113 wickets in first class county matches and 154 wickets in all matches, but he came out second in one batting table with an average of 29 and seventh in the other with an average of nearly 26. When, moreover, we add to his skill with the bat and ball his surpassing excellence in the field, it is no exaggeration to pronounce him at the present time the best among English cricketers.

1891
Lohmann and Sharpe again proved themselves the best pair of bowlers that any county could boast, but whereas in 1890 the welfare of the team depended almost entirely on their exertions, they found last season in Lockwood a colleague a colleague of almost the same class as themselves... Beyond everything else the feature of Surrey's season was Lohmann's wonderful cricket. He was emphatically the mainstay of the team, batting and fielding as well as ever, and as a bowler, far surpassing his brilliant records of 1890. In that year he took 113 wickets in first class county matches for 12.75 each, and 154 in all matches for 13.10, whereas last season he obtained 132 wickets in the sixteen county engagements with the splendid average of 10.87, and 175 in the full list of fixtures for 11,37, his average in both instances thus showing a marked improvement. We have never seen a bowler as quick at identifying a batsman's weakness, and then designing and implementing theories to exploit this weakness. By general consent he was the best cricketer of the year.

1892
Coming now to the bowling, which more than anything else gained the Surrey eleven their fine record, it would not be easy to say too much in praise of Lockwood and Lohmann... Though he fell below his wonderful records of 1891 and did not equal Lockwood in the average or the number of wickets taken, Lohmann as a bowler did work for the Surrey eleven that in the case of anyone other than himself would have been considered great. It was only by comparison with some of his past doings that he seemed to have declined. Personally we feel that his exertions in the trip to Australia during the winter, with Lord Sheffield's team, had a prudicial effect upon him. It is not easy to tire a batsman, but for a fast or medium face bowler it is rather a severe tax to practically go through three successive seasons without a rest. Lohmann is happily still so young that we may expect to see him at his best as a bowler for several more seasons. At times he was up to his very best standard. Nothing, for instance, could have been finer than his bowling in the last stage of the match against Yorkshire at the Oval, when, in the course of a few overs, he completely turned the fortunes of the game. His fielding at slip, a position which he has brought into a prominence unknown before his day, was as good as ever.

1893
Deprived of the great player who for eight seasons had done such extraordinary things for the eleven, it was scarcely to be expected that Surrey would retain their place at the head of the counties, but despite the enormous loss involved in George Lohmann's enforced absence, no one imagined when the season began that they would fall as low as fifth position, or that their defeats in the county competition would outnumber their victories... Lohmann's illness and consequent inability to play made, of course, an enormous difference.

 

[harsh.ag]

All I can say is - Lohmann, ya bad mutha ****a !