Page:The Hambledon Men (1907).djvu/290

 Mr. Budd claimed to be an innovator too. Says Mr. Wheeler in Sportascrapiana:—

'With regard to balls out of reach being considered "no ball", Mr. Budd informs us the regulation was at his suggestion. At a great match, one player, being a much better batsman than the other, the bowler began to pitch the ball over the head of the better batsman when he was at the wicket. To meet this Mr. Budd proposed the existing rule that the umpire may call "no ball", and a run be added to the score.'

Here is Mr. Pycroft in The Cricket Field: 'Lambert's bowling was like Mr. Budd's, against which I have often played: a high under-hand delivery, slow, but rising very high, very accurately pitched, and turning in from leg-stump. "About the year 1818, Lambert and I," said Mr. Budd, "attained to a kind of round-arm delivery (described as Clarke's), by which we rose decidedly superior to all the batsmen of the day. Mr. Ward could not play it, but he headed a party against us, and our new bowling was ignored." Tom Walker and Lord Frederick were of the tediously slow school; Lambert and Budd were several degrees faster. Howard and John Wells were the fast under-hand bowlers.

'Lord Frederick was a very successful bowler, and inspired great confidence as a general: his bowling was at last beaten by men running into him. Sparkes mentioned another player who brought very slow bowling to perfection, and was beaten in the same way. Beldham thought Mr. Budd's bowling better than Lord Frederick's; Beagley said the same.

'His Lordship is generally supposed to have been the best amateur of his day; so said Caldecourt; also Beagley, who observed his Lordship had the best head and was most valuable as a general. Otherwise, this is an assertion hard to reconcile with acknowledged facts; for, first, Mr. Budd made the best average, though usually placed against Lambert's bowling, and playing almost exclusively in the great matches. Mr. Budd was a much more powerful hitter. Lord Frederick said,