1930 was a significant factor in what Kilburn called Yorkshire's "year of changeover". Rhodes retired at the end of the season with his replacement Verity already in situ. Arthur Wood, with whom Bowes was to work so well, established himself as the successor to Arthur Dolphin as Yorkshire's keeper. Yorkshire's batting was already strong, based on the triumvirate of Sutcliffe, Holmes and Leyland. It has always been said that bowlers win both matches and championships; in the partnership of Bowes and Verity, Yorkshire were onto a winning combination. For his part, Verity with his slow-medium left-arm bowling was virtually unplayable on sticky wickets, while Bowes enhanced his natural armoury of pace, lift and in-swing by learning how to bowl out-swing too. As Kilburn put it, 1930 was a season that "gave sight of the great team to come as the embers of a great team past were being raked out". Learning to bowl the outswinger (later described by Trueman as "the ball that gets the great batsmen out") transformed the promising Bowes into the finished product and made him the most effective new-ball bowler of his time. Derek Hodgson in the official Yorkshire history wrote that Bowes had relied on his pace, bounce and a big in-swing, but he learned diligently, listening to his peers and especially to the then Yorkshire scorer Billy Ringrose, who had been a renowned out-swinger of his day. Bowes himself recalled in his autobiography that "the penny finally dropped" when he read in a coaching booklet written by Herbert Sutcliffe, who was not a bowler, that placement of the feet in the delivery stride was key to bowling the outswinger. Bowes experimented and was successful. As Hodgson put it, "once he had included the away (sic) swinger in his armoury, Bowes moved from county to Test-class fast bowler". Kilburn wrote that with his ability "to bowl and control the outswinger, he became more than a fast bowler". His pace was already lively enough and his exceptional height (he was 6 foot 4 inches tall) "enabled him to pitch a length that could draw an unwilling forward stroke yet lift the ball sharply to shoulder of the bat or onto fingers". With two-way swing as well as lift and a judicious use of the bouncer, Bowes simply had "too many weapons for most batsmen playing at county level" and was a considerable handful for Test-class batsmen