Bill O'Reilly (1905–1992) was an Australian cricketer, rated as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. Following his retirement from playing, he became a well-respected cricket writer and broadcaster. O'Reilly was a spin bowler, who delivered the ball from a two-fingered grip at close to medium pace with great accuracy, and could produce leg breaks, googlies, and top spinners, with no discernible change in his action. When O'Reilly died, Sir Donald Bradman said that he was the greatest bowler he had ever faced or watched. O'Reilly's citation as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1935 said of his batting: "He had no pretensions to grace of style or any particular merit, but he could hit tremendously hard and was always a menace to tired bowlers." O'Reilly was also known for his competitiveness: he bowled with the aggression of a paceman. In a biographical essay on O'Reilly, his contemporary, the England cricketer Ian Peebles, wrote "any scoring-stroke was greeted by a testy demand for the immediate return of the ball rather than a congratulatory word. Full well did he deserve his sobriquet of 'Tiger'." (more...)
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