A cricket mystery closer to resolution
Finding the origin of 'googlies'
Chasing down the origins of the word 'googlies' to describe the leg-spinning variant that goes the other way was an assignment when operating as New Zealand editor of Cricinfo around the turn of the 21st Century.
It was found that the former player, writer, and editor of The Cricketer magazine, Pelham (later Sir) Warner, attributed it to a newspaper in New Zealand. According to a Wikipedia page, Warner said it was the Lyttelton Times in Christchurch.
But a search through all the newspapers published in Canterbury at the time produced no such reference.
In The Cricketer Annual 1922-23, Warner discussed leg-spin bowling and the variation ball developed by Englishman B J T Bosanquet and said it was in Wellington that he saw the reference.
In Australia, the off-breaking leg-break is seldom, if ever, referred to as a googly. The Australians prefer to call it the 'Bosey' ball, in honour of its author. The first time I ever saw the word 'googly' in print was in a newspaper at Wellington, New Zealand, where I was at the time on tour with Lord Hawke's cricket team [1902-03], and in an account of the match, it was stated that 'Tucker jumped out to Bosanquet and broke up his googlies with a heavy bat.'[1]
Warner repeated his story in the same magazine in its Spring Annual in 1931 when assessing the qualities of the New Zealand team ahead of their tour of England of that year.
Those comments were picked up by a correspondent to Wellington's Evening Post, who said the cricket writer who used the word in 1903 was Jack Barr, who, by 1931, was living in Sydney.
It was also noted that the former Australian Test batsman Charles Bannerman was an umpire in the game and said to Warner,
When the next team goes to Australia, Mr Warner, be sure that Mr Bosanquet is in it. He bowls a lot of bad 'uns, but that off-breaking leg-break of his might win a Test match.[2]
However, if you are attempting to find the said comment in the Evening Post, courtesy of Papers Past, New Zealand's digital newspaper library, good luck. Searches of both the reports of the game against Wellington and the second international against New Zealand yielded no reference to the word 'googlies'.
It may be that among the constant edition changes that occurred in newspapers, the particular words were edited out or added in a later update. The edition with the use of googlies seen by Warner may be different from the one that was kept to be stored in the bound editions of the newspaper, which were later digitised.
However, the correspondent who wrote to identify the writer who used the word offers significant credence to Warner's claim.
As for Bannerman's prediction?
He was correct. After leaving New Zealand, Lord Hawke's side played some games in Australia and against New South Wales, bowling against Victor Trumper; Bosanquet, in his first balls to Trumper, threw up two regular leg-breaks and then a googly, which had the desired effect in bowling the Australian champion.
Bosanquet returned to Australia on the 1903-04 tour. While his form was still erratic, he shared in England's first Test win, and in the fourth Test, he made a significant contribution as Australia chased 329 to win. He took six for 51 as England won by 157 runs and claimed a 3-1 Ashes series lead.
In 1905, he helped England to win the first Test at home, taking 8-107 in the second innings as England won by 213 runs. He played in the second and third Tests without making significant contributions and they proved to be his last Tests. He could not overcome the erratic nature of his bowling, and after the 1905 series, his availability for the county grind lessened as he developed a career outside the game.
[1] Pelham Warner, The Cricketer Annual 2022-23, p8
[2] The Evening Post, 18 July 1931