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42
CRICKET

whole description, if not very lucid, is full of terror. "It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to convey in writing an accurate idea of the grand effect of Harris's bowling"—the effect, as a matter of fact, is conveyed a deal more clearly than the way in which it was produced. "They only who have played against him can fully appreciate it. His attitude, when preparing for his run previously to delivering the ball, would have made a beautiful model for the sculptor. Phidias would certainly have taken him as a model. First of all, he stood erect as a soldier at drill; then, with a graceful curve of the arm, he raised the ball to his forehead"—singular and impressive ritual—"and drawing back his right foot, started off with his left. The calm look and general air of the man were uncommonly striking, and from this series of preparations he never deviated. His mode of delivering the ball was very singular. He would bring it from under the arm by a twist, and nearly as high as his arm-pit, and with this action push it, as it were, from him. How it was that the ball acquired the velocity it did by this mode of delivery, I never could comprehend."

Nor any one else either, for Harris was a very fast bowler. But I am inclined to think that there must have been some explanation to be discovered out of the fact that he was by profession—before cricket became his profession—a potter. With the strength of fingers that the potter acquires through working at his clay, he may have had the power of putting an amount of spin on the ball impossible for