As regards the placing of the field, it has already been said that usually the bowler is best able to guess where his own bowling is most likely to be hit; but there are many things which a captain should recollect, as the suggestions of a captain in whom his bowlers place confidence are always accepted readily. He should keep his eye on short-slip, as this place is, especially on a fast wicket, the most important of all. There are more good batsmen dismissed at short-slip and the wicket, on good wickets, than at any other places. It is an extraordinary fact connected with short-slip that, unless he has had a great deal of experience, he is continually shifting his position; one over he will be standing fine and deep and the next square and near to the wicket. It is the captain’s duty, even more than the bowler’s, to see that this does not happen.
On a true hard wicket we never like to see a captain putting his mid-on or short-leg close in to the batsman, to field what is called ‘silly’ mid-on; the risk of standing near in on a hard wicket to a batsman who can hit at all is not by any means slight, and we have on several occasions seen men placed in this position get very nasty blows. Boyle, the Australian mid-on, stood about as near in as any man ever did stand; on sticky grounds he made many catches, on fast grounds he missed many which if standing further back he would have caught. He not seldom received nasty injuries, and on one occasion was laid up for several weeks with a broken or injured bone in his hand. A quick active field at mid-on who will run in when he sees the batsman making a quiet forward stroke on the leg side, and when he observes a leg-side ball kick up higher than usual, is all that should be required. In a match at Melbourne, in 1882, we recollect a very amusing little incident in which mid-on played a prominent part. The Australians were batting, and Bates, the Yorkshireman, had just dismissed two of their best bats, McDonnell and Giffen, in two consecutive balls. Bonnor, who used to congratulate himself, and not without a certain amount of justification, that he could make mincemeat of our slow bowling, was the next man in. Somebody suggested that, in the faint hope of securing a ‘hat’ for Bates, we should try a silly mid-on. Bates faithfully promised to bowl a fast shortish ball between the legs and the wicket, and said he was quite certain Bonnor would play slowly forward to it. Acting on the faith of this, W. W. Read boldly volunteered to stand silly mid-on for one ball. In came the giant, loud were the shouts of welcome from the larrikins’ throats; now would the ball soar over the green trees even higher than yonder flock of twittering parrots. As Bates began to walk to the wickets to bowl, nearer and nearer crept our brave mid-on; a slow forward stroke to a fast shortish leg-stump ball landed the ball fairly in his hands not more than six feet from the bat. The crowd would not believe it, and Bonnor was simply thunderstruck at mid-on’s impertinence; but Bates had done the hat trick for all that, and what is more, he got a very smart silver tall hat for his pains.
Eton v. Harrow
Eton v. Harrow.
[The] duties of captains of the University teams and of the Public Schools are far more arduous than those of a captain of a county or a club eleven. At our large Public Schools the captain is responsible for the selection of the team; he may be assisted to a certain extent by a committee, but the actual filling up of the vacant places in his eleven generally devolves on him alone. An energetic and keen boy captain will usually manage before the close of the summer term to get together a team of fair merit; even if the stuff he has to work upon is inferior in quality, the great amount of time at his disposal for practice, and the assistance he receives from the school professionals and masters, ought always to ensure a keen captain having a tolerable eleven before the summer holidays begin. It may be taken as true that a bad fielding school eleven denotes a bad and slack captain. Whatever may be the batting and bowling material at his disposal, a boy captain can, if he likes, have a good fielding side; and if in his school matches at Lord’s, or elsewhere, he finds that he loses the match by slack fielding, he has none to blame but himself. None of our best county teams can field as boys can if they are properly taught and kept up to the mark. There are few men of thirty taking part in the game who can throw with any effect for more than about thirty or forty yards; their arms and shoulders are stiff, and will not stand it, whereas boys can all throw, and are about twice as active as many of those whose names at the present time figure prominently in our leading fixtures.
A school eleven, as indeed every other, only requires four regular bowlers. ‘If you cannot win with four bowlers, you’ll never win at all,’ is an old and true saying. But this wants a little explanation. The four best available bowlers must be played without regard to their batting powers, and after these four have been selected let the team be filled up with good batsmen and fielders, quite irrespective of whether they can bowl or not. It is an excellent thing for a side that every man should be able to bowl a bit if wanted, and every boy should be able to do so, but it is only necessary in choosing the team to play four men as bowlers only.