Style
When Australia batted, Lawry, their stumbling-block-extraordinary, took root, and in an interminable left-handed stand with Cowper effectively droused English prospects. When this relentless fellow, having reached his sixth Test hundred against England, at length took a liberty he had made 592 runs in the Tests, average 84, the highest aggregate since Bradman's in 1946–47: not only that, he had scored 979 against M. J. K. Smith's side since they landed in Perth, and had occupied the crease for forty-one and a half hours. There was a gayer side to Lawry as we had seen at Adelaide—but he didn't let it obtrude too often. He just kept that long, sharp nose religiously over the ball, accumulating at his own deliberate gait, and in particular tucking everything away off his pads whenever the English bowlers bowled there, as all too often they did.
- E. W. Swanton
Along with Bob Simpson, he formed an opening partnership that was regarded as one of the finest in Test history. Lawry was fast between the wickets, and the pair were especially well known for their understanding, as exemplified by their fluency in rotating the strike with quick singles. Lawry was known for his peculiar stance. He had little bend in his knees, and as a result batted with a stoop over his bat. He used his long reach to blunt spin bowling. He played with a very straight bat, combining well-organised defence with a somewhat limited range of strokes, marked by an efficiency of placement and an unusually heavy reliance on the hook shot. His strengths were regarded as his composure and intense concentration which powered a relentless single-mindedness. His defiant style was accentuated by his habit of tugging on his cap after every ball, as though starting afresh. John Snow wrote that 'He always had to be got out and even if you managed to knock all three stumps over he still stayed at the crease a moment looking round for some excuse to continue batting before reluctantly starting his walk back to the dressing room'. Lawry was also a left-hander during his winter baseball recreation, which equipped him with a powerful throwing arm.
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Famous quotes containing the word style:
“All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter.... For me “style” is matter.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“A cultivated style would be like a mask. Everybody knows it’s a mask, and sooner or later you must show yourself—or at least, you show yourself as someone who could not afford to show himself, and so created something to hide behind.... You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)