watson
Banned
This one-on-one interview with the great Jack Blackman is a fabulous study of his wicket-keeping technique. He was the first keeper to not use the usual 'long-stop', he wore smaller cut-down kid gloves with very little padding, and only caught with his right hand when possible. He found keeping to off-spinners like Giffen, Turner, Spofforth, and Lohmann the most difficult aspect of his job.
The left-arm orthodox spinner J.J. Ferris was the most accurate bowler of note that he kept to. More so than Spofforth and Turner apparently which is hard to believe, especially Turner.
The left-arm orthodox spinner J.J. Ferris was the most accurate bowler of note that he kept to. More so than Spofforth and Turner apparently which is hard to believe, especially Turner.
AN INTERVIEW WITH BLACKHAM
9 SEPTEMBER 1893
When Jonh McCarthy Blackham visited England in 1878 with the first Australian cricket team that ever landed on our sea girt isle his presence in the role of wicket-keeper commenced a new era in the department of the game. It was England that taught Australia how to bat and bowl, but it was reserved for our Colonial kith and kin to teach the Old Country how to keep wicket.
Of course, England has had her heroes — her Lytteltons, Pillings and Sherwins —who knew their business to perfection up to a certain point, but with the advent of Blackham came the abolition of the long-stop, which of course, was as good as a gift of an extra man in the field.
A terrible fellow Blackham looks behind the stumpe, when in the height of the battle he stands with his sleeves tucked up, his eyes flashing, aud his whole being alive at every point. But to meet him off the field (says the 'Morning Leader') is to meet the mildest-manner of men, with gentle voice, and most winning of dispositions. His eyes are soft, almost languid, and the swarthy bearded face strikes no terror into the heart of the interviewer.
'Will you tell me Mr Blackham when you first began to keep wicket in good class matches?
'Ah, that is a long time ago. I think it must have been in 1872 that I was first played for my wicket-keeping in a match between East and South Melbourne, That was afterwards called the century match, because of the number of centuries that were scored.'
'Now, Mr. Blackham, I want to find out some of the tricks of your trade. What sort of a solution, for instance, do you use for hardening your hands, and will you give me the recipe?
'My dear boy,' said the Australian, laughing, ' I use nothing whatever for my hands, and never did— excepting, of course, that I wash them with water occasionally like other people.'
'Then do you use any peculiar kind of glove?'
'Well, I may tell you that I don't use the regulation gloves, but I make no secret of the glove that I do wear. I will tell you precisely what I do. I send my ordinary kid glove — I wear a No. 8— down to Page the glove maker, and I have a glove made to fit my hand just like an ordinary glove.'
'What sort of padding do you use?
'I use very little padding at all. Fact is. I don't believe in padding. The nearer you can get to Nature the better. You want as little as possible between the skin and the ball. I would rather take punishment with my bare hands than use the thickly-padded gloves I see some men wear. With the regulation gloves it is impossible for the fingers to act promptly and properly. If there be a secret in my success you have it here.'
'I suppose, Mr. Blackham, in the coarse of your twenty-one years experience as a wicketkeeper you have come in for very bad knocks, if not serious injuries.'
'On the contrary.' said Blackham. 'I have only once got anything like a serious injury, and that was when a ball hit me in the chest and knocked me down. It was a dreadful blow, and I thought It had killed me. As it was, it laid me on my back for severed weeks, and I did not get over it for some time.'
'Now, tell me, Mr. Blackham, who is the fastest bowlers you have stood up to?
'I should say Jack Conway of South Melbourne, and by the way, thereby hangs a tale. Conway for a long time was the terror of all long-stops, and the first time I kept wicket to him they put on a long-stop called Woolf, another old schoolmate of mine, and one of the best long-stops in Australia. As the match progressed Conway noticed that none of the balls ever got the length of the long-stop, and he ordered Woolf to go and field leg. This, I believe, was not only the first time a wicket-keeper had taken Conway's deliveries without a long-stop, but I believe it was the first time that the long-atop had been abolished for fast bowling, either in Australia or England.'
'I understand, Mr. Blackham, that when you first visited England the long-stop was still in fashion.'
'Oh yes, the people were surprised to see me stand up to Spofforth without a long-stop, and I believe this led to the abolition of the long-stop in England. It is considered a bit of a disgrace now for a wicket-keeper to ask fer a long-stop, even to the fastest bowling.'
Did you ever know an English bowler as fast as Conway?'
'Oh, yes, I think so. I believe Mold to be as fast, if not faster, and from what I hear of Lockwood I should say he is quite as fast.'
'Can you tell me how many men you have stumped in one innings?'
'Let me think. I remember a match In Australia when I stumped or caught the first six men out of twelve. Of course it was only a second-class match,' said Blackham, modestly, and almost apologetically.
'What sort of bowler gives you most chance of stumping?
'Left-banded bowlers like Ferris, Peel, or Briggs, with a break from the leg side. They are very easy to take, and almost anybody could keep wicket to them.'
'And who are the most difficult men to take? Fast bowlers, I suppose?
'Oh no, fast bowlers are not half so difficult to take as those of medium pace and a big break back from the off like Giffen, Turner, Spofforth, or Lohmann. The most difficult balls to take are those that come between the bat and the off-stump, and perhaps the most difficult ball of all is that which comes over the middle stamp. As a rule you can't see It, and the best thing for the wicket-keeper to do is to point his hands to where he thinks the ball is coming, and at the same time raise himself up so that if be misses it will strike him on the body, and not on the head.'
'Now supposing, Mr. Blackham, a bowler sends up a very fast ball and the batsman just touches it without making it deviate from its line of flight. In such a case can you see the ball coming from the bat?'
'It's impossible to see the ball. That is where judgment comes in. All you can do is to place your bands where you think the ball coming, and it is wonderful how often you wIll catch it. A great mistake of yonng wlcketkeepers is that they don't try often enough. No matter how impossible it may look, every wicket-keeper worthy of the name should make an effort to catch and stop everything. I try everything, and if I succeed once now and again at what looks like an impossible thing, people say it is miraculous, but it is not. It is only the result of trying. Some of the best things I have bave ever done have just been by using my judgment and chancing it — in fact, going for the ball in the neck-or-nothing fashion.'
'Do yon take balls as easily with the left hand as the right?
'Well, now, it is strange that you have asked that question. I am going to tell you what must appear to be a curious thing. I never take a ball with my left hand at all. Everything goes in my right.
At times it may appear as if I were taking the ball with both hands but I simply use my right where the ball is held. I can give you no better proof of this than by telling you that my right-hand glove is always worn out before my left-hand one has begun to show wear.'
'Now what would you say were the essential qualities of a good wicket-keeper?
'I should say nerve, sight, and abstemiousness. To these, of course, must be added tbe judgment that comes from experience. The most difficult things in wicket-keeping are done by a kind of instinct; you don't have time to reason or to think tbe problem out. The whole thing is done in a flash, like taking a snap-shot at a running rabbit. Eye, hand, and brain most work together in perfect unison. These are the moral qualities that a wicket keeper requires; but as I said before, a proper glove is half the battle. Remember that the less padding you have the better.
'Do you ever make signs to a bowler to tell him how to vary his pace, or where to pitch his balls?
'Oh, yes, I do that, and when I can get a man to co-operate thus the results are sometimes marvellous. I have never had a bowler to work with me in this respect better than J. J. Ferris. By a little manoeuvring or a whispered word I have seen us get of the best batsman in England when everything else had failed. My long experience behind the wicket enables me very quickly to see what sort of bowling a batsman does not like, and of course I am not slow to communicate this to the bowlers. If it were possible for a man to pitch the ball exactly as I wished him batsmen would not stand half the time they do. Of course no bowler can pitch the ball exactly where he wishes it; but the most successful men I have known in this respect were Boyle and Ferris.'
Sheffield Telegraph.
09 Sep 1893 - AN INTERVIEW WITH BLACKHAM. - Trove
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