THE DEMON BOWLER.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2952, 1 August 1878, Page 2

THE DEMON BOWLER.

The progress of the Australian, eleven is quite dramatic. Their somewhat tame debut at Nottingham was in the nature of an unpretending overture, but the curtain fell to the first act at Lord's to rounds of applause at their splendid performance. When Grace, the far-famed batter, went out for four, tad the wickets -went flying right and left, so that the last fell to a ridiculously small score, it was clear that our Antipodean cousins could more than hold their own with the best cricketers in this country. Indeed the Australians are so good " all round " that they will be difficult to beat. Their fielding is the admiration of all who behold it; they have among them many excellent bats; but their great strength is in bowling. Their bowlers have long enjoyed peculiar soubriquets indicative cf - their powers. Left-handed Allan is known as the " Crouching Panther," or the "Bowler of a Century"; Boyle is described as the "very devil.■".; but Mr Spofforth, as the" demon bowler," tarries off the palm. His delivery is quite appalling; the balls thunder in like cannon shot; yet he has the guile when seemingly 'about to bowl fas'est to drop in a "slow," wiiiSlfisgenerally fatal to the batsman. Spoffor is a Yorkshfreman by extraction. Hi:, frfcher was well known as a sportsman, a .d rode as straight as the best with the York and Ainsty and other hounds. But whether from Yorkshire originally or not, he and his colleagues are all of our own flesh, and b'ood, and we welcome their prowess cheerfully as a proof that the old stock is not degenerating in those far-off lands.