In playing lobs you may stand in your ground and play back, occasionally scoring a single, but in dealing with lobs offensive tactics are the best, for, as a great general once said, “The best method of defence is to attack.” Lobs should therefore be either hit on the full pitch or played back, and the batsman should stand a little easier on his right leg than if he were playing fast or medium bowling, so as to be ready to jump out and take the ball on the full pitch the moment he sees that it is slightly overpitched. By far the best lob bowler of the present day is D. L. A. Jephson, the Surrey captain, for he varies the flight and pace of the ball extremely cleverly, often, indeed, sending in quite a fast good length ball. He can, too, make the ball break both ways, and many people think that he might with advantage to Surrey bowl more than he does.
Batting on a hard, true wicket and on a sticky, difficult one are two entirely different things, and one often sees a man who is a fine player on a fast wicket absolutely at sea when rain has ruined the pitch. A left-handed bowler like Rhodes is then in his element, for he pitches the ball a good length on the leg stump; it comes across quickly to the off, and you stand a very good chance of being either bowled, or caught by David Hunter at the wicket, or snapped up by eager and lengthy John Tunnicliffe at short slip. Haigh, also of Yorkshire, is an extremely difficult bowler on this kind of wicket, for the amount of off break he can get on the ball is prodigious; while Trumble, the Australian, is probably as hard a bowler to play under these circumstances as ever lived.
As a rule the hitting or “long-handle game,” as it has been called, pays best under these circumstances, but some men who are really strong in their back and on side play can play their ordinary game. A strong defensive back player can often get a good length ball which breaks back away on the on side for two or three runs, while a good puller has a great advantage on this kind of wicket. The man who does not watch the ball, and watch it well, will have little or no chance on a sticky wicket. At one time there were very few men who could play at all successfully on a really difficult wicket, but of late years, what with the general improvement in back play—due chiefly to Ranjitsinhji’s influence on the game—the number, though far from being large, has increased. Victor Trumper, F. S. Jackson, Ranjitsinhji, C. B. Fry, A. C. Maclaren, T. L. Taylor, and Tyldesley are the best batsmen we have under conditions favourable to the bowler, and I shall never forget an extraordinary innings Ranjitsinhji played at Brighton in July 1900 for Middlesex v. Sussex. When stumps were drawn on the second evening of the match, Ranjitsinhji was not out 37, the game up to that time having been played on a perfect wicket. Rain, however, fell heavily in the night, and with the sun coming out next morning, the wicket was altogether in favour of the bowler. Vine made 17, but no one else on the side that day got more than 5, excepting Ranjitsinhji, who was last man out, l.b.w. to Trott, for 202! He gave one chance in the long field when he had made about 160 runs, but apart from this, his batting was absolutely without a flaw. Most of his runs came from hard drives, chiefly to the on, and strokes on the leg side. It was an astonishing innings, and its full significance was possibly not appreciated until Tate, on an exactly similar wicket, dismissed a powerful Middlesex eleven for just over 100 runs.
WAR-WORN WEAPONS.
RELICS OF PAST ENGAGEMENTS.
A few words now on running. Never attempt a run if you feel any doubt as to its safety, for it is better to lose a possible single than to run out your partner. At the same time, I do not think that cricketers as a rule run as well as they ought to between the wickets. The Australians are an exception; they are extraordinarily quick.