Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/128

Rh have existed. In 1884 the Australians brought over one who had been a success in Australia, but was a dead failure here. Mr. Cooper bowled round the wicket with a prodigious curl, and Mr. A. O. Jones of Nottingham is a similar bowler, though not with such a command of break. Mr. Nepean used to vary the off break with an occasional ball that would come in the other way, and Mr. Bull of Essex is also a performer of the same school. But the leading characteristic of all these bowlers is the almost exaggerated slowness of all the leg-break round-arm balls, and I believe that to bowl with a leg-break it is absolutely necessary to dispense with two of the elements that make good bowling—pace and length. Palmer, the Australian, used now and then, but very seldom, to bowl a fairly fast ball with a leg-break, but though he came off a few times, he would tell you that a good length ball was a fluke, and not within his power to command. If a ball is not of a good length, i.e., if either a full pitch, long hop, or half volley, a batsman should have no difficulty in hitting it with his bat, and not with his legs. Take the case of bowlers like Messrs. Cooper and Jones,