• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

The Cricket Monthly Magazine

cnerd123

likes this
Read a few articles so far, good reads but could be fleshed out a bit more. Expect the later articles to be better, cause this edition is free.

Will subscribe.
 

watson

Banned
I did like Frith's piece on Barnes and Foster;

THE JURY'S OUT
Which is the finest bowling pair?

New-ball partners, spin twins, pace-spin combos, duos drawn from quartets: doesn't matter, give us the finest pair of bowlers ever, we said to our panel, and they did just that.

Sydney Barnes and Frank Foster
England, 1911-1912; 118 wickets in 11 Tests together
By David Frith


Having watched them down from Lindwall and Miller, Ramadhin and Valentine, Tyson, Trueman and Statham, Bedi and Chandrasekhar (now that was a glorious spectacle), Lillee and Thomson, Roberts and Holding, Waqar and Wasim, Warne and anybody, choosing the finest of all is a brain-stretching task. Other pairs rise from the mists of time. The first fast bowlers to mow down opponents in tandem were Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald of Australia in the 1920s. Further back, there could be no greater test for opening batsmen than when England's mighty fast man Tom Richardson was coupled with the clever slow left-armer Bobby Peel: raw pace at one end and slow cunning at the other.

My choice, though, is an Ashes-winning pair from 1911-12: Sydney Barnes, frequently nominated as the greatest of all bowlers, and Frank Foster, the Warwickshire left-arm fast bowler. Against a strong and settled Australian batting line-up - Trumper, Bardsley, Hill, Armstrong, Kelleway, Ransford and Minnett - Barnes and Foster took 34 and 32 wickets, carrying England to a 4-1 series victory. Sixty-six wickets in a five-Test series; then another 52 (Barnes 39, Foster 13) in the Triangular Tests in England.

The tall, gaunt-faced Syd Barnes was an uncompromising man who seldom laughed. He spun the ball at a brisk medium-fast. I met him when he was 93 years old, still upright, still formidable, apparently humourless in conversation, and determined to get his point across: that he didn't cut the ball, dammit: he spun it! And with his long, bony fingers he demonstrated his point.

Barnes' figures are astounding. In his final Test series, in South Africa in 1913-14, he took 49 wickets (at 10.93) in four Tests - and then walked away in a huff before the fifth, having failed, for once, to get his way over expenses. His 17 wickets in the second Test of that series, at the Old Wanderers ground, placed him at the top of the table until Jim Laker's 19 four decades later. And at the first of two Melbourne Tests in that 1911-12 Ashes, he scooped up five wickets for six runs off 11 overs on the first morning. He had been far from well the night before. A bottle of whisky helped.

As for young Frank Foster, in 1911-12 he was fresh from leading Warwickshire to a first County Championship, and still to show signs of mental instability. He swung the ball in viciously and late, rather like Wasim Akram. Bowlers then were at a disadvantage in that if a ball pitched outside off stump it precluded the lbw. Believing that Foster was going after him physically, Victor Trumper at one point raised the matter with an umpire, who explained the geometry of it. The great batsman accepted his word.

The 11 Tests Foster played with Barnes were the only Tests he played. If their 118 wickets in those 11 don't convince you, close your eyes and picture the two bowlers in action: Barnes glaring away as a fast legbreak follows a vicious offcutter; Foster veering the ball in from its off-side path to hit pad, box or stumps. What the chronicles tell of their mastery through the air and off the pitch convinces me that if there were later bowlers of equal skill, none bettered them.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Warne and "anybody" :D :D

Oh McG.... That's what I was talking about in the other thread..
 

watson

Banned
Warne and "anybody" :D :D

Oh McG.... That's what I was talking about in the other thread..
That's just flat out insulting to McGrath.
Frith is obviously a Warne fan more than anything else. However, we still don't have to agree with the omission of McGrath's name just because the writer is David Frith. We are free to occasionally disagree with anyone we choose no matter who they are.

That said, it was nice to see Frith select the pairing of Sydney Barnes and Frank Foster rather than go for the more usual and mundane. Both bowlers certainly deserve their accolade, especially Foster who appears to be forgotten more often than not when it comes to a discussion about the 'Golden Age' of cricket.
 

watson

Banned
In a excellent piece by Herbert Strudwick ('From Dr Grace to Peter May') he gives a good indication of the skill that Foster had with the ball;

Maurice Tate, Alec Bedser, G. G. Macaulay, C. Kelleway and F. R. Foster stand out among fast-medium bowlers. Foster, left-arm, was a bit faster than the others and very quick off the pitch. The first time I kept wicket to him was in a trial match at Lord's. The first ball he bowled swung right across the pitch to outside the leg-stump, turned sharply and went over the top of the off-stump, leaving the batsman and me stone cold and hitting the sight-screen with a bang. James Seymour, the batsman, had half turned to play the ball to leg. I said to him: "It looks as if there will be 50 byes before lunch, but I'm not going to stand back to him." Nor did I.

Wisden - From Dr Grace to Peter May
 

Marius

International Debutant
From what I've read it's pretty good.

Just wish they could get some better coverage for Africa, the Cricinfo correspondent for SA and is aaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllll.
 

Top