Arthur Mold

Mold was born on 27 May 1863 in the village of Middleton Cheney in Northamptonshire.[1] His family had links with the thatching trade, but Mold pursued a career in professional cricket.[2] He began to play for the village team, making good progress as a bowler; in 1882, Middleton Cheney were unbeaten and Mold had the best bowling average in the team.[2] In 1885 and 1886, he was employed as a professional at Banbury Cricket Club. In his second year, a successful match against the Free Foresters, an amateur team, impressed two Lancashire cricketers who played against him. Subsequently, in 1887, Mold was employed by Manchester Cricket Club,[2] and played a few non-competitive cricket matches for Lancashire. In the same season, Northamptonshire, which at the time had not been awarded first-class status, asked Mold to play for them.[3][4] Playing as a professional,[5] Mold was immediately successful, taking ten wickets in a match against a team from Surrey and seven wickets for 22 runs (seven for 22) in an innings against Staffordshire.[3][6] He continued to represent Northamptonshire in the following season but hoped to play for Lancashire.[3] At the time, cricketers who wished to play competitive first-class matches for a county in which they were not born had to live there for two years to qualify.[7]

By 1889, Mold was qualified for Lancashire and was expected by critics to make an impact.[8] At the time, Lancashire had no fast bowler in their team, making Mold potentially an important player.[9] He made his first-class debut for the county in a three-day match against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) starting on 9 May 1889, taking one wicket in a drawn game.[6] Throughout the rest of the season, Mold impressed critics.[3] After a slow start in unhelpful conditions and unsuitable playing surfaces for his type of bowling, he took a total of 33 wickets in four consecutive games and established a reputation as the fastest bowler in England.[9] His best performance statistically was seven for 35 against Yorkshire County Cricket Club, in a match during which he took 13 wickets,[6] but he was successful in other high-profile matches.[10] In all games against county opposition, Mold took 80 wickets at an average of 11.69;[3] in all first-class matches he took 102 wickets at an average of 11.81.[11] This placed him third in the national bowling averages.[3] Although less successful in 1890, he took 118 wickets in first-class games at 14.72,[11] which was 11th in the averages.[3] His best figures, nine for 41, once more came against Yorkshire,[6] and he helped Lancashire to second place in the first official County Championship.[12] Mold came close to playing for England when he was included in the squad to play in the third Test match against Australia, but the match was abandoned owing to rain and no play took place.[13][14]

Mold established himself as one of the leading bowlers in England during 1891. According to Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, "The season of 1891 brought him a great increase of reputation, and all through the summer he was uniformly successful."[3] In all first-class matches, he took 138 wickets at 12.49 to finish second in the national bowling averages.[11][15] As a result of his good performances in the season, he was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.[note 1][3] Lancashire finished as runners-up once again in the County Championship.[12]

In 1892, Mold's aggregate of wickets fell to 120 at an average of 13.63,[11] but he returned the best bowling figures of his career when he took nine for 29 against Kent. He was chosen in a representative match for the first time,[note 2] playing for the North against the South.[note 3][6] During the 1893 season, Mold took 166 wickets at 16.96;[11] at the end of the season, The Times described him as a great bowler and noted that he and Johnny Briggs were Lancashire's only two effective bowlers.[17] Between them, the pair took 225 wickets; the other bowlers in combination took 46.[18] Once more representing the North during 1893, this time in a match against the touring Australian team, Mold also made his debut in the prestigious Gentlemen v Players match, playing for the professional "Players" and taking nine wickets in the game.[6] His performances brought about his international debut; he played for England in all three Test matches against Australia, the only such appearances of his career. In the first game, he took three for 44 in Australia's only innings, his best figures of the series, and took four wickets in the other two matches to finish with seven wickets at an average of 33.42.[1][6] It is likely that doubts about the legality of his bowling action prevented him from playing further Test matches, or touring Australia with a representative side.[19][20] However, other factors may have played a part in his subsequent omission, including the emergence of Tom Richardson as a successful fast bowler, and the opinion that Mold's bowling was flattered by the difficult, uneven pitches on which Lancashire played their home games.[10]

Mold's annual total of wickets continued to increase in the following seasons. In 1894, he again represented the North and the Players, taking 207 wickets in total at an average of 12.30.[11] But as Lancashire increased the number of games they played, Mold and Briggs had an increased bowling workload and once more had little assistance from other bowlers. Between them, they took 324 wickets while the next most successful bowler took 13.[21] The following year, Mold reached his highest seasonal tally with 213 wickets at 15.96,[11] and made his final appearance for the Players.[6] The Times commented on the effectiveness of Mold: "Mold preserves all his pace and break in bowling, and his success on the hard wickets was phenomenal."[22]

Although Mold appeared for the North against the Australians, who toured again in 1896, he did not play any Tests or other representative cricket that year and his wicket total fell to 150 at 18.12;[6][11] after this season, his bowling began to decline in effectiveness.[19] Suffering frequently from injury in 1897, Mold failed to reach 100 wickets in the season for the first time.[11][23] His 90 wickets in 1898 were taken at an average over 20, the only time his bowling average was so high,[11] and he missed three weeks of the season owing to injury.[24] After improving his record to 115 wickets at 18.68 during 1899,[11] he was awarded a benefit match by Lancashire during 1900 which raised £2,050, a record total at the time and worth around £173,000 in 2010.[2][note 4][25]

Mold delivering the ball c. 1897

A fast bowler who operated from a very short run-up,[38] Mold bowled extremely quickly, releasing the ball with his arm very high in his early years, although later in his career, his arm was lower in delivery.[3][52] Unusually for a bowler of his pace, he could make the ball deviate from straight, either through seam movement or cutting his fingers over it before release,[3] but most of his wickets were taken through sheer speed.[10] His obituary in the Manchester Guardian stated that he was among the fastest bowlers of all time and his bowling action was "beautiful" and possessed "fine grace".[10] If the pitch was uneven or otherwise difficult for batting, he was extremely difficult to bat against:[3] in 1892, Wisden noted: "On anything like a rough or bumpy wicket [pitch] he is, beyond all question, the most difficult and dangerous bowler of the day, the ball getting up from the pitch so high and so fast as to intimidate all but the very pluckiest of batsmen."[3] The Times later noted that he was very successful for Lancashire and a difficult bowler to face.[54] In combination with Briggs, he bowled a very high proportion of Lancashire's overs. At times, he struggled with a knee injury but continued to bowl with little opportunity to rest.[10]

Opinion was divided over the legality of Mold's bowling action. After no-balling Mold for the second time, Phillips wrote that he had long suspected Mold of throwing. Even though he believed Mold was trying to bowl with a straight arm in the Somerset match, Phillips considered many more deliveries to be throws than merely those he called.[58] In his own defence, Mold queried why Phillips never acted on his prior suspicions, and suggested that the umpire did not make it clear which part of Mold's bowling action was unfair.[59] The Manchester Guardian, reporting on the Somerset match in 1901, noted that many umpires had apparently viewed Mold's action as fair earlier in the season, even after the instruction from the MCC to pay careful attention to him. It stated that "the general opinion was that if one ball was to be called a throw then every ball he sent down was of the same order."[48] However, some critics noted that when bowling an occasional faster ball, Mold's action changed slightly; this was the delivery to which Phillips objected.[48] His obituary in the Manchester Guardian stated that the lack of action by umpires other than Phillips in 1901, and throughout Mold's career, meant that the "charge against Mold, then, can hardly be said to have been 'proven'".[10]

Mold continued to have his supporters. MacLaren later wrote that he believed Mold never intentionally threw;[60] A. N. Hornby consistently defended Mold, partly because, as Mold's captain during the 1890s, it would have been a slur against his sportsmanship to admit that an unfair bowler had been in his team.[48][52] Most Lancashire supporters never doubted that Mold's action was fair.[61] Cricket historian Don Ambrose suggests that Mold probably did throw his faster delivery, which may have accounted for the high proportion of his wickets which were bowled. It also explained his ability to produce a delivery that surprised the batsman; W. G. Grace once observed that it was particularly painful to be struck by a delivery from Mold. The lack of action by Phillips' fellow umpires was possibly, according to Ambrose, due to their unwillingness to cause problems for a fellow professional cricketer. However, Ambrose also suggests that in the Somerset match, Phillips was determined to end Mold's career and that not every delivery that he called was actually a throw.[62]

Mold was popular with other cricketers. The Times said: "Apart from the burning question of throwing, not a word could be said against him. He was liked by all his brother professionals, and popular wherever he played."[54] However, his achievements were always qualified by suspicion over the legality of his bowling action, even before he was no-balled by Phillips. A batsman who played against him when he first appeared for Northamptonshire said: "If he is fair he is the best bowler in England, but I think he is a worse thrower than ever Crossland [the Lancashire bowler of the 1880s with a suspect bowling action] was."[19] Mold's Times obituary stated: "He was a deadly fast bowler, but, all through his career, even his best feats in the cricket field were spoken of with something of apology".[54]

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