There is no need to carry the instructing of a team to an American Football excess, but a hint from the land of exaggerations may be of use. The Captain frequently consults every possible authority. Before an important match—let us say between Harvard and Yale—old boys will come down and talk over the team and the tactics and arrange special “plays.” Every Captain should have a Committee which he may consult when he is in doubt.
While he is choosing his team he should look among the juniors, as Mr. Lyttelton advises. If he is a School-captain, he may notice two or three boys keen on fielding and on practice generally (and, by the way, he himself should set a good example here); perhaps these boys are trying the stump-practice suggested in a previous chapter. Well, let him decide to turn these boys into batsmen and bowlers as well, by urging them to whatever helps he thinks good—perhaps to the practice with a bat along a line chalked on the floor and to other exercises suggested here. Anyhow he must always be looking out not only for promising young players, but also for keen young fielders. The desire for batting or bowling may be taken for granted. It is the fielders that are wanted. But of course the batting and bowling must be duly considered. There should be at least one left-handed bowler. And there should assuredly be an extra wicket-keep. Since the weather is so prominent a factor in the game, and as some players are almost hopeless on a difficult wicket, it might be suggested that the eleven for the most important matches should have a wider margin for choice than is usual, though the possible names must, for the sake of convenience, be decided on at least by the previous day. So much for the choice of the team; and now for its practice.
As the team need not be decided on finally, till as late as possible, so neither need be the positions of its members in the field, nor the order of going in. The positions and the order should be occasionally changed.
The captain should insist on punctuality, on neatness of clothing, perhaps even—if he dare—on clean hands as well as a pure heart, and certainly on keenness. At school he should try to get the most distinguished old boys to say a few words to the eleven.
He should also insist on all-roundness; he should insist that every member occasionally keep wicket, and (as we have said above) occasionally field in a place not his own, and occasionally bowl, and occasionally bat under difficulties—as with a broom-stick at stump-cricket or “snob.” Nothing more quickly reveals the crooked bat. The captain himself should practise all these things, and especially fielding: otherwise what right has he to curse? If he sees the interest flagging, he should arrange more exciting matches. And he might do worse than devise some system of handicaps.
When the members of a visiting eleven have arrived, the captain’s first thought must be for them: he must put himself in their place. He may delegate his duties to the second or third man in his team, so that he may attend to the details of the ground and the play.
Before and during a home or “foreign” match he must set an example of careful training and pure living, making it clear that excess is not manliness. He must not be a prig: he need not say, “Don’t do that”; he can say, “I shouldn’t do that if I were you.” He is not a schoolmaster, and, even if he were, he might do worse than use that turn of phrase.
If he wins the toss, he should probably put his own side in. Many hold this to be a rule without exception. Anyhow, he should inspect the ground and notice any peculiarities of light, etc.
During the play he must be watchful of all sorts of things, and in the field he should therefore be as near to the wicket as possible. Point is a good place; wicket-keeping is still better, for then he can judge of the bowling and give hints to the bowlers. If he himself be a bowler he should have a candid friend who isn’t one; this candid friend must be consulted.
Other hints are given in abundance by the many well-known writers on the game; to whose books we can safely refer the reader for such hints as that the fast bowler should be put on against the tail of the enemy; that the erratic bowler may be put on to break up a well-set pair.