The Teesra

Category: Great Bowlers and Fielders

Analysis of action photographs from “Great Bowlers and Fielders: Their Methods at a Glance”, George W. Beldam & Charles B. Fry, 1906

  • Nothing new under the sun

    Nothing new under the sun

    He takes full advantage of the fact that a left-hand bowler, bowling round the wicket, can deliver the ball so that its flight in the air begins well outside the line between wicket and wicket and comes in towards the batsman, and then the ball, after pitching…goes across the wicket from off to leg.

    …

    [He also has] a faster ball which he delivers with his arm a little lower than usual, and which comes across quickly from the off and is inclined to keep rather low.

    No, not a description of Imad Wasim, but of J.H. King of Leicestershire, taken from Beldam & Fry’s Great Bowlers and Fielders: Their Methods at a Glance, published in 1906.

    But the similarities with Karthik Krishnaswamy’s analysis of Imad’s strategies bowling for Pakistan in the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup are striking.

  • Malinga or Grace

    Malinga or Grace

    “…his action is distinctly round-arm, and he delivers with his hand scarcely more than shoulder high…he is able, by turning his hand over at the moment of delivery, to put top spin on the ball, and to put drag spin on it by turning his hand the reverse way and cutting under it.”

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  • Great Bowlers & Fielders — what was bowling like in the 1900s?

    Before considering some of the individual bowlers featured in Beldam & Fry’s Great Bowlers & Fielders (henceforth Great Bowlers), I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the range of bowling styles that would have been on display in the early 1900s.

    And it’s not quite what we see, today.

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