Empire Cricket Booklet

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THE GOOGLY, GOLD AND THE EMPIRE

could make the ball spin in from the off. But each had his own method. R. E. Foster played against them on their 1907 English tour and analysed their differing styles in some detail. Schwarz, Foster suggested, bowled only googlies, for the reason that 'he can get out as many batsmen as he wishes with that method' . 38 There is evidence, however, that early on he bowled both leg-breaks and googlies. Certainly Warner describes Schwarz hitting his off-stump with a ball that pitched 'well off [his] leg stump' during the MCC's 1905/06 tour of South Africa. 39 By 1907, he may have lost the leg-break, perhaps as a result of damage to his shoulder sustained during his rugby career - he twice suffered serious shoulder dislocations. 40 Alternatively he may simply have

suffered from the tendency of some googly bowlers progressively to lose the ability to bowl leg-spin. In any event, Foster found it difficult to explain Schwarz's success, at least in so far that he was unable to command much in the way of mystery. He was, in Foster's view, much the easiest to play, as the ball only broke one way and there was none of the doubt that batsmen had to deal with in facing the others. Nor was he particularly deceptive in the flight, but on hitting the pitch the ball (according to Foster) turned anything up to a yard and came off the wicket at the most extraordinary pace. In South Africa he was also able to achieve bounce from the trampoline-like matting, the ball often having to be played at chest height. In Schwarz's hands, the element of deception had been traded for accuracy, and extreme turn allied to a significant element of topspin that hurried even the best players. The googly had grown up, and turned into an important new weapon in its own right. In effect, Schwarz had taken this remnant of the pastoral era and re-fitted it for the industrial age. Faulkner and White were similar in method, but Faulkner came through the air and off the pitch faster and was much more capable of bowling unplayable deliveries. He bowled a quicker yorker which often caught batsmen on the crease waiting to try and read the turn, and on his day he could be irresistible. He also had a greater break from the off than White, who tended to bowl more deliveries that went straight on. In both cases it was possible to see the off-break coming 'occasionally'. Vogler, however, was the real magician. With the new ball he bowled fast-medium off-breaks with a pronounced swerve and then would switch to slow medium with a six/three on-side field. In common with Schwarz he was able to rip the ball which appeared to gather pace off the pitch. He bowled primarily leg-breaks with occasional wrong 'uns. It was almost impossible to detect any difference in his action, and Percy Sherwell, who kept wicket to him for province and country through much of his career, found him the most difficult of the googly bowlers to read. His leg-break would tum between three and eighteen inches but the off-break did not

A. E. E. Vogler played in 15 Tests, capturing 64 wickets at an average of 22.73