On Monday, January 10, 1994 at 9:58:27 AM UTC, Uday Rajan wrote:
> This is a re-post of Cardus' essay on Woolley, first posted about a year
> ago, with apologies to Sadiq for the delay.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> FRANK WOOLLEY, by Neville Cardus
> (from "Good Days", 1934)
> During the quarter of a century that is Woolley's career so
> far, the game has gone through many changes. Bowling has had its
> fashions. Fast break-backs; slow and medium spin, now from the
> off, now from the leg; swerve and googly; this theory and the
> other---Woolley has had acquaintance with the lot of them. And
> while other batsmen have compromised some virtue of their style
> so that they might do the proper and expedient thing, Woolley
> has gone his ways undisturbed, as though unaware of the
> ambuscades about him. Other and more suspicious men have looked
> ahead. `Ah!' they have told themselves, `here are gins and
> snares of a strange new invention. here are googlies and swerves.
> I must borrow the latest specifics. Fatal to trust to the ancient
> counters. The straight bat, the clean drive---why, these would
> lead me to disaster were I to use them to stop the modern
> bowling. I must hold the bat down, watch the ball all the way,
> keep my legs in front. Yes, I must be modern in the presence
> of modern bowling.'
> Since 1919, few batsmen have dared to drive a cricket ball
> hard and straight; fewer still have dared to cut past point. They
> have, most of them, got back on their wickets, watched the spin
> and the swerve to the last fraction of a second. The delayed
> stroke, supposedly safe, is bound to be cribbed and confined,
> unfree and unbeautiful. Even Hobbs has suffered a change in his
> play; his bat no longer moves where the master would have it go;
> it has for years now been weighted by circumspection, a doubting,
> empirical bat. Woolley on the eve of his forty-seventh birthday
> made runs as felicitously as he made them for us nearly thirty
> years ago. Never has he compelled a crowd to ask whether cricket
> is as good as it used to be; never has he made the pavilion clock
> go round with slow, tedious fingers. No other cricketer living
> has served the meadow game as happily and faithfully as Woolley
> has done, summer after summer. No other living cricketer has
> moved cricket crowds to the happiness which has been felt
> whenever and wherever Woolley has batted, north, south, east,
> or west, green and pleasant Mote Park or grim and sulphurous
> Bramall Lane.
> Cricket belongs entirely to summer every time that Woolley
> bats an innings. His cricket is compounded of soft airs and
> fresh flavours. The bloom of the year is on it, making for
> sweetness. And the very brevity of summer is in it too, making
> for loveliness. Woolley, so the statisticians tell us, often
> plays a long innings. But Time's a cheat, as the old song
> sings. Fleeter he seems in his stay than in his flight. The
> brevity in Woolley's batting is a thing of pulse or spirit,
> not to be checked by clocks, but only to be apprehended by
> imagination. He is always about to lose his wicket; his
> runs are thin-spun. His bat is charmed, and most of us, being
> reasonable, do not believe in charms. There is a miracle
> happening on every cricket field when Woolley stays in two or
> three hours; an innings by him is almost too unsubstantial for
> this world. His cricket has no bastions; it is poised
> precariously---at any rate, that is how the rational mind
> perceives it. But, for that matter, all the loveliness of the
> world seems no more lasting than the dew on the grass, seems
> no more than the perfume and suppliance of a minute. Yet the
> miracle of renewal goes on, and all the east winds in the
> world may blow in vain. So with Woolley's cricket; the lease
> of it is in the hands of the special Providence which looks
> after things that do not look after themselves.
> His batsmanship, like all fine art, can be enjoyed by
> everybody, because it is fresh and natural, and, at bottom,
> as simple as it is modest. Other cricketers need
> sophistication to praise them. Their point of view must be
> understood. The state of the game, or the wicket, has to be
> looked into. `I simply must play so-and-so,'`Why, look at
> the bowling!---you simply cannot play a long-lengthed hit
> against that kind of spin.'`The pitch is getting drier; the
> ball's turning.' We have to attend to these esoteric points
> before we can get to the quality of the latest innings by
> Bloggs of Blankshire---one hundred and six in four hours and
> a quarter, without a chance, without a risk. No child,
> knowing nothing of cricket but bat and ball, could understand the
> game as Bloggs plays it. But innocence itself will open eyes of
> understanding when they look upon an innings by Woolley. Here,
> indeed, is true, unspoiled cricket; bat and ball, indeed, and
> little else, save the touch of an artist---a cricketer who is as
> much a weaverof beauty's spells as any Kreisler who ever lived.
> The score-board does not get anywhere near the secret of
> Woolley. It can tell us only about Bloggs; for him runs and
> results are the one justification. To add up the runs made by
> Woolley---why, it is as though you were to add up the crochets
> and quavers written by Mozart. An innings by Woolley begins from
> the raw material of cricket, and goes far beyond. We remember it
> flong after we have forgotten the competitive occasion which
> prompted the making of it; it remains in the mind; an evocative
> memory which stirs in us a sense of a bygone day's poise and
> fragrance, of a mood and a delectable shape seen quickly, but for
> good and all. Some of Woolley's innings stay with us until they
> become like poetry which can be told over again and again; we see
> the shapeliness of his cricket with our minds and we feel its
> beauty with our hearts. I can think of cricket by Woolley which
> has inexplicably found me murmuring to myself (that I might get
> the best out of it)
> Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
> Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
> I admit, O reader, that an innings by Woolley has nothing to
> do with owls and dusk and starlight. I am trying to describe an
> experience of the fancy; I am talking of cadences, of dying falls
> common to all the beauty of the world. My argument, in a word, is
> concerned not with Wolley the Kent cricketer, but that essence of
> his batsmanship which will live on, after his cricket is done
> with, after his runs and averages have been totted up and found
> to be much the same as those of many other players. He has made
> music for cricket in all places---muted music, for never is
> Woolley's cricket assertive, strident. He is the soul of
> courtesy, of porportion, as he drives his boundaries. He will hit
> a bowler for four fours in an over and not give him reason to
> feel bruised or affronted. It is all done so quietly, so
> modestly. The game's hard combativenss is put out of sight, out
> of all one's senses, when Woolley bats. Even the bowlers may
> well be deceived, and think that they are not Woolley's
> adversaries at all, but, at his own sweet pleasure, his
> fellows-in-bliss, glad followers of him along an enchanted way.

No one comes close to Wooley's record as an allrounder., viz:

Years Team
1906–1938 Kent
Career statistics
Competition Test First-class
Matches 64 978[a]
Runs scored 3,283 58,959
Batting average 36.07 40.77
100s/50s 5/23 145/295
Top score 154 305*
Balls bowled 6,495 94,949[b]
Wickets 83 2,066
Bowling average 33.91 19.87
5 wickets in innings 4 132
10 wickets in match 1 28
Best bowling 7/76 8/22
Catches/stumpings 64/ 1,0 18
Source: CricInfo, 28 December 2021

RH

On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 3:35:51 AM UTC+10, Robert Henderson wrote:
> On Monday, January 10, 1994 at 9:58:27 AM UTC, Uday Rajan wrote:
> > This is a re-post of Cardus' essay on Woolley, first posted about a year
> > ago, with apologies to Sadiq for the delay.
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > FRANK WOOLLEY, by Neville Cardus
> > (from "Good Days", 1934)
> > During the quarter of a century that is Woolley's career so
> > far, the game has gone through many changes. Bowling has had its
> > fashions. Fast break-backs; slow and medium spin, now from the
> > off, now from the leg; swerve and googly; this theory and the
> > other---Woolley has had acquaintance with the lot of them. And
> > while other batsmen have compromised some virtue of their style
> > so that they might do the proper and expedient thing, Woolley
> > has gone his ways undisturbed, as though unaware of the
> > ambuscades about him. Other and more suspicious men have looked
> > ahead. `Ah!' they have told themselves, `here are gins and
> > snares of a strange new invention. here are googlies and swerves.
> > I must borrow the latest specifics. Fatal to trust to the ancient
> > counters. The straight bat, the clean drive---why, these would
> > lead me to disaster were I to use them to stop the modern
> > bowling. I must hold the bat down, watch the ball all the way,
> > keep my legs in front. Yes, I must be modern in the presence
> > of modern bowling.'
> > Since 1919, few batsmen have dared to drive a cricket ball
> > hard and straight; fewer still have dared to cut past point. They
> > have, most of them, got back on their wickets, watched the spin
> > and the swerve to the last fraction of a second. The delayed
> > stroke, supposedly safe, is bound to be cribbed and confined,
> > unfree and unbeautiful. Even Hobbs has suffered a change in his
> > play; his bat no longer moves where the master would have it go;
> > it has for years now been weighted by circumspection, a doubting,
> > empirical bat. Woolley on the eve of his forty-seventh birthday
> > made runs as felicitously as he made them for us nearly thirty
> > years ago. Never has he compelled a crowd to ask whether cricket
> > is as good as it used to be; never has he made the pavilion clock
> > go round with slow, tedious fingers. No other cricketer living
> > has served the meadow game as happily and faithfully as Woolley
> > has done, summer after summer. No other living cricketer has
> > moved cricket crowds to the happiness which has been felt
> > whenever and wherever Woolley has batted, north, south, east,
> > or west, green and pleasant Mote Park or grim and sulphurous
> > Bramall Lane.
> > Cricket belongs entirely to summer every time that Woolley
> > bats an innings. His cricket is compounded of soft airs and
> > fresh flavours. The bloom of the year is on it, making for
> > sweetness. And the very brevity of summer is in it too, making
> > for loveliness. Woolley, so the statisticians tell us, often
> > plays a long innings. But Time's a cheat, as the old song
> > sings. Fleeter he seems in his stay than in his flight. The
> > brevity in Woolley's batting is a thing of pulse or spirit,
> > not to be checked by clocks, but only to be apprehended by
> > imagination. He is always about to lose his wicket; his
> > runs are thin-spun. His bat is charmed, and most of us, being
> > reasonable, do not believe in charms. There is a miracle
> > happening on every cricket field when Woolley stays in two or
> > three hours; an innings by him is almost too unsubstantial for
> > this world. His cricket has no bastions; it is poised
> > precariously---at any rate, that is how the rational mind
> > perceives it. But, for that matter, all the loveliness of the
> > world seems no more lasting than the dew on the grass, seems
> > no more than the perfume and suppliance of a minute. Yet the
> > miracle of renewal goes on, and all the east winds in the
> > world may blow in vain. So with Woolley's cricket; the lease
> > of it is in the hands of the special Providence which looks
> > after things that do not look after themselves.
> > His batsmanship, like all fine art, can be enjoyed by
> > everybody, because it is fresh and natural, and, at bottom,
> > as simple as it is modest. Other cricketers need
> > sophistication to praise them. Their point of view must be
> > understood. The state of the game, or the wicket, has to be
> > looked into. `I simply must play so-and-so,'`Why, look at
> > the bowling!---you simply cannot play a long-lengthed hit
> > against that kind of spin.'`The pitch is getting drier; the
> > ball's turning.' We have to attend to these esoteric points
> > before we can get to the quality of the latest innings by
> > Bloggs of Blankshire---one hundred and six in four hours and
> > a quarter, without a chance, without a risk. No child,
> > knowing nothing of cricket but bat and ball, could understand the
> > game as Bloggs plays it. But innocence itself will open eyes of
> > understanding when they look upon an innings by Woolley. Here,
> > indeed, is true, unspoiled cricket; bat and ball, indeed, and
> > little else, save the touch of an artist---a cricketer who is as
> > much a weaverof beauty's spells as any Kreisler who ever lived.
> > The score-board does not get anywhere near the secret of
> > Woolley. It can tell us only about Bloggs; for him runs and
> > results are the one justification. To add up the runs made by
> > Woolley---why, it is as though you were to add up the crochets
> > and quavers written by Mozart. An innings by Woolley begins from
> > the raw material of cricket, and goes far beyond. We remember it
> > flong after we have forgotten the competitive occasion which
> > prompted the making of it; it remains in the mind; an evocative
> > memory which stirs in us a sense of a bygone day's poise and
> > fragrance, of a mood and a delectable shape seen quickly, but for
> > good and all. Some of Woolley's innings stay with us until they
> > become like poetry which can be told over again and again; we see
> > the shapeliness of his cricket with our minds and we feel its
> > beauty with our hearts. I can think of cricket by Woolley which
> > has inexplicably found me murmuring to myself (that I might get
> > the best out of it)
> > Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
> > Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
> > I admit, O reader, that an innings by Woolley has nothing to
> > do with owls and dusk and starlight. I am trying to describe an
> > experience of the fancy; I am talking of cadences, of dying falls
> > common to all the beauty of the world. My argument, in a word, is
> > concerned not with Wolley the Kent cricketer, but that essence of
> > his batsmanship which will live on, after his cricket is done
> > with, after his runs and averages have been totted up and found
> > to be much the same as those of many other players. He has made
> > music for cricket in all places---muted music, for never is
> > Woolley's cricket assertive, strident. He is the soul of
> > courtesy, of porportion, as he drives his boundaries. He will hit
> > a bowler for four fours in an over and not give him reason to
> > feel bruised or affronted. It is all done so quietly, so
> > modestly. The game's hard combativenss is put out of sight, out
> > of all one's senses, when Woolley bats. Even the bowlers may
> > well be deceived, and think that they are not Woolley's
> > adversaries at all, but, at his own sweet pleasure, his
> > fellows-in-bliss, glad followers of him along an enchanted way.
> No one comes close to Wooley's record as an allrounder., viz:
>
> Years Team
> 1906–1938 Kent
> Career statistics
> Competition Test First-class
> Matches 64 978[a]
> Runs scored 3,283 58,959
> Batting average 36.07 40.77
> 100s/50s 5/23 145/295
> Top score 154 305*
> Balls bowled 6,495 94,949[b]
> Wickets 83 2,066
> Bowling average 33.91 19.87
> 5 wickets in innings 4 132
> 10 wickets in match 1 28
> Best bowling 7/76 8/22
> Catches/stumpings 64/ 1,0 18
> Source: CricInfo, 28 December 2021
>
Aggregate records just mean that he's played a hell of a lot of matches
He was a great first class cricketer but only a moderate performer at test level