sixty-eight
(average 14.23) seems to show a decline in his powers, but that was a
wonderful year for batsmen (Maisefield scored seven hundred and
forty-two runs, with an average of forty-two) and, moreover, that was
the year in which Stott was privately practising his new theory.

It was in this year that three very promising recruits, all since become
famous, joined the Eleven, viz.: P. H. Evans, St. John Townley, and
Flower the fast bowler. With these five cricketers Hampdenshire fully
deserved their elevation into the list of first-class counties.
Curiously enough, they took the place of the old champions,
Gloucestershire, who, with Somerset, fell back into the obscurity of the
second-class that season.

IV

I must turn aside for a moment at this point in order to explain the
"new theory" of Stott's, to which I have referred, a theory which became
in practice one of the elements of his most astounding successes.

Ginger Stott was not a tall man. He stood only 5 ft. 5-1/4 in. in his
socks, but he was tremendously solid; he had what is known as a "stocky"
figure, broad and deep-chested. That was where his muscular power lay,
for his abnormally long arms were rather thin, though his huge hands
were powerful enough.

Even without his "new theory," Stott would have been an exceptional
bowler. His thoroughness would have assured his success. He studied his
art diligently, and practised regularly in a barn through the winter.
His physique, too, was a magnificent instrument. That long, muscular
body was superbly steady on the short, thick legs. It gave him a
fulcrum, firm, apparently immovable. And those weirdly long, thin arms
could move with lightning rapidity. He always stood with his hands
behind him, and then--as often as not without even one preliminary
step--the long arm would flash round and the ball be delivered, without
giving the batsman any opportunity of watching his hand; you could never
tell which way he was going to break. It was astonishing, too, the pace
he could get without any run. Poor Wallis used to call him the "human
catapult"; Wallis was always trying to find new phrases.

The theory first came to Stott when he was practising at the nets. It
was a windy morning, and he noticed that several times the balls he
bowled swerved in the air. When those swerving balls came they were
almost unplayable.

Stott made no remark to any one--he was bowling to the groundsman--but
the ambition to bowl "sw