Squire Osbaldeston's Fast Underarm — Wicketkeepers Stuff Their Shirts With Straw, 1810s

Cricket equipment in the 1810s was minimal. Pads and gloves had been experimented with at Lord's from about 1810 onwards but were not widely adopted; wicketkeepers stood up to the stumps without any specialised protection. Bowlers' speeds varied widely: Beauclerk was a slow underarm, Lambert was medium, Osbaldeston was the fastest of the leading amateurs.

Osbaldeston had been bowling fast underarm since his senior debut in 1808. By 1815-16, with his physical peak coinciding with the post-Waterloo cricket revival, he was at his most dangerous.

Underarm bowling at speed was perfectly capable of being dangerous. The classical Hambledon-era bowlers had been mostly slow or medium, relying on flight and accuracy; Osbaldeston, in keeping with his temperamental aggression, sent the ball down as fast as the underarm action allowed. Modern reconstructions of fast underarm action suggest a release speed equivalent to a present-day medium-pacer — perhaps 65-70 mph at the crease — but with the ball skidding rather than rising, which made it harder to play and harder to take cleanly. Wicketkeepers in 1815 had only their bare hands and a thin coat; pads and gloves were unknown. Several contemporary accounts — collected later by William Denison and others — reported that Osbaldeston's regular wicketkeepers, including in private matches at Lord's, would line their shirts with straw or rolled-up cloth before standing up to him. The image of grown amateur wicketkeepers stuffing themselves with straw before walking out to face the Squire's underarm became a piece of Regency cricket folklore. Osbaldeston himself was unrepentant; he had the same view of the wicketkeeper's job as he did of the fox-hunter's groom — to take what came. His 34 senior matches between 1808 and 1830 produced 43 wickets and an unknown but considerable number of bruises.

“Several stuffing their garments with straw when the Squire was unleashing another scorcher.”

Pads (1820s) and gloves (1830s) made wicketkeeping a more survivable occupation. Osbaldeston's underarm career ended in 1818 when he resigned from MCC and was barred. By the time he returned to occasional cricket in the 1820s the equipment had improved and the straw-stuffing routine was no longer needed.