Pitched delivery bowling

In cricket in the early 1760s, there was a transition from the sport's "pioneering phase" to its "pre-modern phase" when bowlers began to bowl pitched deliveries by pitching the ball towards the wicket instead of rolling or skimming it along the ground as they had previously done. The essential bowling action was still underarm but the introduction of a ball travelling through the air coupled with a bounce was a key point of evolution in the sport's history, especially as it was the catalyst for the invention of the straight bat, which replaced the old "hockey stick" design. It was the first of three keypoint evolutions in bowling: the others were the introduction of the roundarm style in the 1820s and overarm in the 1860s.

John Nyren's evidence[]

In John Nyren's Memoranda (1832), he wrote the following account of the All-England v Kent match^[1] played in 1744:^[2]

It arose from a challenge given by Lord John Sackville on the part of the County of Kent to play all England; and it proved to be a well contested match as will appear from the manner in which the players kept the field. The hitting however could neither have been of a high character nor indeed safe, as may be gathered from the figure of the bat at that time; which was similar to an old-fashioned dinner knife, curved at the back and sweeping in the form of a volute at the front and end. With such a bat the system must have been all for hitting; it would be barely possible to block and when the practice of bowling length balls was introduced and which gave the bowler so great an advantage in the game it became necessary to change the form of the bat. It was therefore made strait in the pod (sic). Some years after this the fashion of the bat having been changed to a strait form the system of stopping and blocking was adopted.

Different styles of play[]

Whereas roundarm and overarm were highly controversial and were introduced in the face of fierce opposition, there is nothing in the historical records which precisely dates the introduction of pitching and nothing which indicates that it was controversial.

When the ball was bowled along the ground, the batsman used his curved bat to attack it and try to hit it away, usually with the intention of lofting it over the fielders. There was, as such, no defensive technique other than the most rudimentary and instinctive attempt to stop a ball that had deceived him. The pitched delivery made the curved bat obsolete and the straight bat lent itself to the deployment of a defensive stroke. As the aim of the batsman with a curved bat was to hit the ball over the fielders, low scores were normal. If he did not time his shot correctly, the chances were high that he would miss the ball and be bowled or stumped; or else if he hit it poorly, he would not clear the fielder and be caught out. In addition, the pitches of the time were little more than rough tracks which were to the bowler's advantage. One of the greatest players of the pioneering period was Richard Newland of Slindon and Sussex. In July 1745, he scored 88 for All-England against Kent at the Artillery Ground.^[3] It is not absolutely certain that he did this in one innings as it may have been his match total (there is a parallel here with Small in a 1768 match). If it was one innings, it is the highest individual score recorded during the pioneering period and, for its time, was a very high score which could equate in real terms to a modern triple-century.

Influence of Hambledon[]

Although the Hambledon Club is widely and erroneously called the "Cradle of Cricket", it can at least, wrote F. S. Ashley-Cooper, "claim to have been the centre in which the game was first brought to a certain degree of perfection and was developed in several respects to its lasting advantage".^[4] In the first illustration of his book, Ashley-Cooper depicted a curved bat, labelling it: "The type of bat used in the earlier Hambledon matches". This indicates his belief that the straight bat was invented after Hambledon became a noted team.^[5] Ashley-Cooper believed that the club was founded in the early 1750s but it is possible that it was only a loose parish organisation at that time and that the club per se was not formally constituted until the 1760s. Certainly a team representing Hambledon played Dartford, one of the country's most accomplished teams, in 1756.^[6]

It seems, therefore, that the innovations of pitched delivery and straight bat were introduced just at the time when Hambledon came to the fore and so perhaps, as Ashley-Cooper suggested, Hambledon qualifies as the "cradle" of a new code of cricket. It has been suggested, certainly in speculation, that John Small invented the straight bat, though it is more accurate to suggest that he was the first to master its use. With the transition from the pioneering era of cricket, Hambledon saw in a new "pre-modern" phase defined by underarm pitching which lasted until the introduction of roundarm bowling in the years following the Napoleonic Wars. It is not known who first bowled a pitched delivery, or when, or where, but it is likely that the style was developed primarily at Hambledon, although the leading bowler of the 1760s and 1770s, Lumpy Stevens, played for Chertsey and Surrey.

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Ashley-Cooper, F. S. (1900). At the Sign of the Wicket: Cricket 1742–1751. Cricket magazine.
• Ashley-Cooper, F. S. (1924). Hambledon Cricket Chronicle 1772–1796. Jenkins.
• Nyren, John (1998). Ashley Mote (ed.). The Cricketers of my Time. London: Robson.