Style and Technique
After he became a leg break bowler, Bosanquet bowled the ball very slowly and did not look dangerous. However, while still appearing to bowl a leg break, he could deliver an off break which confused the best batsmen in the world and this googly was recognised as a completely new style of delivery. He achieved this through dropping his wrist before releasing the ball. The unfamiliarity of this type of bowling increased his effectiveness on the occasions when he could bowl a good length. But he was never a reliable bowler; on other occasions, he bowled long hops and full tosses giving away easy runs. Warner noted that Bosanquet had been "described as the 'worst best bowler' in the world".
Bosanquet did not bat in a style typical of a cricketer from Eton, where batsmen were taught to play with style and grace. Warner described him as "decidedly stiff and awkward looking ... He does not seem to play the ball in a free, unconstrained way, but rather stabs at it and gives one the impression of making his stroke at the very last moment." In Australia, Bosanquet was troubled by fast pitches and struggled against bowlers such as Monty Noble and Bert Hopkins who could make the ball move towards him through the air. Nevertheless he displayed great confidence in his ability and on a pitch which assisted spinners, he could flick the ball onto the leg side very effectively. He could hit the ball hard, particularly when driving. The Times said: "He had a wonderful eye and great strength of fore-arm and anything short he could hit very hard."
Read more about this topic: Bernard Bosanquet (cricketer)
Famous quotes containing the words style and, style and/or technique:
“A style does not go out of style as long as it adapts itself to its period. When there is an incompatibility between the style and a certain state of mind, it is never the style that triumphs.”
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971)
“Sometimes among our more sophisticated, self-styled intellectuals—and I say self-styled advisedly; the real intellectual I am not sure would ever feel this way—some of them are more concerned with appearance than they are with achievement. They are more concerned with style then they are with mortar, brick and concrete. They are more concerned with trivia and the superficial than they are with the things that have really built America.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“In love as in art, good technique helps.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)