CHAPTER TEN
Supreme in their Seasons
If Bedser’s labours as a bowler could be collected and piled up around him in some visible shape, he would be seen to be standing beside a mountain.
JOHN WOODCOCK
The threads of coincidence were spun to link two bowlers, accounted equal in status in their distinguished eras. Alec Bedser and Maurice Tate travelled down identical paths. They were both denied apprentice years because of two world wars and did not emerge as Test candidates until their late 20s. An allotment of three tours of Australia was the prize of their worth. They each established records – Tate with 38 wickets in the 1924–25 series, Bedser with 39 in England in 1953.
The final stages of their careers again moved closely in parallel. Tate and Bedser, respectively aged 37 and 36, were both ousted by the demands of express speed on their last tours of Australia. Tate was a late choice in Douglas Jardine’s team in 1932–33. He was sidelined by the presence of Larwood, Voce, Allen and Bowes. An attack of shingles excluded Bedser from the reckoning in 1954–55. The debilitating illness enforced his withdrawal from four Tests and his position was then usurped by the pairing of Frank Tyson and Brian Statham.
On each occasion the tactics yielded overwhelming victories, the latter the first in Australia since Jardine’s conquest. It is said – and clearly with truth since his pre-war seniors, Bowes and Verity, were witnesses on the ‘bodyline’ tour – that Len Hutton had not forgotten the legend passed down to him by Jardine. The disappointments which beset Tate and Bedser were shared by their devotees; but the results were such as to alleviate any grievance.
There is inevitably a mystique which looms over a division of merits involving players from different generations. This is nowhere more apparent than in the assessments of Bedser and Tate. Don Bradman, as ever, was present at the kernel of these discussions.
Bradman regarded Alec as the equal of Maurice, who was 33 when he first bowled to the emerging Don in the 1928–29 series. Bradman was 18 years older and, by his monumental standards, a less devastating batsman when he first tussled with Bedser in the 1940s. Alec was then still a learner. His success in breaching the Australian’s defences, while still in his formative years, has aroused speculation as to the outcome of their duels if they had stood shoulder to shoulder in maturity.
Writing in 1950, Bradman observed: ‘I think all Australian batsmen of the modern generation believe that Bedser is the best medium-pace bowler they have ever met. Had they faced Tate in 1924–25, it is probable they would have found him better still. Anyhow, both were magnificent.’ The question that remains is how Tate and Bedser would compare with the third bowler in this imposing trinity. Jack Hobbs (with batting credentials to count) and Bill Bowes both placed S.F. Barnes as unquestionably the finest English bowler in their experience.
Barnes wrought havoc in the leagues and in Minor Counties cricket in his native Staffordshire. Apart from brief excursions with Warwickshire and Lancashire, he rejected the daily round of county cricket as too irksome. But his detours into Test cricket brought him a yield of 189 wickets at an average of 16.43 in 27 matches against Australia and South Africa before the First World War. In the 1911–12 series in Australia, Barnes and Frank Foster, the Warwickshire left-arm fast-medium bowler, shared 66 wickets. Their partnership is still regarded as one of the greatest in England’s history.
A succession of Barnes’s rivals had cause to endorse the verdict of Sir Pelham Warner. Speaking at a dinner in Barnes’s honour at Stoke-on-Trent in 1927, Warner recalled the first time he had batted against the master craftsman in 1903: ‘Barnes pitched me one on the leg stump. It came off the wicket like a streak of greased lightning and hit the top of the off wicket.’ Warner cited another example of the prowess of Barnes in a Gentlemen v Players match at Lord’s: ‘He was literally cutting up the pitch with his finger spin and the ball was flashing right across the wicket.’
At the turn of the year in 1912, Barnes took 4 wickets for 3 runs in a spell of 9 overs against Australia at Melbourne. By lunch he had bowled 11 overs, including 9 maidens, and claimed 5 wickets for 6 runs. Victor Trumper was not among Barnes’s victims on that occasion. ‘I kept him quiet which was as good as bowling many men,’ said Barnes. ‘You couldn’t dictate to Trumper. He played as he liked and not as you liked.’ But even Trumper’s skills were not always proof against Barnes. Later, during the Australian tour, he did overcome his respected rival.
Charles Macartney, who was batting at the other end, described a ball, delivered at fast-medium, that swerved in the air from leg stump to off and then broke back to hit the leg stump. Macartney said it was the sort of ball a player might see when he was tight.
On the coir matting wickets of South Africa in 1913–14, Barnes was unplayable and performed record feats. He claimed 49 wickets at an average of 10.93 runs each. They included 17 for 159, only bettered by Jim Laker, in the first Test at Johannesburg; and another 14 wickets in the fourth Test at Durban.
Barnes was aged 55 when he opened the bowling for Wales, one of his many affiliations, against the touring West Indians at Llandudno in 1928. Wales were the victors by eight wickets and Barnes took 12 in the match. Trevor Bailey recalls a conversation with the renowned Barbadian opening batsman George Challenor, who scored over 1,500 runs on the 1928 tour, but was among the routed opponents that day. His testimony, persuasively in favour of a man more than 25 years his senior, was that Barnes was the greatest bowler the world had ever seen.
Douglas Jardine was another fascinated onlooker when he captained Barnes in a press match in 1938. The veteran, then aged 65, took 7 wickets for 35 runs. Jardine commented: ‘Barnes was now slow-medium, but his action was still packed with spring and rhythm and he moved the ball a little one way and a little the other way.’ From his position in the slips, Jardine could not detect any difference in the finger movements which produced the variations. ‘We could imagine what a terror he must have been making the ball do its work at fast-medium.’
Alec Bedser would later bowl his leg-breaks in a similar style to the incomparable Barnes. His delivery was then termed a leg-cutter, because it was maintained that genuine spin was imparted only by slow bowlers. ‘Those subscribing to that belief,’ reflected one writer, ‘should have faced Barnes, Macaulay, McDonald and others. Only the very fast could afford not to use spin on pitches shorn of every trace of greenery.’
The issue of spin, as delivered in the fast-medium style, is also addressed by Peter Richardson, the former Worcestershire, Kent and England batsman. He remembers a noise like the buzz of a wasp which snapped Bedser’s opponents to urgent attention. One instance of this devilry occurred in a match against Worcestershire at The Oval. ‘This was a spinner’s wicket,’ recalls Richardson. ‘In normal circumstances Alec would not have bowled at all. It was his brilliance bowling his leg-cutters which made him as difficult to play as Lock and Laker.’
Reg Hayter referred to a remarkable resemblance in the bowling of Alec Bedser and Maurice Tate: ‘Both these burly men could have been used as text-book models for their particular style of bowling.’ Hayter described the ‘moderate but lively approach, the gradual acceleration finishing with an explosive burst of energy’. There was, he said, the perfect sideways action, high arm and unchecked follow-through. Every feature of the best in bowling was present.
The Tate gates at the sea end at Hove happily commemorate one of Sussex’s favourite sporting sons. They are perfectly positioned, for it is from them that the mists curl seductively in from the shores beyond to hasten the spring in the stride of bowlers. Tate, in one of his typically confidential asides, would often turn to his captain, Arthur Gilligan, and say: ‘See that green patch, skipper? That means the tide’s coming in.’
The metamorphosis of Tate as a bowler occurred after ten years with only modest success as an off-spinner. The reversion to the fast-medium style transformed him almost overnight into England’s leading bowler. In ten months between his Test début in June 1924 and March 1925, Tate took 65 wickets in two series against South Africa and Australia.
His newly found hostility was released in tandem for Sussex and England with Arthur Gilligan, who was then regarded as the fastest amateur bowler in the country. In all matches in 1923, Gilligan and Tate shared 382 wickets. It is extremely doubtful whether any other pair of fast bowlers from the same county can claim such a record in one season. It did seem that the partnership was destined to prosper and become one of the deadliest in cricket history. At Birmingham, in 1924, Gilligan and Tate bowled out South Africa for 30 (11 of them extras) in 48 minutes. The innings lasted for only 75 balls. It was the lowest total ever made in a Test match in England. In 6 overs Tate took 4 wickets for 12 runs. Gilligan’s performance in the same innings was the most memorable of his career. He returned figures of 6 wickets for 7 runs in 6.3 overs.
The Springboks were beaten by an innings and Gilligan took 5 more wickets for a match record of 11 for 90. The rest of the England attack – Frank Woolley, Percy Fender, Cecil Parkin and Roy Kilner – were reduced to the roles of onlookers. They did not take a wicket as the Sussex pair shared 19 (and the 20th was a run-out).
In the thrilling weeks before a sickening blow on the heart effectively ended Arthur’s career as a fast bowler, Tate and Gilligan blazed an all-conquering trail. In his own reminiscences, Gilligan described how he was incapacitated as a bowler during the match between the Gentlemen and Players at The Oval: ‘It was in the first innings and I had made 34, when a good length ball from Dick Pearson got up sharply from the pitch and struck me right on the heart. I went down like a stone and was out for a couple of minutes. I continued my innings, but hit the next ball straight into the hands of Jack Hobbs at cover.’
Gilligan scored 112 before lunch in the Gentlemen’s second innings on the following day. ‘I helped Michael Falcon to add 134 for the last wicket. I was a stupid fellow. That was probably the worst thing I ever did.’ Tate, who was in the Players’ team in that fateful game, later paid tribute to Gilligan’s courage, but concluded that Arthur should have withdrawn from the match after the injury. ‘If he had not made that historic century, he could have had an even greater career than he did.’
Contemporaries between the wars remembered the infectious spirit of Maurice Tate – the final swing of the arm, said one, could be likened to the ‘merry plunge of a porpoise as it goes over the top’. Bill Bowes recalled how Tate, in his follow-through, would graze his left knuckles on the ground.
John Langridge, as an alert eye-witness at first slip, was fervent in his praise. ‘We could rely on Maurice to take five or more wickets, sometimes before lunch,’ he said. ‘There was no one better of his type. A superb delivery close to the stumps, no wavering off line, foot in the blockhole and a devastating swing. The ball pitching on leg would hit the off stump as the batsman shaped to play to the on.’
John Arlott was another admirer, writing:
Bowling into the wind on a heavy seaside morning, Tate would make the ball dart and move in the air as if bewitched. The ball would whip into Tich Cornford’s gloves with a villainous smack and the little man would hollow his belly and was lifted to, or off, his toes, as the ball carried his heavy-gloved hands back into him.
Pelham Warner had watched, with keen interest, the burgeoning promise of Alec Bedser in wartime cricket at Lord’s. He had forecast then that Bedser’s qualities would match those of Tate. In a letter to Alec in the 1950s, he offered his congratulations and said that Bedser was superior to the Sussex man. It was, even if regarded as a courtesy to a modern exponent, a fine tribute from a veteran observer. Elsewhere, the opinion was expressed that these two great bowlers did not have much in common, except in their pace and the course of their careers.
E.M. Wellings thought Tate was an instinctive bowler: ‘He has confessed that, whereas he was aware of how he swung the new ball, his away movement off the pitch with the older ball just seemed to happen. If he did not know what was going to happen, the batsman had no chance of being forewarned.’
For another writer, Raymond Robertson-Glasgow, it was Tate who beckoned as the ‘more natural genius’, while Bedser maintained the ‘greater invention and variety.’ Ian Peebles tellingly alluded to the respect afforded to Bedser by his major batting rivals:
They will inform you that although you might manoeuvre Bedser on to the defensive you could not get him down. At any moment he might produce the ball that dipped in flight and came the other way on pitching, a combination against which no human bat is certain proof.
Peebles said that one of the most remarkable aspects of this delivery was that, in certain conditions, Alec could produce it seemingly at will. ‘Like Barnes, he gained his effect through conscious manipulation by somewhat the same, but not completely similar, methods to the old master.’
The contrast in styles of Bedser and Tate was also stressed by Peebles. Tate did have the facility, an art not to be underestimated, of pitching on middle and leg and dispatching the off stump with fine fury. This was achieved by the purely natural use of the seam. Peebles added:
Because of this, although I never saw anyone quite like Tate on a green wicket, Bedser was an infinitely more flexible and adaptable performer.
On a wicket which, through dust or moisture, gave the ball any grip Alec was, in his heyday, the most economical and destructive bowler in the world. His height and action gave the batsman the complication of steep lift, in addition to sharp turn from the leg, allied to unerring accuracy.
Bedser’s physical advantages were also outlined by his Surrey captain, Peter May. ‘Alec is able to wrap a vast hand round the ball, reducing it seemingly to golf ball dimensions,’ he noted. ‘Then, with fingers almost as big as bananas – outsize yet sensitive fingers – he flicks across the seam, “cutting” the ball so that when it grips the turf it will veer sharply.’ May also recalled another subterfuge which was quite as deadly as the leg-cutter. ‘Alec had the ability to go through the motions of sending down this type of ball but making it go straight on.’ The unwary batsman expected the cutter and was foxed into playing down the wrong line. The ball would then nip between bat and pad and bowl him.
Doug Insole, the former Essex captain and a prolific scorer in county cricket, was once regaled with Bedser’s repertoire of bowling tricks. In one particularly venomous over, Insole played and missed at five balls and edged the sixth through the slips for four. He was probably fortunate to manage the snick, but it brought forth an acid response from Alec: ‘I always said you were the luckiest batsman in first-class cricket – and now I’ve bloody well proved it.’
Insole, like other contemporaries, places Bedser’s leg-cutter in the same tormenting category as the googly in that it creates an indecision on the way to play it. His penchant for on-side strokes was an irritant to Alec. It did, though, enable him to enjoy, however briefly, interludes of prosperity against his Surrey rival. ‘I remember once hitting him through mid-wicket,’ says Insole. Eric Bedser, standing at mid-off, was just as angry as his brother at the audacious gesture. Eric called out disapprovingly, ‘He’s hitting you through there again.’ Alec paraded a glare of disdain. There was a great heave of his formidable shoulders. ‘If he does it again,’ he replied, ‘he’s out.’
Bedser was always meanly on guard against the concession of runs. The temper of his cricket did not relax even among the festival frivolities at Scarborough. He would certainly have shared the indignation of one Yorkshire bowler, Johnny Wardle, who strongly objected to his average being torn to shreds on September days. He contended that, if fun was to be had, it should be at the expense of batters bowling – and not him.
Doug Insole remembered one occasion when he captained an MCC team, with Alec Bedser in his ranks, against Yorkshire at Scarborough. Ted Lester, a local townsman, had registered a duck in the first innings. ‘Give the lad one to get off the mark,’ said Insole to Bedser at the start of Yorkshire’s second innings. Alec grumbled but acceded to the request. He sent down a ball just short of a length. Lester, a fierce hitter, smote it mightily, just failing to clear the ropes for six at the Trafalgar Square end. Alec looked disbelievingly at his captain. ‘Is that your idea of giving this bugger one off the mark?’ he enquired.
The episode, however trivial, reflected Alec’s rugged common sense which saw little value in betraying his instincts as a bowler. Pretence was anathema to him. Ian Peebles recalled a somewhat off-beat, but extraordinarily apt, wit – usually benevolent, but not without edge should the occasion warrant it.
Effusive demonstrations were ridiculed by Bedser. He was never a man to engage in rhapsodical flights. The response to one spectacular catch by Godfrey Evans off his bowling at Leeds in 1952 was entirely in character. Vjay Hazare was the victim, athletically taken off the bottom edge of the bat. Evans had reason to be jubilant that his agility had enabled him to accept an extremely difficult chance on such a slow-paced wicket. Alec was a little uncharitable, perhaps, in suppressing the enthusiasm: on the wicket provided, he said, it was impossible for him to get the ball high enough to hit the top edge.
Alec Bedser was true to his goal as a bowler; but it is salutary to remember that but for those taxing endeavours he could well have entered the lists as an all-rounder. Batting was perforce a secondary exercise, but he was stoutly resistant in this mode. He displayed courage against pace and drove freely with power off the back foot. However the division of responsibilities at The Oval meant that Eric gained greater renown as a batsman. As Jim Swanton observed, the elder twin was ‘a rather more flexible version of that of his distinguished brother which has often served England so well’.
A.A. Thomson neatly renderd his appreciation in a pleasing paradox: ‘As Eric was somewhat the better bat and Alec a more than somewhat better bowler, it used to make a straightforward little joke to assert that, if Alec bowled well for England, that was Alec, but if Alec batted splendidly for England, as he did at Leeds in 1948, handsome off-drives and all, then obviously it must be Eric.’ Thomson added: ‘But you had to keep a straight face telling that one. No doubt the twins delighted in innocent deceptions, but never one as innocent as that.’
Alec was not misleading anyone against the Australians in 1948. His opponents remembered his driving and thought he was one of England’s best batsmen. At Trent Bridge, in alliance with Jim Laker, who was top scorer with 63 in the England first innings, Alec helped his Surrey partner to more than double the score.
Even more commendable was his resistance at Manchester. While Denis Compton, bearing stitches in a head wound, personified heroism with an undefeated 145, Bedser was a solid and imperturbable comrade. They shared an eighth-wicket stand of 121 in two and a half hours. ‘On a day so marrow chilling that the bowlers had to divest themselves of two sweaters apiece,’ reported Denzil Batchelor, ‘Bedser began the morning’s play by facing Lindwall and Johnston armed with the new ball. He confronted those engines of war with disciplined resolution.’
The partnership was concluded by a foolish run-out, when Bedser had made 37 and the England total had risen to 337. ‘There seemed no end to this bravely blossoming alliance,’ commented Batchelor. ‘It suddenly committed suicide in a wantonly nonchalant manner. A half-hit to the covers by Compton was fumbled and a run, at first abandoned, was at last attempted. Loxton’s throw was neatly gathered and the wicket broken with Bedser still pressing to gain the crease.’
Alec was characteristically downbeat, or just plainly mischievous, when asked to convey the secret of playing the feared Lindwall at his best. He responded by saying that he did not waste time moving his feet. Bedser and Lindwall vied with each other as batsmen at Leeds. For Alec, there was the distinction of a nightwatchman exceeding expectations and fulfilling the wildest hopes.
Lindwall also played a key role, scoring 77 at a crucial juncture. His defiance, broadly expressed in a flurry of hitting, enabled Australia to restrict England’s lead to 38 runs on the first innings. Australia were handsome if unexpected victors at Headingley. But, as Lindwall said, his innings helped to turn the game: ‘We would have had no chance if I’d got out. It made all the difference.’
Raymond Robertson-Glasgow described the protracted batting vigil of Alec Bedser as the day’s truly romantic story. Having been sent in as nightwatchman on the Thursday evening, Bedser carried out a day shift as well. ‘But we must not squeeze the truth just to enjoy the paradox,’ stressed Robertson-Glasgow, ‘for Bedser is so nearly an all-rounder when permitted.’
Alec shared a third-wicket stand of 155 with Bill Edrich and was not dismissed until 3.10 on Friday afternoon. His innings of 79 included eight fours and two sixes. One observer, watching the mounting frustration of the Australians, reported that ‘the batsmen stayed in comfort and dignity, offering no suggestion that this was an alliance between numbers 3 and 10’.
At lunch, the total was 360. In the afternoon the pair moved on serenely until Edrich, hooking Morris for 4, hoisted his 100 and 400 for England. This was the climax of the stand – but not quite its end, for not until the score had reached 423 did Bedser slightly mistime his drive, offering Johnson a hard return catch. Jack Fingleton wrote:
Bedser came in to keep watch overnight, but so brilliantly and confidently was he batting at one time that he seemed certain to become a centurion. I have never seen a man so embarrassed as Bedser was when he returned to the pavilion. He was positively blushing at being acclaimed a hero.
David Sheppard, one of the young guard on the tour of Australia in 1950–51, provides an amusing postscript to Bedser’s batting command at Headingley. With the impudence of youth, Sheppard cheekily asked his senior, ‘Why don’t you practise your batting, Alec? You could make a great many runs if you really tried.’ Bedser replied: ‘Oh, I have to do all the bowling. I can’t do all the batting as well!’
South Africa, the setting for Bedser’s second post-war tour in 1948–49, provided another summons for his batting nerve. Alec was paired with Cliff Gladwin, the Derbyshire bowler, in the victory by two wickets in the first Test at Durban. It was sealed by a leg-bye in which, as one writer reported, the two batsmen ran ‘as if their shirts were on fire’.
England were set a target of 128 to win in two and a quarter hours. They lost 6 wickets for 70 before Compton and Jenkins came together to add 44 and check the menacing speed of the 19-year-old Cuan McCarthy. McCarthy, on his Test début, took six wickets and excitingly strove to arrest the pursuit of runs. He looked likely to propel South Africa to victory. In the closing stages, a tense battle was waged. The encircling neon lamps shone brightly in the shops surrounding the ground. Inside, the cricketers, soaked by rain, moved like shadows in the gloom. At the last, all emotion was drained and the only thought was that this was a game no one should lose.
Eight runs were required and the hands of the pavilion clock stood at one minute to six when Tuckett began the final over. The first ball hit Bedser’s pad and the batsmen ran one. Gladwin, striking it on the rise, pulled the next one for four. It went whistling over the head of Eric Rowan, the mid-wicket fieldsman, to smack against the pickets in front of the pavilion.
‘There was all Derbyshire and pitheads and the village green in this glorious cow shot,’ enthused Jim Swanton. Rowan misjudged the dipping flight of the ball. He stepped eagerly forward when he should have gone back and the ball soared a couple of feet out of reach. A leg-bye off the third ball yielded another run but the score advanced by only one off the next four balls.
Alec Bedser declares that bad captaincy delivered the match to England. ‘Wade, the South African wicket-keeper, stood back, and he was the nearest fielder. There were runs to be had before they woke up and realised what was happening.’ The crucial boundary – struck by Gladwin – occurred, says Alec, because the erring Rowan was 12 to 15 yards in when he should have been stationed on the boundary. Cool heads would have scuttled England’s cause, but thoughts can become scrambled in moments of crisis. The magnet of cricket, the hair’s breadth between success and failure, is revealed at such times.
‘Whatever happens, we are going to run,’ Bedser told his partner before Tuckett ran in to send down the last ball. It rebounded from Gladwin’s leg to drop into the blockhole. ‘I’d made up my mind to put my body in the way of the ball,’ said Gladwin in his version of the scampered winning leg-bye. ‘It struck me on the thigh and away we galloped.’
‘COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE MEN’, was the headline which greeted the famous victory at Durban. Yet the umpires were wrong to allow the run to count. It demonstrated the illogicality of the leg-bye as a batting aid. Strictly according to the rules, the match should have ended in a tie. Law 30 read: ‘If the striker wilfully deflects the ball with any part of his person, no runs are scored and the batsmen may not change ends.’
Fred Root, the Derbyshire star of other days, said that if he had been operating as an umpire he would have declared the run void. In the high excitement at Durban, the umpires did contravene; but they obeyed the spirit of the game.
John Woodcock referred to Alec Bedser as ‘loyal, kind and incorruptible’. He portrayed the tale of a cricketing giant in the following words: ‘If his labours as a bowler could be collected and piled up around him in some visible shape, he would be seen to be standing beside a mountain.’
The gargantuan labours yielded 1,924 wickets, including 236 at under 25 runs each in 51 Tests. Put even more succinctly, he played in 485 matches and bowled 106,192 deliveries. Alec especially cherishes his haul of 104 wickets, an average of almost 5 wickets per match, in 21 Tests against Australia. ‘The talk today is all about strike bowlers. What about me? My idea of a strike bowler is someone who gets batsmen out.’
Bedser was only the second bowler since before the First World War to pass the century milestone against Australia. Those who achieved this target before 1914 were Yorkshire’s Bobby Peel (102 in 20 Tests at the best average of 16.81) and S.F. Barnes, with 106 in 20 Tests. Wilfred Rhodes took a sabbatical from bowling during his reign as England’s opening batsman. He took 97 wickets in 34 Tests before the war and then swung his bowling arm again to register a tally of 109 in 41 Tests. Another 25 years would elapse after Bedser’s achievement before Derek Underwood added his name to this elite of bowling centurions against Australia.
‘Alec was unique. Goodness knows what would have happened to English cricket if he hadn’t been there at the time,’ reflects Bob Appleyard. The testimony of a stern Yorkshire rival to an enduring warrior is given substance by astonishing figures. In Bedser’s peak years from 1950 to 1953 he bowled 6,293 balls at approximately 2 runs an over, and took 121 wickets (average: 18.16) in 21 Tests. In his record season of 1953, Alec took 6 wickets against Australia at Leeds to overtake Clarrie Grimmett’s world record of 216 wickets.
Alec Bedser, as can be seen, offered irrefutable evidence that ‘the best practice for bowling is bowling’. What is more, he rarely broke down, which argues powers of resilience at variance with the moderns, who are constantly subject to injuries despite – or because of – the intensity of today’s fitness regimes.
Bob Appleyard also stresses the need for consistent spells of bowling as an aid to fitness. All Bedser’s overs were bowled from an unvarying run-up of ten paces and in a manner to preserve maximum efficiency. It was estimated that they lasted two and a half minutes each. Alec, says Appleyard, ‘was so grooved in his action, which was rhythmical and economical and lessened the strain, that he was able to continue for long periods’.
The comparison with today’s bowlers is strengthened by other sets of figures. Alec bowled 1,332 overs for his 162 wickets in 1953. Before the first Test at Nottingham in June, he bowled 400 overs in taking 62 wickets. Other times, other manners; but even making a charitable case for current England bowlers – resting, not always wisely, between international duties – there is a sharp discrepancy in the amount of work required of them.
Trevor Bailey, in a recent assessment, placed Derek Shackleton and Tom Cartwright, both very accurate, if at a slower pace, as comparable to Bedser. Fazal Mahmood, who learned his trade on the matting wickets of the sub-continent, is given the rating as the best exponent of the leg-cutter after Bedser. In the wet season of 1954, Fazal was the triumphant bowler who sprang the surprise, admittedly against suicidal batting, in Pakistan’s first Test victory at The Oval.
In the fast-medium style, Bailey also advanced the credentials of Ian Botham – in Test but not county matches – and Terry Alderman. On two tours of England, recalls Bailey, the Australian successfully proved the value of bowling straight. Alderman possessed a splendidly concealed delivery that came straight on, and lbw dismissals to him were frequent (19 out of 42 Test wickets in 1981). Bailey adds, ‘Alderman showed that it is possible to take a large number of wickets in Test cricket without being genuinely quick.’
Doug Insole does cite the benefits of uncovered wickets – sadly denied to the moderns – which accrued to Bedser, although his record overseas was proof that he was not disadvantaged in other conditions. Alec, like Maurice Tate, depended hugely on the close-up support of his wicket-keepers, Arthur McIntyre and Godfrey Evans. The hands of Herbert Strudwick, Tate’s England ally, bore savage evidence of his work over many summers. Strudwick, as the later Surrey scorer, paraded fingers shaped at odd angles – as one writer said, like the ‘distress signals of a semaphore’.
In his early days with Surrey, before his rule was assured, Strudwick continued to play despite breaking the middle finger of his right hand. He rigged a metal plate between the first and third fingers to isolate the middle one. He must have been in constant agony, for the protection would not have prevented jarring. Strudwick did not permit any challenge from his rivals. He kept his place while the break was healing.
Doug Insole, developing the wicket-keeping theme, emphasises that Godfrey Evans was in the same situation with Kent as Arthur McIntyre was with Surrey. It was commonplace then for wicket-keepers to stand up to fast-medium bowling until it was decreed that certainty of catches was paramount. Standing back, as was said, would be like a warder exercising remote control. Doug Wright was considerably quicker than most bowlers of his type. His often eccentric leg-spin was propelled at brisk medium-pace and required the utmost vigilance from Evans.
McIntyre, in his turn, was equally resourceful keeping to Alec Bedser. In this instance, Alec’s accuracy was the key element. ‘They say that the hardest job in cricket is keeping to an off-spinner on a turning wicket,’ comments Peter Richardson. ‘Well, imagine what it was like keeping to Alec at his pace in the same circumstances.’
Over the years, Arthur Morris maintained that if there were any easy runs to be gained from Bedser, it was advisable to gather them early in his spell. By the third over Alec was in the groove, dropping the ball just short of a driveable length, but far enough up to make the back stroke a matter of quick decision and quicker action. Attention soon had to be paid to the ever-present threat of the leg-cutter. David Sheppard remembers how it would stop and lift as well as turn, so that the ball became almost unplayable: ‘It became one of the stock sayings of many cricketers of our era, when we saw a wet wicket, or a rough village wicket – “Alec would bowl well on this.”’
In the beginning, Bedser’s major weapon was his stock in-swinger. As he moved into his peak years he became, in effect, two different bowlers. There was the accuracy and control and the ability to swing the ball late into the batsman. The leg-cutter, by contrast, was a direct result of the experiment of holding the ball across the seam to stop it swinging. This magnificent ball did, says Trevor Bailey, give Bedser the ascendancy over Maurice Tate. Only Sydney Barnes was his superior in propitious conditions. ‘The reason why it was so devastating stemmed from the size and strength of Alec’s fingers,’ explains Bailey. ‘The tips of my fingers, quite apart from being more delicate, only just reached the first knuckle of his, which meant that he could spin his leg-cutter with the knowledge that on a wet or dusty pitch it would virtually always turn sharply.’
Defeatism was not a state of mind which ever affected Peter Richardson and Trevor Bailey in their batting ventures. Yet both remember their pride in earning precious runs against a great bowler. Staying at the wicket for two to three hours against Alec Bedser constituted an achievement beyond the norm. Bailey still winces at the memory of his tussles: ‘The most significant feature was that Alec was responsible for bruising the inside of my right hand. He just kept on hitting the bat. Alec jarred my hand more than any other bowler I faced.’