Page:Cricket (Lyttelton, 1898).djvu/105

Rh can add to these Oscroft, Brampton, Summers, Selby, Wild, and Flowers; while such a lot of bowlers have never been seen, and probably never will be again, as Grundy, Wootton, Tinley, J. C. Shaw, A. Shaw, Morley, William and Martin M'Intyre, Flowers, Briggs, Barnes, Lockwood, and Attewell.

George Parr is dimly known to this generation as the great leg-hitter, but he had also one of the soundest of defences, and was a most consistent scorer on all wickets. From the year 1850 to about 1863 he was about the best bat in the world. He watched the ball well, and though not a big hitter except to leg, scored fast. His leg-hitting was of a kind that is not common: he did not hit square with a vertical bat, like Barnes, but swept the ball with a horizontal bat, sharp, and not square, and he was great at this hit off shortish leg-balls. The famous R. A. H. Mitchell could do this stroke as well as the square leg. Parr could throw the cricket ball more than 100 yards, which in those