Page:Cricket, by WG Grace.djvu/18

 an artist, was to see him make himself up to hit a ball. It was the beau ideal of grace, animation, and concentrated energy."

Of Harris, he says: "He was a muscular, bony man, standing about five feet nine and a half inches. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to convey in writing an accurate idea of the grand effect of Harris's bowling; they only who have played against him can fully appreciate it. First of all, he stood erect, like a soldier at drill; then, with a graceful curve of the arm, he raised the ball to his forehead, and drawing back his right foot, started off with his left. His mode of delivering the ball was very singular. He would bring it from under the arm by a twist, and nearly as high as his armpit, and with his action push it, as it were, from him. He never stooped in the least in his delivery, but kept himself upright all the time. His balls were very little beholden to the ground when pitched: it was but a touch and up again; and woe be to the man who did not get in to block him, for they had such a peculiar curl that they would grind his fingers against the bat."

Harris may be considered the first bowler who knew the power of a good-length ball. Until he appeared, daisy-cutters were about the only balls bowled. Everyone knows the result of hitting at a ball on the rise that is off the wicket; or how easy it is to get a batsman out who can only play back. The two best batsmen; of that time, Beldham and Lord Frederick Beauclerk, could play both back and forward, and the display was considered of a very high order when Harris was bowling against them.

Tom Walker was another of the Hambledon worthies, the coolest fellow in existence. Patience and imperturbability were his chief virtues; and he had the reputation of keeping up his wicket from the beginning