The Oxonians, knowing the ground or knowing their bowlers, scored above 200 runs in their first innings. Then Cowley grew wiser; and even now a Cowley man will tell the tale, how they put on one Tailor Humphreys to bowl twisting underhand sneaks, at which the Oxonians laughed, and called it “no cricket;” but it actually levelled their wickets for fewer runs than were made against Bayley and Cobbett the following week. The Oxonians, too eager to score, and thinking it so easy, hit across and did not play their usual game.
Never laugh at bowling that takes wickets. Bowling that is bad, often for that very reason meets with batting that is worse. Nothing shows a thorough player more than playing with caution even badly pitched underhand bowling.
One of the best judges of the game I ever knew was once offered by a fine hitter a bet that he could not with his underhand bowling make him “give a chance” in half an hour.
“Then you know nothing of the game,” was the reply; “I would bowl you nothing but Off tosses, which you must cut; you would not cut those correctly for half an hour, for you could not use a straight bat once. Your bet ought to be,—no chance before so many runs.”
Peter Heward, an excellent wicket-keeper of Leicester,—of the same day as Henry Davis, one of the finest and most graceful hitters ever seen, as Dakin, or any midland player will attest,—once observed to me, “Players are apt to forget that a bad bowler may bowl one or two balls as well as the best; so, to make a good average, you must always play the same guarded and steady game, and take care especially when late in the season.” “Why late in the season?” “Because the ground is damp and heavy—it takes the spring out of good bowling, and gives fast underhand bowling as many twists as it has hops, besides making it hang on the ground. This game is hardly worth playing it is true; but a man is but half a player who is only prepared for true ground.” “We do not play cricket,” he continued, “on billiard tables; wind and weather, and the state of the turf make all the difference. So, if you play to win, play the game that will carry you through; and that is a straight and upright game; use your eyes well; play not at the pitch, nor by the length, but always (what few men do) at the ball itself, and never hit or ‘pull the ball’ across wicket.”
Next as to the half-volley. This is the most delightful of all balls to hit, because it takes the right part of the bat, with all the quickness of its rise or rebound. Any player will show you what a half-volley is, and I presume that every reader has some living lexicon to explain common terms. A half-volley, then, is very generally hit in the air, soaring far above every fieldsman’s head; and to know the power of the bat, every hitter should learn so to hit at pleasure. Though, as a rule, high hits make a low average. But I am now to speak only of hitting half-volleys along the ground.
Every time you play forcibly at the pitch of a ball you have more or less of the half-volley; so this is a material point in batting. The whole secret consists partly in timing your hit well, and partly in taking the ball at the right part of the rise, so as to play the ball down without wasting its force against the ground.
Every player thinks he can hit a half-volley along the ground; but if once you see it done by a really brilliant hitter, you will soon understand that such hitting admits of many degrees of perfection. In forward play, or driving, fine hitters seem as if they felt the ball on the bat, and sprung it away with an elastic impulse; and, in the more forcible hits, a ball from one of the All England batsmen appears not so much like a hit as a shot from the bat: for, when a ball is hit in the swiftest part of the bat’s whirl, and with that part of the bat that gives the greatest force with the least jar, the ball appears to offer no resistance; its momentum is annihilated by the whirl of the bat, and the two-and-twenty fieldsmen find to their surprise how little ground a fieldsman can cover against true and accurate hitting.
Clean hitting requires a loose arm, the bat held firmly, but not clutched in the hand till the moment of hitting; clumsy gloves are a sad hindrance, the hit is not half so crisp and smart. The bat must be brought forward not only by the free swing of the arm working well from the shoulder, but also by the wrist. (Refer to fig. 1. [p. 115].) Here is the bat ready thrown back, and wrists proportionally bent; from that position a hit is always assisted by wrist as well as arm. The effect of the wrist alone, slight as its power appears, is very material in hitting; this probably arises from the greater precision and better time in which a wrist hit is commonly made.
As to hard hitting, if two men have equal skill, the stronger man will send the ball farthest. Many slight men drive a ball nearly as far as larger men, because they exert their force in a more skilful manner. We have seen a man six feet three inches in height, and of power in proportion, hit a ball tossed to him—not once or twice, but repeatedly—a hundred yards or more in the air. This, perhaps, is more than any light man could do. But, the best man at putting the stone and throwing a weight we ever saw, was a man of little more than ten stone. In this exercise, as in wrestling, the application of a man’s whole weight at the proper moment is the chief point: so also in hard hitting.