Style
A right-hand opening batsman, Fingleton was noted primarily for his obdurate defense rather than for his strokeplay. Like most successful opening batsmen, he had a small back-lift and was rarely surprised by the quicker half-volley or yorker. Fingleton was often described as "courageous", in particular for his defiant batting against Bodyline. Fingleton often made self-deprecating comments about his batting, telling English cricket writer Alan Gibson that he "missed nothing" by not seeing him bat. He was also an athletic and gifted fieldsman, who built his reputation in the covers. Later he became noted along with Vic Richardson and Bill Brown in South Africa in 1935–36 as part of Bill O'Reilly's leg-trap. Neville Cardus, once described the Fingleton-Brown combination as "crouching low and acquisitively, each with as many arms as an Indian God".
His partnership with Brown was regarded as one of the great opening pairings in the history of Australian Test cricket. In ten Tests together as an opening partnership, the pair averaged 63.75 for the first wicket, higher than any other Australian pair with more than 1,000 runs.
Read more about this topic: Jack Fingleton
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)
“One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)