described as “buzzing around”) rather than the stiff-legged methodical slow kind. Boxing is fine for the “eye”—that is, for the co-operation of eye, foot, body, arm, etc. Diving is good for the wind; swimming for this and other purposes.
CHAPTER IV.
NOTES ON WICKET-KEEPING, CAPTAINING, IMPLEMENTS.
These subjects have been so thoughtfully dealt with in most of the well-known books on Cricket, that it will be unnecessary here to do more than sum up what seem to be the most useful points, and to add a few hints.
NOTES ON WICKET-KEEPING.
“The prevailing neglect of wicket-keeping is a gross folly. First as regards those who are to be regular wicket-keepers, why do they never practise? Their art is every whit as difficult as batting, and it is astonishing how its supreme importance to the efficiency of an eleven is overlooked. There is probably no hope of getting a really good man out on a good wicket, which can be compared to the chance of his sending a catch to the wicket-keeper before his eye is in. Sometimes these chances are missed, and no one notices anything.... Every member of any team would gain if he were taught how to keep wicket in early youth. In the first place it certainly helps the eye in batting. The problem of judging pace, pitch, and break is exactly the same in both cases. Next, it teaches sureness of hand in fielding. A field who has learnt wicket-keeping must find any catch, especially if it does not involve running, mere child’s play compared with a chance behind the sticks. It is impossible that any such continuous exercise of hand and eye of the most subtle description could be anything but valuable to the general quickness and sureness both of fielding and batting. Lastly, even if all the eleven do not learn to keep wicket, there ought always to be one or more ready to take the place of the regular man, in case of injury or absence.”—Edward Lyttelton.
In the plea for all-roundness we have already urged that every player should be able to keep wicket a little, or at any rate should practise with the ball and stump (see above). Wicket-keeping is useful not only for its own sake and for the sake of the place which it may bring in the team, but also as excellent discipline for short slip. The bowler himself must be able to take the ball when it is thrown in by the fielders—and it is generally thrown in remarkably badly—and to knock off the bails neatly and surely. The captain, when he is not a bowler, sees more of the game—the strength or weakness of the bowling and so on—if he is at the wicket than if he is at point or elsewhere. As to fielding at mid-off, mid-on, and out in the country, even for these places wicket-keeping encourages quick bending and reaching, and general alertness of mind and unflagging attention—merits which should be but seldom are insisted on in what we may call the ordinary positions. The wicket-keeper must, in sheer self-defence, be quick not merely to move but also to anticipate; he must be accurate to time the ball and to use his wrist and fingers; he must adapt himself readily, as when a ball is badly sent in by cover; he must observe the bowler and—half unconsciously—the batsman; he must remember how this or that ball will break, and so on; he must indeed know the whole game—all this, let us repeat, if only in self-defence and to save trouble. In contrast to him, the deep-fielder may go to sleep, or “stug” himself on his heels with legs stiff and “thinking other things,” without appreciable interest in each and every ball. The wicket-keeper dares not sleep: it would be as much as his face or fingers are worth.
The habit of watching each ball carefully, of being ever ready beforehand, is a habit that every batsman, every fielder and, we may add, every watcher requires. A personal interest is attached habitually to absolutely the whole performance and to each of the performers. The wicket-keeper, whether he be captain or not, takes a more than fatherly interest in every part of the play, for the sake of himself if not of his team.
Besides this, the almost compulsory pluck, since many balls, like nettles, hurt less if taken boldly, the balance-shifting, the stooping and stretching now here, now there, are certainly good for all play as well as for other games, for physical development, and for health (especially as a preventive for constipation). Anyone who studies the various positions (in photographs or in actual play) of Mr. McGregor, of Storer, of any expert, will realise the truth of this at once.
Nor is it possible, I think, even for a spectator to watch the game satisfactorily unless he has sometimes stood himself behind the sticks and seen the play from that point of view. The following hints may be of use to those who wish to try wicket-keeping.