Richard Nyren - Style and Technique

Style and Technique

Nyren was left-handed as both batsman and bowler. He is the earliest of the left-handers listed in Scores & Biographies, others of his time being James Aylward, Tom Sueter, Noah Mann, Robert Clifford, Francis Booker, William Brazier and David Harris, although the latter bowled right-handed.

Nyren was a bowling all-rounder who was, with Thomas Brett, one of "the two principal bowlers" in the early Hambledon team. He bowled underarm at a fast-medium pace and "had a high delivery, always to the length, and his balls were provokingly deceitful".

Ashley-Cooper commented: "Perhaps of all the players who appeared for Hambledon (sic) only William Beldham surpassed him in excellence as an all-round performer — apart, that is, from captaincy". Nyren was widely considered to be the expert in all cricketing matters and at Hambledon he was "the chosen general of all the matches, ordering and directing the whole". He was "uniformly consulted on all questions of (cricket) law or precedent" and his decision was always accepted. A significant example of this level of influence occurred in 1771, as described above, following the "big bat" controversy when Nyren, Brett and Small effectively changed the Laws of Cricket by setting the maximum bat width.

Nyren was a successful coach who worked with the young David Harris on his line and length, helping to make Harris into the most successful bowler of the 1780s. Harris had begun as a "raw countryman, deplorably addicted to bowling full tosses". So Nyren took him in hand and "preached to him the great principle of three-quarter (sic) or length bowling".