Cricket

by A. G. Steel; R. H. Lyttelton

1. Nervous and excitable men.

2. Dull apathetic men.

3. Bowling captains, with an aversion to seeing anybody bowl but themselves.

1. The nervous and excitable class is perhaps the worst of all, and sides which have the misfortune to be led by one of this division are indeed heavily handicapped. The chief peculiarity of a captain of this sort is that he seems never to be able to keep still for a moment in the field. He is continually rushing about, altering the field every over without any reason, shouting excitedly at the top of his voice whenever a fielder has to stop or throw up the ball, and generally creating a feeling of uneasiness and excitement among players and spectators. He is at one moment tearing his hair distractedly because some unfortunate fielder has let a ball through his legs, and the next shouting and dancing with excitement and joy when some exceptionally good catch or bit of fielding has got rid of a dangerous batsman.

2. A member of the second class may be easily recognised. He walks slowly to his place at the end of each over with his eyes fixed on the ground, as if in deep thought. In reality he is thinking of nothing, or, at any rate, nothing connected with the game. He has put his two best bowlers on, and so long as a wicket falls every thirty or forty runs, what does it matter whether or not time is being wasted by a series of profitless short-pitched maiden overs? It is the bowler’s duty, not his, to get the batsmen out, and if the latter put on forty runs without a wicket falling, why it will be time enough then to try someone else, and perhaps later on he himself might have a turn with lobs if things get into a very bad state. It does not take long, with a captain like this, for a side to get thoroughly demoralised and slack.

3. The bowling captains suffer from the very opposite of the feebleness which affects the last class; over-keenness is their bane. They are generally moderate bowlers, who at times enjoy a fair amount of success, and who are often very valuable to their side as changes. But the power of bowling wherever and for as long as they please is too much for them. Over after over hit to all parts of the field, without the slightest suspicion of a chance of a wicket, only convinces the self-confident captain that something must happen sooner or later—and something generally does after the match has been bowled away. The fascination that bowling has for captains and the danger it often leads to is a good reason for pausing before selecting as captain anyone who has any pretensions in this branch of the game. It is sometimes, however, impossible for a side to recognise anyone as captain except a bowler. He may be the oldest and most experienced member of the team, or perhaps from his position as a cricketer it may be out of the question to pass him over, and then, of course, the best of a bad job must be made. But a captain who is also a bowler has much heavier responsibilities in the field than one who is not. Even if he happens not to be over-anxious about trundling all day himself, he is apt from shyness and diffidence of his own merits not to put himself on at all—another extreme into which some captains before now have fallen.

The duties of a captain are of two kinds: those out of the field and those in it, and it is proposed to discuss them in the order named. The first duty of a captain is the choice of his team; but as it so frequently happens, nowadays, that the team is chosen for him by the committee of his county or his club, this topic may be passed over till we discuss the duties of the captains at the Universities and Public Schools.

When the team is chosen, the captain’s first duty is to win the toss; and assuming that by the aid of his lucky sixpence he has succeeded in so doing, he should at once decide whether he or his opponent is to begin the batting. It is a very old saying that the side that wins the toss should go in, and it is a very true one. No captain who wins the toss and puts the other side in deserves to win the match, unless there are some very exceptional circumstances to be taken into his consideration. There is, perhaps, only one reason to justify a captain putting the other side in first. If the ground, previously hard, has been softened by a night’s rain, and if at the time of beginning it is drying under a hot baking sun, and if the captain is tolerably sure that it is going to be a fine day, then he will do well to put the other side in. There must be present these three conditions of ground and weather before he is justified in refusing to bat. The ground will then for the first hour and a half or two hours make a bowling wicket; the top soft in the early morning, and gradually getting caked under the hot sun, will in the afternoon, if the weather keeps fine and it has been hard before the rain, assume its former hardness and become easy for batting for the last few hours of the day’s play. If the ground has been soft before the rain and has been made still softer by the rain, it is madness to put the other side in. The first two or three hours will then be easy for batting, as a very slow soft wicket is always against the bowlers, and it will not be till after several hours of hot sun have been on it that it will begin to get caked and difficult for the batsman. Suppose the weather looks uncertain and broken, and the glass has been gradually going down, a captain should never in any state of the ground risk putting his opponents in. Rain is always in favour of the in side; bowlers cannot stand and cannot hold the ball, which, wet and slippery, cannot be made to take any twist or screw that the bowler may try to give it.

Sometimes in a one-day match it may be advisable to put the other side in under circumstances different from the above, circumstances which are for the captain alone to judge of, and which it is impossible to discuss. Suppose a very strong side is playing against a very much weaker one. It may be that the captain of the former is afraid that if his side once goes to the wickets, so many runs will be made as to preclude all probability of finishing the match; and he may be content after conference with the members of his team to take the undoubted risk of putting the other side in; it is, however, a very dangerous thing to do at any time, and his finesse may very possibly end disastrously to his side in the imperfect light of the evening.