Hugh Bartlett - Batting Style

Batting Style

In the nostalgic piece about Bartlett that he wrote for Cricket Heroes, Alan Ross remembered his batting style :

As a cricketer, domesticity was just not in his line. He began his innings usually as one who, suffering from violent astigmatism, has not only mislaid his glasses, but had in addition a fearful headache. He made a pass or two after the ball had gone past him: he lunged fitfully and missed: he stabbed down just in time at the straight ones: he sliced the rising offside ball over the second slip: he snicked hazily part his leg stump. So, for about a quarter of an hour, it went on: or, to such an agonized onlooker as I, it seemed to go on. Then suddenly, he would catch a half volley or a long hop such a crack that the bowler, fearful of his own safety, lost all his aggressive intention, and, with it, any idea of length.

Phase two then began. One no longer felt that the bowler was remotely interested in the stumps, but having scattered his fielders around the boundary, relied now, in the form of bait, on a species of poisoned chocolate. Bartlett paid scant heed to these exiled boundary creatures: at alarming rates he drove between, over, and if needs be, through them. He was a firm footed hitter, possessed of a long reach, and the trajectory of his drives was low and of a fearful power.

In the hundred against Australians, Bartlett scored just four in his first 14 minutes.