As he took his position at the wicket he looked round him with a confident air to see how the field was placed. He saw Harold Simpson had so placed his men that not a chance would be thrown away, provided the bowlers were in good form. After a few moments’ delay Edgar handled his bat confidently, and prepared to receive the first ball of the over.
A lad named Winter was bowling, and Edgar knew he was a promising youngster. The first ball pitched short and then shot forward at a tremendous pace. It was a ball that might have deceived any batsman, and Edgar had only just time to change his mind and block it. The escape was narrow, and the boys saw it, but they knew the ball was well played, and cheered.
‘Thought it had him,’ said Robert Foster to one of the Redbank masters.
‘It would have been a stroke of bad luck for us if he had gone out,’ was the reply.
Off the next ball Edgar scored a couple, and the fourth ball of the over he skied on to the pavilion.
‘That first ball put him on his mettle,’ thought his father.
Strange to say, in the next over Edgar’s partner was dismissed first ball in a similar manner to that in which the Fairfield batsman was out.
Will Brown was next in, and he and Edgar made things lively. They fairly collared the bowling, and gave the Fairfield team plenty of leather-hunting. Fours came freely, and Harold Simpson began to look rather downcast. However, when Will Brown was bowled with the score at eighty, the Fairfield captain brightened up again. He knew how often a collapse followed a long stand, and how ‘glorious’ was the uncertainty of cricket.
Will Brown’s partnership with Edgar had put the Redbank boys into an excellent humour, and they were prepared to cheer every hit. What they were not prepared for happened. This was the collapse of the next four batsmen. Three of them were bowled in one over, and the fourth had his bails sent flying when he had scored two. Eighty for two wickets, and eighty-two for six wickets altered the game completely.
It was now the turn of the Fairfield boys to give vent to their delight. The prospect of defeat had not been pleasant, but this sudden change mended the fortunes of their side, and they were wild with the sudden revulsion of feeling. They chaffed the Redbank lads unmercifully, until at one time there was danger of a fistic war.