Style
Shrewsbury was considered quite a slow scoring batsman however C. B. Fry described his play: "The idea that he is slow is mistaken. True, he is often half an hour without scoring; but somehow he makes up for it and is all but even with his more mobile partner. The fact is he waits for the ball he wants, and then secures a certain fourer. He does not waste time and energy in banging ball after ball into fieldsman's hands."
Edward Sewell, a contemporary of Shrewsbury's, described his play: "And so, little by little, this little man playing a quite different kind of cricket to any other Big Noises of his time, perfected his own chosen method; never heeding anything in the shape of advice or an adviser, until he became a king of legend." The method of play Sewell refers to is back-play, most batsmen of 1870s and 1880s typically played off the front foot, which allowed Shrewsbury to master the bad wickets which were often found on county grounds. His Wisden obituary had similar sentiments: “As a batsman he had a style of back play peculiarly his own, and his judgment of the length of bowling was almost unequalled. It was said of him that he seemed to see the ball closed up to the bat than any other player.”
Shrewsbury wasn't a strong or muscular man and stated that he didn't hit the ball instead he steered it in the desired direction.
Shrewsbury's technique was criticised by Rait Kerr in his book 'The laws of cricket', he stated: "As we have seen the improvement in pitches enabled Arthur Shrewsbury to develop a new gospel of defensive batsmanship which soon made many converts. From about 1885 this technique involved an increasing use of the pads." At the time the LBW law stated to be out the ball needed to pitch between wicket and wicket. In 1888 the MCC considered a change to the law but instead issued a statement saying that defending the wicket with the body was against the spirit of the game.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)