John Snow (cricketer) - Style

Style

From beyond the boundary, it is difficult to gauge Snow's pace as Lindsay Hassett conceded. he appears to bowl his bumper appreciably faster than most of his fuller-length deliveries, but I do not believe even his faster bumper knocks at the door of the pace of bowlers I have named. His top pace, I consider, lies somewhere between that of Statham and Trueman...Snow's loping, almost lazy run, of course, is sinisterly deceptive. It is in that last stride, or last two strides, when that long, straight powerful arm gathers its impetus and either whips or coasts through, that the potential is born.

Richard Whitington

Snow started his First Class Cricket and Test Match career as a fast-medium seam bowler, but when he was not chosen for the 1965-66 Ashes tour of Australia he played club cricket in South Africa and re-modelled his bowling action. He had bowled slightly chest-on, which restricted his pace and ability to move the ball. His work resulted in a more classical sideways-on action. This new style pleased the purists who referred to his "graceful, yet deadly, action", and "beautifully easy and controlled bowling method, slanting the ball into the batsman but also cutting it sharply off the pitch". However, Snow usually bowled only fast-medium in run-of-the-mill county and tour games and saved his fast bowling for Test Matches and when the mood took him on the pacey wickets at Hove. The best example is the Australian Tour of 1970-71 when he took 31 wickets (22.83) in the six tests, but only 7 wickets (71.57) in the six other first-class matches on the tour. Even in Tests "he varied his pace cleverly, rarely bowling flat-out for a whole over, but unleashing the odd very quick delivery. Just like Charlie Griffith in the West Indies side of the 1960s, Snow had the ability to drop the ball slightly short and get it to lift painfully into the batsmen's body". As a result he struck several batsmen on the head, Greg Chappell at Hove in 1968 when he was playing for Gloucestershire and the tailenders Garth McKenzie and Terry Jenner in the Sydney Tests of 1970-71. Ian Chappell said that he always found something new in his bowling repertoire whenever he began a new series against him. Unlike Trueman and Statham, Snow had no regular new-ball partner, teaming up with David Brown, Jeff Jones, Alan Ward, Chris Old, Ken Shuttleworth, Peter Lever, Bob Willis, Geoff Arnold and others. Though his career overlapped that of Willis in 1971-76, injuries and selection problems prevented them from forming the impressive duo that they might have been. In 1967 he jarred his back while bowling against India at Edgbaston and X-rays found that he had a sacroiliac joint abnormality which had become inflamed and that the only cure was traction and complete rest. As a result Snow became very insistent that he not be overbowled and was fequently accused of "not trying" when he was too ill to field properly. Once Ted Dexter made him bowl throughout a session for Sussex and he took a week to recover. When not bowling Snow often lounged around the outfield - ignoring the game if he felt it wasn't going anywhere - but had a fine throwing arm when he wanted to use it.