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Variously known as "The Gnome", "The Fox" and "Scarlet" (after novelist Baroness Orczy's cunning and elusive Scarlet Pimpernel), Grimmett answered to "Grum" on his wonderfully productive tour of South Africa in 1935-36 when, toiling in tandem with fellow spinner Bill O'Reilly, he snared 44 wickets in the five-match series. He turned 44 years of age in that season.
Remembers Bill O'Rielly:
Bowling to a marked area in his backyard, with a fox terrier to fetch the ball (and who apparently could also count to six), he made himself as accurate as a machine, and he mastered the variations of spin bowling, never believing that he knew it all.
After the standard legbreak, topspinner and googly there came the flipper - which took several years to perfect, and which, when batsmen tried to discern by the snap of his fingers, he smokescreened by snapping the fingers of his left hand as he released a legbreak - and beyond that, well on in years, further experimentation: truly the Barnes Wallis of the cricket world."
If he was bowling at an imaginary clock the right arm's optimum height would be at approximately half past one. This low, "away from the body" action also ensured that the green baggy cap hiding his premature baldness (and providing a restful eye shade) would not be dislodged during delivery !
Although unerring accuracy of length and direction was the foundation of Grimmett's craft - and craftiness - his stock leg break was supported by the conventional wrong 'un, top spinner and his pioneering version of the flipper, each of the variants being well disguised.
(To be continued)
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