Fred Root: Innovator and Radical

The Worcestershire champion Fred Root was born April 16, 1890. He was one of the earliest to gauge the ill-treatment (especially financial) dished out to the professional cricketer. A supreme strategist, Root was also one of the earliest exponents of leg-theory bowling. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at the career of a man whose honest efforts on the field and radical thoughts off it made him one of the most intriguing characters of between-wars cricket.

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Murray Bisset: Youngest Test captain for half a century, lawyer to boot

Murray Bisset, born April 14, 1876, led South Africa at 22, fought the Boer War, led the first post-War South African team to England, had an outstanding legal career that culminated as the Chief Justice of Southern Rhodesia, acted as interim Governor of Southern Rhodesia twice, and was knighted. Abhishek Mukherjee looks back at a man who donned many a hat, cricket being just one of them.

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Geoff Chubb: The late-blooming speedster

The genial Geoff Chubb was born April 12, 1911. Making his debut over an age of forty, Chubb had a small yet distinguished Test career. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at the fast bowler with the unlikeliest of appearances.

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The Battery of Googly Bowlers of South Africa: Part 4

During the first decade of the 1900s, Bert Vogler, Aubrey Faulkner, Reggie Schwarz and, to a lesser extent, Gordon White, stunned the world by forming a lethal battery of googly bowlers. Their deeds were instrumental in making the world sit up and take notice of South Africa as a third dimension of world cricket. In this four-part series, Pradip Dhole tells us about the googly quartet who came to the fore even as the wrong ’un was still in the formative stages as a bowling weapon.

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Arthur Wellard: Five sixes in an over ... twice

Arthur Wellard, born April 8, 1902, was a useful bowling all-rounder, whose big hitting ability has made him a legend in cricketing chronicles. He scored 12,485 runs in First-Class cricket at a rather modest average of 19.73. With the ball, he was distinctly more successful, 1,614 wickets at 24.35. What remains amazing is that the sixes he hit numbered over 500. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the career of the man who scored more than a quarter of his runs with sixes.

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