William Joseph O’Reilly, or more eminently, Bill O’Reilly, the legendary Australian leg-spinner,bowled with robust athleticism and immense enthusiasm. He used his broad shoulders, long legs, and big, bulky hands, which could hold two cricket balls, with nonchalant ease. O’Reilly bamboozled batsmen no end, as much as he used the written word, with insightful, sometimes caustic, or matter-of-fact intent, as a cricket writer, in his later years.
O’Reilly’s ‘pitching’ made him an unpredictable bowler for batsmen; but, predictable to O’Reilly himself. This uncanny ingredient gave him the wherewithal to surprise batsmen with an aura of invincibility, much like a machine gun pitted against a Tommy gun. For fifteen long years, O’Reilly had the best batsmen in the business — Wally Hammond, Herbert Sutcliffe et al— in a tangle with his quicksilver leg-spin and well-disguised googly.
O’Reilly (December 20, 1905-October 6, 1992) was always outspoken — this was typical of his Irish descent. Picture this. When he began his rudimentary lessons in cricket, O’Reilly did not even have a ghost of an idea as to what leg-spin was all about, until he received a written endorsement from his brother, who had watched the great Arthur Mailey bowl the wrong ’un with effortless simplicity. The wrong ’un to O’Reilly was what penicillin was to Sir Alexander Fleming. O’Reilly, who was just 19, started working on it with dutiful zeal. While the tennis ball in his hand became his research tool, and the wicket gate of his house, his subject for thesis, O’Reilly went on to develop his own formula and grip, which Mailey, perhaps, did not favour.
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