CRICKET

Transcriber’s Note

Full page figures have been moved near to the text they illustrate. Figures in the text have been moved to the start or end of the paragraph.

Footnotes have been moved to the end of chapters.

Variant spelling and inconsistent hyphenation are retained, in a few cases, missing punctuation has been added for consistency, e.g. to match quotation marks. A few palpable printing errors have been corrected.

Other changes that have been made are listed at [the end of the book.]

The Badminton Library
OF
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
EDITED BY
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G.
ASSISTED BY ALFRED E. T. WATSON

CRICKET

THE BADMINTON LIBRARY.

28 Volumes. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. each volume.

• ARCHERY. By C. J. Longman, Col. H. Walrond, &c. 195 Illustrations and 2 Maps.
• ATHLETICS. By Montague Shearman. 51 Illustrations.
• BIG GAME SHOOTING. By C. Phillipps-Wolley, &c.
  • Vol. I.—Africa and America. 77 Illustrations.
  • Vol. II.—Europe, Asia, and the Arctic Regions. 73 Illustrations.
• BILLIARDS. By Major W. Broadfoot, R.E. 29 Illustrations and numerous Diagrams.
• COURSING AND FALCONRY. By Harding Cox and the Hon. Gerald Lascelles. 76 Illustrations.
• CRICKET. By A. G. Steel and the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton. 65 Illustrations.
• CYCLING. By the Earl of Albemarle and G. Lacy Hillier. 59 Illustrations.
• DANCING. By Mrs. Lilly Grove, F.R.G.S., &c. 131 Illustrations.
• DRIVING. By the Duke of Beaufort. 65 Illustrations.
• FENCING, BOXING, AND WRESTLING. By Walter H. Pollock, F. C. Grove, C. Prevost, &c. 42 Illustrations.
• FISHING. By H. Cholmondeley-Pennell.
• • Vol. I.—Salmon, Trout, and Grayling. 158 Illustrations.
  • Vol. II.—Pike and other Coarse Fish. 132 Illustrations.
• GOLF. By Horace Hutchinson, the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P., &c. 89 Illustrations.
• HUNTING. By the Duke of Beaufort, K.G., and Mowbray Morris. 53 Illustrations.
• MOUNTAINEERING. By C. T. Dent, Sir W. M. Conway, &c. 108 Illustrations.
• POETRY (THE) OF SPORT. Edited by Hedley Peek. 106 Illustrations.
• RACING AND STEEPLECHASING. By the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, W. G. Craven, &c. 58 Illustrations.
• RIDING AND POLO. By Robert Weir, J. Moray Brown, &c. 59 Illustrations.
• ROWING. By R. P. P. Rowe and C. M. Pitman. With Chapters on Steering, Metropolitan Rowing, and on PUNTING. With 75 Illustrations.
• SEA-FISHING. By John Bickerdyke, W. Senior, Sir H. W. Gore Booth, Bart., and A. C. Harmsworth. 197 Illustrations.
• SHOOTING. By Lord Walsingham and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Bart.
• • Vol. I.—Field and Covert. 105 Illustrations.
  • Vol. II.—Moor and Marsh. 65 Illustrations.
• SKATING, CURLING, TOBOGGANING, &c. By J. M. Heathcote, C. G. Tebbutt, &c. 284 Illustrations.
• SWIMMING. By Archibald Sinclair and William Henry. 119 Illustrations.
• TENNIS, LAWN TENNIS, RACKETS, AND FIVES. By J. M. and C. G. Heathcote, &c. 79 Illustrations.
• YACHTING. By Lord Brassey, the Earl of Onslow, &c.
• • Vol. I.—Cruising, Construction, Racing Rules, &c. 114 Illustrations.
  • Vol. II.—Yachting in America and the Colonies, Racing, &c. 195 Illustrations.

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 39 Paternoster Row, London and Bombay.

Cricket

CAUGHT AND BOWLED

CRICKET
BY
A. G. STEEL
AND THE
HON. R. H. LYTTELTON
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
A. LANG, W. G. GRACE, R. A. H. MITCHELL, AND F. GALE

WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS AFTER LUCIEN DAVIS
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

Sixth Edition, thoroughly revised

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
AND BOMBAY

1898

All rights reserved

[BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.]

First Edition, June 1888; Reprinted August 1888, January 1889, September 1890. New Edition, thoroughly revised and with additions, December 1893. New Edition, thoroughly revised and with additions, July 1898.

DEDICATION
TO
H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES.

Badminton: June, 1888.

Having received permission to dedicate these volumes, the Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes, to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, I do so feeling that I am dedicating them to one of the best and keenest sportsmen of our time. I can say, from personal observation, that there is no man who can extricate himself from a bustling and pushing crowd of horsemen, when a fox breaks covert, more dexterously and quickly than His Royal Highness; and that when hounds run hard over a big country, no man can take a line of his own and live with them better. Also, when the wind has been blowing hard, often have I seen His Royal Highness knocking over driven grouse and partridges and high-rocketing pheasants in first-rate workmanlike style. He is held to be a good yachtsman, and as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron is looked up to by those who love that pleasant and exhilarating pastime. His encouragement of racing is well known, and his attendance at the University, Public School, and other important Matches testifies to his being, like most English gentlemen, fond of all manly sports. I consider it a great privilege to be allowed to dedicate these volumes to so eminent a sportsman as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and I do so with sincere feelings of respect and esteem and loyal devotion.

BEAUFORT.

[PREFACE.]

BADMINTON.

PREFACE.

A few lines only are necessary to explain the object with which these volumes are put forth. There is no modern encyclopædia to which the inexperienced man, who seeks guidance in the practice of the various British Sports and Pastimes, can turn for information. Some books there are on Hunting, some on Racing, some on Lawn Tennis, some on Fishing, and so on; but one Library, or succession of volumes, which treats of the Sports and Pastimes indulged in by Englishmen—and women—is wanting. The Badminton Library is offered to supply the want. Of the imperfections which must be found in the execution of such a design we are conscious. Experts often differ. But this we may say, that those who are seeking for knowledge on any of the subjects dealt with will find the results of many years’ experience written by men who are in every case adepts at the Sport or Pastime of which they write. It is to point the way to success to those who are ignorant of the sciences they aspire to master, and who have no friend to help or coach them, that these volumes are written.

To those who have worked hard to place simply and clearly before the reader that which he will find within, the best thanks of the Editor are due. That it has been no slight labour to supervise all that has been written he must acknowledge; but it has been a labour of love, and very much lightened by the courtesy of the Publisher, by the unflinching, indefatigable assistance of the Sub-Editor, and by the intelligent and able arrangement of each subject by the various writers, who are so thoroughly masters of the subjects of which they treat. The reward we all hope to reap is that our work may prove useful to this and future generations.

THE EDITOR.

[CONTENTS.]

CONTENTS.

[ILLUSTRATIONS.]

ILLUSTRATIONS.

(Engraved by J. D. Cooper and R. B. Lodge, after Drawings by Lucien Davis, and Photographs by G. Mitchell, Martin & Tyler, and Medrington & Co.)

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.

CHAPTER I. THE HISTORY OF CRICKET.

A YOUNG CRICKETER
(From a Picture ascribed to Gainsborough belonging to the M.C.C.)

CRICKET.

[CHAPTER I.]
THE HISTORY OF CRICKET.
(By Andrew Lang.)
Archæology of the Game.

Hundreds of pages have been written on the origin and early history of Cricket. The Egyptian monuments and Holy Scriptures, the illuminated books of the Middle Ages, and the terra-cottas and vases of Greece have been studied, to no practical purpose, by historians of the game. Outside of England,[1] and before the fortieth year of the reign of Elizabeth, there are no documents for the existence of cricket. Doubtless in rudimentary and embryonic forms, it may have existed. Of those forms we still possess a few, as ‘rounders’ and ‘stool-ball,’ and we can also study degraded shapes of cricket, which naturally revert to the early germs of the pastime as degenerate human types throw back to the monkey. There is a sport known at some schools as ‘stump-cricket,’ ‘snob-cricket,’ or (mysteriously and locally) as ‘Dex,’[2] which is a degenerate shape of the game, and which is probably very like the rudimentary shapes. These degradations are reversals or returns to primitive forms.

A ball, more or less light and soft, is bowled or tossed at any fixed object, which, in turn, is defended by a player armed with a stick, stump, hair-brush, or other instrument. The player counts as many points as he can run backwards and forwards, after hitting the ball, between the object he defends and some more or less distant goal, before the ball is returned. He loses his position when the object he defends is struck by the ball, or when the ball is caught, after he has hit it, before touching the ground. Such is the degraded form of cricket, and such, apparently, was its earliest shape. Ancient surviving forms in which a similar principle exists are ‘rounders’ and ‘stool-ball.’ The former has been developed in America into the scientific game of ‘base-ball,’ the name being Old English, while the scientific perfection is American. It is impossible to trace cricket farther back than games in which points are scored in proportion to the amount of ground that the hitter can cover before the return of the struck ball. Now other forms of ball-play, as tennis, in different guises, can be found even among the ancient Aztecs,[3] while the Red Indians practised the form which is hockey among us, and the French and Walloons have sports very closely corresponding to golf; but games with the slightest analogy to cricket are very rare. Stool-ball is the most important foreshadowing of cricket. As early as 1614, Chapman, in his translation of the sixth book of the ‘Odyssey,’ makes Nausicaa and her girls play stool-ball. Chapman gives certain technical terms, which, of course, have nothing corresponding to them in Homer, but which are valuable illustrations of the English game.

Nausicaa seems to have received a trial ball—

Nausicaa, with the wrists of ivory,

The liking-stroke struck.

Again,

The Queen now, for the upstroke, struck the ball

Quite wide of th’ other maids, and made it fall

Amidst the whirlpools.

thereby, doubtless, scoring a lost ball. He describes this as ‘a stool-ball chance.’ Chapman does not say whether the ball was bowled to Nausicaa. Everything shows that Dr. Johnson was writing at random when he described stool-ball as a game ‘in which a ball is driven from stool to stool.’ Chapman conceives Nausicaa as making a ‘boundary hit.’ There would be no need of such hitting if balls were only ‘driven from stool to stool.’

Strutt’s remarks on stool-ball merely show that he did not appreciate the importance of the game as an early form of cricket. ‘I have been informed,’ he says, ‘that a pastime called stool-ball is practised to this day in the northern parts of England, which consists simply in setting a stool upon the ground, and one of the players takes his place before it, while his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a ball with the intention of striking the stool, and this it is the business of the former to prevent by beating it away with his hand, reckoning one to the game for every stroke of the ball,’ apparently without running. ‘If, on the contrary, it should be missed by the hand and strike the stool, the players change places.’ Strutt adds, in a note, that he believes the player may be caught out. He describes another game in which stools are set as ‘bases’ in a kind of base-ball. He makes the usual quotations from Durfey about ‘a match for kisses at stool-ball to play.’[4]

Brand’s notes on stool-ball do no more than show that men and women played for small wagers, as in Herrick,

At stool-ball, Lucia, let us play

For sugar, cakes, and wine.[5]

It is plain enough that stool-ball was a game for girls, or for boys and girls, and Herrick and Lucia. As at present played stool-ball is a woman’s game; but no stool is used: what answers to the wicket is a square board at a certain height on a pole, much as if one bowled at the telegraph instead of the stumps. Consequently, as at base-ball, only full pitches can be tossed. However, in stool-ball we recognise the unconscious beginnings of better things. As much may be said for ‘cat-and-dog.’ This may be regarded either as a degraded attempt at early cricket, played by economists who could not afford a ball, or as a natural volks-kriket, dating from a period of culture in which balls had not yet been invented. The archæologist will prefer the latter explanation, but we would not pedantically insist on either alternative. In Jamieson’s ‘Scotch Dictionary,’[6] cat-and-dog is described as a game for three.[7] Two holes are cut at a distance of thirteen yards. At each hole stands a player with a club, called a ‘dog.’ A piece of wood,[8] four inches long by one in circumference, is tossed, in place of a ball, to one of the dogsmen. His object is to keep the cat out of the hole. ‘If the cat be struck, he who strikes it changes places with the person who holds the other club, and as often as the positions are changed one is counted as won in the game by the two who hold the clubs.’ Jamieson says this is an ‘ancient sport in Angus and Lauder.’ A man was bowled when the cat got into the hole he defended. We hear nothing of ‘caught and bowled.’[9]

Cat-and-dog, or, more briefly, cat, was a favourite game with John Bunyan. He was playing when a voice from heaven (as he imagined) suddenly darted into his soul, with some warning remarks, as he was ‘about to strike the cat from the hole.’ The cat, here, seems to have been quiescent. ‘Leaving my cat on the ground, I looked up to Heaven,’ and beheld a vision. Let it be remembered that Bunyan was playing on Sunday. The game of cat, as known to him, was, apparently, rather a rude variety of knurr and spell than of cricket. This form is mentioned by Strutt.[10] Both stool-ball and cat-and-dog have closer affinities with cricket than club-ball as represented in Strutt’s authorities.[11] Perhaps we may say that wherever stool-ball was played, or cat-and-dog, there cricket was potentially present. As to the derivation of the word ‘cricket,’ philologists differ as much as usual. Certainly ‘cricket’ is an old word for a stool, though in this sense it does not occur in Skeat.[12] In Todd’s ‘Johnson,’ we find, ‘Cricket: a low seat or stool, from German kriechen, to creep.’ In Scotland we talk of a ‘creepy-stool.’

It’s a wise wife that kens her weird,

What though ye mount the creepy!

says Allan Ramsay, meaning the stool of repentance. If, then, stool-ball be the origin of cricket, and if a cricket be a stool, ‘cricket’ may be merely a synonym for stool-ball. Todd’s ‘Johnson,’ with ignominious ignorance, styles cricket ‘a sport in which the contenders drive a ball with sticks or bats in opposition to each other.’ Johnson must have known better. In the ‘Rambler,’ No. 30, he writes, ‘Sometimes an unlucky boy will drive his cricket-ball full in my face.’ Observe, he says ‘drive,’ not ‘cut,’ nor ‘hit to leg.’

Professor Skeat says nothing of this derivation of ‘cricket’ from cricket, a stool. He thinks ‘et’ may be a diminutive, added to the Anglo-Saxon cricc, a staff. If that be so, cricket will mean club-play rather than stool-ball. In any case, Professor Skeat has a valuable quotation of ‘cricket’ from the French and English Dictionary compiled in 1611, by Mr. Randle Cotgrave. He translates the French crosse, ‘a crosier, or bishop’s staffe, also a cricket staffe, or the crooked staffe wherewith boies play at cricket.’ Now the name of the club used in French Flanders at the local kind of golf is la crosse. It is a heavy, barbaric kind of golf-club.[13]

Thanks to Cotgrave, then, we know that in 1611 cricket was a boy’s game, played with a crooked staff. The club, bat, or staff continued to be crooked or curved at the blade till the middle of the eighteenth century or later; and till nearly 1720 cricket was mainly a game for boys. We may now examine the authorities for the earliest mentions of cricket.

People have often regarded Florio’s expression in his Italian Dictionary (1598) cricket-a-wicket as the first mention of the noble game. It were strange indeed if this great word first dropped from the pen of an Italian! The quotation is ‘sgrittare, to make a noise as a cricket; to play cricket-a-wicket, and be merry.’ I have no doubt myself that this is a mere coincidence of sound. The cricket (on the hearth) is a merry little beast, or has that reputation. The term ‘cricket-a-wicket’ is a mere rhyming reduplication of sounds like ‘hob-nob’ or ‘tooral-ooral,’ or the older ‘Torelore,’ the name of a mythical country in a French romance of the twelfth century. It is an odd coincidence, no doubt, that the rhyming reduplication should associate wicket with cricket. But, for all that, ‘cricket-a-wicket’ must pair off with ‘helter-skelter,’ ‘higgledy-piggledy,’ and Tarabara to which Florio gives cricket-a-wicket as an equivalent.[14]

‘Miss Wicket.’ (From an old print, 1770.)

Yet cricket was played in England, by boys at least, in Florio’s time. The proof of this exists, or existed, in the ‘Constitution Book of Guildford,’ a manuscript collection of records once in the possession of that town. In the ‘History of Guildford,’ an anonymous compilation, published by Russell in the Surrey town, and by Longmans in London (1801), there are extracts from the ‘Constitution Book.’ They begin with a grant anno li. Ed. III. For our purpose the only important passages are pp. 201, 202. In the thirty-fifth year of Elizabeth one William Wyntersmoll withheld a piece of common land, to the extent of one acre, from the town. Forty years before, John Parvishe had obtained leave to make a temporary enclosure there, and the enclosure had never been removed. In the fortieth year of Elizabeth this acre was still in dispute, when John Derrick, gent, aged fifty-nine, one of the Queen’s Coroners for the county, gave evidence that he ‘knew it fifty years ago or more. It lay waste and was used and occupyed by the inhabitants of Guildeford to saw timber in and for saw-pitts.... When he was a scholler in the free school of Guildeford he and several of his fellowes did run and play there at crickett and other plaies.’

This is the oldest certain authority for cricket with which I am acquainted. Clearly it was a boy’s game in the early years of Elizabeth. Nor was it a very scientific game if it could be played on a wicket agreeably diversified by ‘saw-pitts.’ William Page may have played cricket at Eton and learned to bat as well as ‘to hick and hack, which they will do fast enough of themselves, and to cry horum.’ It has already been shown that, in 1611, ‘boyes played at crickett,’ with a crooked bat or ‘cricket-staffe.’

In 1676 we get a view of a summer day at Aleppo, and of British sailors busy at the national game.

Henry Teonge, Chaplain on board H.M.S. ships ‘Assistance,’ ‘Bristol,’ and ‘Royal Oak,’ Anno 1675 to 1679, writes:—

[At Aleppo].

6.—This morning early (as it is the custom all summer longe) at the least 40 of the English, with his worship the Consull, rod out of the cytty about 4 miles to the Greene Platt, a fine vally by a river syde, to recreate them selves. Where a princely tent was pitched; and wee had severall pastimes and sports, as duck-hunting, fishing, shooting, handball, krickett, scrofilo; and then a noble dinner brought thither, with greate plenty of all sorts of wine, punch, and lemonads; and at 6 wee returne all home in good order, but soundly tyred and weary.[15]

When once the eighteenth century is reached cricket begins to find mention in literature. Clearly the game was rising in the world and was being taken up, like the poets of the period, by patrons. Lord Chesterfield, whom Dr. Johnson found a patron so insufficient, talked about cricket in a very proper spirit in 1740.[16] ‘If you have a right ambition you will desire to excell all boys of your age at cricket ... as well as in learning.’ That is the right style of fatherly counsel; but Philip Stanhope never came to ‘European reputation as mid-wicket-on,’ like a hero of Mr. James Payn’s. Lord Chesterfield also alludes to ‘your various occupations of Greek and cricket, Latin and pitch-farthing,’ very justly coupling the nobler language with the nobler game. Already in the fourth book of the ‘Dunciad,’ line 592, Mr. Alexander Pope had sneered at cricket.[17] At what did Mr. Pope not sneer? The fair, the wise, the manly,—Mrs. Arabella Fermor, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mr. Colley Cibber, and a delightful pastime,—he turns up his nose at them and at everyone and everything!

O le grand homme, rien ne lui peut plaire!

See, he cries to Dulness, see—

The judge to dance his brother serjeant call,

The senator at cricket urge the ball.

Cricket was played at Eton early. Gray, writing to West, says, ‘There is my Lords Sandwich and Halifax—they are statesmen—do you not remember them dirty boys playing at cricket?’[18] In 1736 Walpole writes, ‘I can’t say I am sorry I was never quite a school-boy: an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things very near as pretty.’[19] The bargee might have found an interview with Miss Horace pretty to recollect, but when Horace pretends that he might have been in the Eleven if he liked, the absurdity becomes too glaring. We are reminded of Charles Lamb’s ‘Here is Wordsworth saying he might have written “Hamlet” if he had had the “mind.”’ Cowper pretends (in 1781) that ‘as a boy I excelled at cricket and football,’ but he adds, with perfect truth, ‘the fame I acquired by achievements that way is long since forgotten.’ The author of the ‘Task,’ and of a good many hymns, was no Mynn nor Grace. We shall find but few of the English poets distinguished as cricketers, or fond of tuning the lyre to sing Pindaric strains of batters and bowlers. Byron tells a friend how they ‘together joined in cricket’s manly toil’ (1807). Another noble exception is George Huddesford,[20] author of ‘Salmagundi’ (1791, p. 66)—

But come, thou genial son of spring

Whitsuntide, and with thee bring

Cricket, nimble boy and light,

In slippers red and drawers white,

Who o’er the nicely measured land

Ranges around his comely band,

Alert to intercept each blow,

Each motion of the wary foe.

This passage gives us the costume—white drawers and red slippers. The contemporary works of art, whereof see a little gallery on the walls of the pavilion at Lord’s, show that men when they played also wore a kind of jockey cap. In a sketch of the Arms of Shrewsbury School, little boys are playing; the bat is a kind of hockey-stick as in the preceding century. There are only two stumps, nor more in Hayman’s well-known picture engraved 1755. The fields are well set for the bowling, and are represented with their hands ready for a catch. There are umpires in their usual places; the scores are kept by men who cut notches in tally-sticks. Such ‘notches’ were ‘got’ by ‘[Miss Wicket]’ a sportive young lady in a somewhat later caricature (p. 7). The ball (1770) has heavy cross-seams. But a silver ball, about a hundred years old, used as a snuff-box by the Vine Club at Sevenoaks, is marked with seams like those of to-day. Miss Wicket, also, carries a curved bat, but it has developed beyond the rustic crooked stick, and more nearly resembles some of the old curved bats at Lord’s, with which a strong man must have hit prodigious skyers. We may doubt if bats were ever such ‘three-man beetles’ as the players in an undated but contemporary picture at Lord’s do fillip withal. The fields, in this curious piece, are all in a line at square-leg, and disappear in a distance unconscious of perspective.

After a Picture by Hayman, R.A., belonging to the M.C.C.

Cricket had even before this date reached that height of prosperity which provokes the attention of moralists. ‘Here is a fine morning: let us go and put down some form of enjoyment,’ says the moralist. In 1743 a writer in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ was moved to allege that ‘the exercise may be strained too far.... Cricket is certainly a very good and wholesome exercise, yet it may be abused if either great or little people make it their business.’ The chief complaint is that great and little people play together—butchers and baronets. Cricket ‘propagates a spirit of idleness at the very time when, with the utmost industry, our debts, taxes, and decay of trade will scarcely allow us to get bread.’ The Lydians, according to Herodotus, invented games to make them forget the scarcity of bread. But the gentleman in the magazine is much more austere than Herodotus. ‘The advertisements most impudently recite that great sums are laid’; and it was, indeed, customary to announce a match for 500l. or 1,000l. Whether these sums were not drawn on Fancy’s exchequer, at least in many cases, we may reasonably doubt. In his ‘English Game of Cricket’ (p. 138) the learned Mr. Box quotes a tale of betting in 1711, from a document which he does not describe. It appears that in 1711 the county of Kent played All England, and money was lost and won, and there was a law-suit to recover. The court said, ‘Cricket is, to be sure, a manly game and not bad in itself, but it is the ill-use that is made of it by betting above 10l. on it that is bad.’ To a humble fiver on the University match this court would have had no kind of objection to make. The history of betting at cricket is given by Mr. Pycroft in the ‘Cricket Field’ (chap. vi.). A most interesting chapter it is.

The earliest laws of the game, or at least the earliest which have reached us, are of the year 1774. A committee of noblemen and gentlemen (including Sir Horace Mann, the Duke of Dorset, and Lord Tankerville) drew them up at the ‘Star and Garter’ in Pall Mall. ‘The pitching of the first wicket is to be determined by the toss of a piece of money.’ Does this mean that the sides tossed for which was to pitch the wicket? As Nyren shows, much turned on the pitching of the wicket. Lumpy (Stevens) ‘would invariably choose the ground where his balls would shoot.’[21] In the rules of 1774, the distance between the stumps is the same as at present. The crease is cut, not painted.[22] The stumps are twenty-two inches in height; there is only one bail, of six inches in length. ‘No ball,’ as far as crossing the crease goes, is just like ‘no ball’ to-day. Indeed, the game was essentially the game of to-day, except that if a ball were hit ‘the other player may place his body anywhere within the swing of his bat, so as to hinder the bowler from catching her, but he must neither strike at her nor touch her with his hands.’

At this moment of legislation, when the dim heroic age of cricket begins to broaden into the boundless day of history, Mr. James Love, comedian, appeared as the epic poet of the sport.[23] His quarto is dedicated to the Richmond Club, and is inspired ‘by a recollection of many Particulars at a time when the Game was cultivated with the utmost Assiduity, and patronised by the personal Appearance[24] and Management of some of the most capital People in the Kingdom.’ Mr. Love, in his enthusiasm, publishes an exhortation to Britain, to leave all meaner sports, and cultivate cricket only.

Hail Cricket, glorious, manly, British game,

First of all sports, be first alike in fame,

sings Love, as he warms to his work. He denounces ‘puny Billiards,’ played by ‘Beaus, dressed in the quintessence of the fashion. The robust Cricketer plays in his shirt, the Rev. Mr. W——d, particularly, appears almost naked.’

One line of Mr. Love’s,

Where fainting vice calls folly to her aid,

appears to him so excellent that he thinks it must be plagiarised, and, in a note, invites the learned reader to find out where he stole it from. To this a critic, Britannicus Severus, answers that ‘Gentlemen who have Cricket in their heads cannot afford to pore over a parcel of musty Authors.’ Indeed, your cricketer is rarely a bookworm.

‘Leave the dissolving song, the baby dance,

To soothe the slaves of Italy and France,

and play up,’ cries this English bard.

In the second book, the poet comes to business—Kent v. All England. The poet, after the custom of his age, gives dashes after an initial, in place of names. In notes he interprets his dashes, and introduces us to Newland, of Slendon, in Sussex, a farmer, and a famous batsman; Bryan, of London, bricklayer; Rumney, gardener to the Duke of Dorset; Smith, keeper of the artillery ground; Hodswell, the bowling tanner of Dartford; Mills, of Bromley; Robin, commonly called Long Robin; Mills, Sawyer, Cutbush, Bartrum, Kips, and Danes; Cuddy, the tailor; Derigate, of Reigate; Weymark, the miller, with Newland, Green, two Harrises, and Smith made up the teams. The match is summed up in the Argument of the Third Book.

The Game.—Five on the side of the Counties are out for three Notches. The Odds run high on the side of Kent. Bryan and Newland go in; they help the Game greatly. Bryan is unfortunately put out by Kips. Kent, the First Innings, is Thirteen ahead. The Counties go in again, and get Fifty-seven ahead. Kent, in the Second Innings, is very near losing, the two last Men being in. Weymark unhappily misses a Catch, and by that means Kent is victorious.

It was a splendid close match—but let us pity Weymark, immortal butter-fingers. In the first innings the wicket-keeping of Kips to the fast bowling of Hodswell was reckoned fine.

If Love was the Homer of cricket, the minstrel who won from forgetfulness the glories of the dim Heroic Age, Nyren, was the delightful Herodotus of the early Historic Period. John Nyren dedicated his ‘Cricketer’s Guide and Recollections of the Cricketers of my Time,’ to the great Mr. William Ward, in 1833. He speaks of cricket as ‘an elegant relaxation,’ and congratulates Mr. Ward on ‘having gained the longest hands of any player upon record.’ This famed score was made on July 24, 25, 1820, on the M.C.C. ground. The number was 278, ‘108 more than any player ever gained;’ Aylward’s 167 had previously been the longest score I know. Mr. Ward’s feat, moreover, was ‘after the increase of the stumps in 1817.’ Old Nyren was charmed in his declining hours by a deed like this, yet grieved by the modern bowlers, and their habit ‘of throwing the ball.’ The history of that innovation will presently be sketched.

Nyren was born at Hambledon, in Hampshire, on December 15, 1764, and was therefore a small boy when Love sang. He died at Bromley, June 28, 1837. Like most very great men, he was possibly of Scottish blood. He was a Catholic and believed that the true spelling of the family name was Nairne, and that they came south after being ‘out in the ’15 or ’45.’ Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke describes him as a thoroughly good and amiable man, and as much may be guessed from his writings.

Mr. Clarke agreed with him in his dislike of round-hand bowling, save when Lillywhite was pitted against Fuller Pilch—a beautiful thing to see, as the Bishop of St. Andrews testifies, ‘speaking,’ like Dares Phrygius of the heroes at Troy, ‘as he that saw them.’ In Nyren’s youth—say 1780—Hambledon was the centre of cricket. The boy had a cricketing education. He learned a little Latin of a worthy old Jesuit, but was a better hand at the fiddle. In that musical old England, where John Small, the noted bat, once charmed an infuriated bull by his minstrelsy, Nyren performed a moral miracle. He played to the gipsies, and so won their hearts that they always passed by his hen-roost when they robbed the neighbours. Music and cricket were the Hambledon man’s delight. His father, Richard Nyren, was, with Thomas Brett, one of the chief bowlers. Brett was ‘the fastest as well as straightest bowler that was ever known’; no jerker, but with a very high delivery. The height of the delivery was not à la Spofforth, but was got by sending the ball out from under the armpit. How this manœuvre could be combined with pace is a great mystery. Richard Nyren had this art, ‘always to the length.’ Brett’s bowling is described as ‘tremendous,’ yet Tom Sueter could stump off it—Tom of the honourable heart, and the voice so sweet, pure and powerful. Yet on those wickets Tom needed a long-stop to Brett—George Lear. The Bishop has seen three long-stops on to Brown; ‘but he was a jerker.’ At that date the long-stop commonly dropped on one knee as he received the ball. An old Eton boy, G. B., who was at school between 1805 and 1814, says, in a letter to the Standard (dated September 21, 1886), that ‘a pocket-handkerchief was allowed round the dropping knee of long-stop.’ A bowler with a low delivery was Lambert, ‘the little farmer.’ ‘His ball would twist from the off stump into the leg. He was the first I remember who introduced this deceitful and teasing way of delivering the ball.’ Cricket was indeed rudimentary when a break from the off was a new thing. ‘The Kent and Surrey men could not tell what to make of that cursed twist of his.’ Lambert acquired the art as Daphnis learned his minstrelsy, while he tended his father’s sheep. He would set up hurdles instead of a net and bowl for hours. But it needed old Nyren to teach him to bowl outside the off stump, so little alert was the mind of this innovator. Among outsiders, Lumpy, the Surrey man, was the most accurate ‘to a length,’ and he was much faster than Lord Frederick Beauclerk. In these days the home bowlers pitched the wickets to suit themselves. Thus they had all the advantage of rough wickets on a slope; yet, even so, a yokel with pluck and ‘an arm as long as a hop-pole,’ has been known to slash Lumpy all over the field. But this could only have been done at single wicket. A curious bowler of this age was Noah Mann, the fleetest runner of his time, and a skilled horseman. He was a left-handed bowler, and, as will be seen, he anticipated the magical ‘pitching’ of experts at base-ball. How he did this without throwing or jerking is hard to be understood. ‘His merit consisted in giving a curve to the ball the whole way. In itself it was not the first-rate style of bowling, but so very deceptive that the chief end was frequently attained. They who remember the dexterous manner with which the Indian jugglers communicated the curve to the balls they spun round their heads by a twist of the wrist or hand will at once comprehend Noah’s curious feat in bowling.’ He once made a hit for ten at Windmill-down, to which the club moved from the bleakness of Broadhalfpenny.

We have followed Nyren’s comments on bowlers for the purpose of elucidating the evolution of their ingenious art. All the bowlers, so far, have been under-hand, but now we hear of ‘these anointed clod-stumpers’ the Walkers. They were not of Broadhalfpenny, but joined the club at Windmill-down, when the move there was made on the suggestion of the Duke of Dorset. ‘About a couple of years after Walker had been with us’ (probably about 1790), ‘he began the system of throwing instead of bowling, now so much the fashion.’ He was no-balled, after a council of the Hambledon Club, called for the purpose. This disposes of the priority of Mr. Willes (1807), and incidentally casts doubt on the myth that a lady invented round-hand bowling. Nyren says, ‘The first I recollect seeing revive the custom was Wills, a Sussex man.’

From the heresiarch, Tom Walker, we come to the classic model of a bowler in the under-hand school—that excellent man, christian and cricketer, David Harris.

It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to convey in writing an accurate idea of the grand effect of Harris’s bowling; they only who have played against him can fully appreciate it. His attitude, when preparing for his run previously to delivering the ball, would have made a beautiful study for the sculptor. Phidias would certainly have taken him for a model. First of all, he stood erect like a soldier at drill; then, with a graceful curve of the arm, he raised the ball to his forehead, and drawing back his right foot, started off with his left. The calm look and general air of the man were uncommonly striking, and from this series of preparations he never deviated. I am sure that from this simple account of his manner, all my countrymen who were acquainted with his play will recall him to their minds. His mode of delivering the ball was very singular. He would bring it from under the arm by a twist, and nearly as high as his arm-pit, and with this action push it, as it were, from him. How it was that the balls acquired the velocity they did by this mode of delivery, I never could comprehend.

When first he joined the Hambledon Club, he was quite a raw countryman at cricket, and had very little to recommend him but his noble delivery. He was also very apt to give tosses. I have seen old Nyren scratch his head, and say,—‘Harris would make the best bowler in England if he did not toss.’ By continual practice, however, and following the advice of the old Hambledon players, he became as steady as could be wished; and in the prime of his playing very rarely indeed gave a toss, although his balls were pitched the full length. In bowling, he never stooped in the least in his delivery, but kept himself upright all the time. His balls were very little beholden to the ground when pitched; it was but a touch, and up again; and woe be to the man who did not get in to block them, for they had such a peculiar curl that they would grind his fingers against the bat; many a time have I seen the blood drawn in this way from a batter who was not up to the trick: old Tom Walker was the only exception—I have before classed him among the bloodless animals.

Harris’s bowling was the finest of all tests for a hitter, and hence the great beauty, as I observed before, of seeing Beldham in, with this man against him; for unless a batter were of the very first class, and accustomed to the first style of stopping, he could do little or nothing with Harris. If the thing had been possible, I should have liked to have seen such a player as Budd (fine hitter as he was) standing against him. My own opinion is, that he could not have stopped his balls, and this will be a criterion, by which those who have seen some of that gentleman’s brilliant hits, may judge of the extraordinary merit of this man’s bowling. He was considerably faster than Lambert, and so superior in style and finish, that I can draw no comparison between them. Lord Frederic Beauclerc has been heard to say that Harris’s bowling was one of the grandest things of the kind he had ever seen; but his lordship could not have known him in his prime; he never saw him play till after he had had many fits of the gout, and had become slow and feeble.

To Harris’s fine bowling I attribute the great improvement that was made in hitting, and above all in stopping; for it was utterly impossible to remain at the crease, when the ball was tossed to a fine length; you were obliged to get in, or it would be about your hands, or the handle of your bat; and every player knows where its next place would be.

This long extract is not too long, for it contains a dignified study of the bowler.

This is the perfect Trundler, this is he,

That every man who bowls should wish to be.

Harris was admired for ‘the sweetness of his disposition and his manly contempt of every action that bore the character of meanness,’ and he chiefly bowled for catches, as did Lord Frederick Beauclerk. Nyren is no great hand at orthography, and he soon comes to speak of a Sussex bowler named Wells. This is apparently the Wills, or Willes, who has more credit than perhaps he deserves for bringing in round-hand. ‘He was the first I had seen of the new school, after the Walkers had attempted to introduce the system in the Hambledon Club.’ Willes had a twist from leg, and Nyren thinks Freemantle showed astonishing knowledge of the game because he went in front of his wicket and hit Willes, and ‘although before the wicket, he would not have been out, because the ball had been pitched at the outside of the stump.’ A man might play hours on that system ‘by Shrewsbury clock,’ but I doubt if David Harris would have approved of Freemantle’s behaviour.

The student of the evolution of round-hand and over-hand bowling now turns to the early exploits of William Lillywhite (b. June 13, 1792). Whatever Mr. Willes may have done, whatever Tom Walker may have dreamed, William Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge are practically the parents of modern bowling. When Lillywhite came out, the law was that in bowling the hand must be below the elbow. Following the example of Mr. G. Knight, of the M.C.C., or rather going beyond it, Lillywhite raised the hand above the shoulder, though scarcely perceptible. Lillywhite’s performances in 1827 caused much discussion among cricketers and in the ‘Sporting Magazine.’ Letters on this subject are reprinted by Mr. W. Denison, in ‘Sketches of the Players,’ London, 1846.[25]

The last great match of 1827 was between Sussex and Kent, with Saunders and Searle given. Mr. Denison, reviewing the match at the time, predicted that if round-hand were allowed, there would be no driving and no cutting to point or slip. This of course is part of Unfulfilled Prophecy. ‘Broadbridge and others will shew that they cannot be faced on hard ground without the most imminent peril.’ As a compromise, Mr. Denison was for allowing straight-armed bowling, ‘so that the back of the hand be kept under when the ball is delivered.’ Mr. Steel’s [chapter] on bowling shows what the effect of that rule must have been.

In February, 1828, Mr. Knight published his letters in defence of round-hand bowling. There had been, in the origin of cricket, no law to restrain the bowlers. About 1804, the batting acquired such mastery, and forward play with running-in (as Nyren knew) became so vigorous, that Willes and Tom Walker tried round-hand. This round-hand was ‘straight armed, and for a time (1818–28) did very well, till bowlers took to raising the hand, even above the head.’ M.C.C. then proclaimed an edict against all round-hand bowling. Mr. Knight proposed to admit straight-armed bowling, which could not be called ‘throwing.’ To define a throw was as hard then as now—a man knows it when he sees it; it is like the trot in horses. Mr. Knight’s proposed law ran, ‘The ball shall be bowled; if it be thrown or jerked, or if any part of the hand or arm be above the shoulder at the time of delivery, the umpire shall call No Ball.’

In one of the trial matches (Sept. 1827) it is said that Mr. Knight, Broadbridge, and Lillywhite, all bowled high over the shoulder. There are no wides in the score. When a man was caught, the bowler’s name was not given. Lillywhite has thus no wicket to his name.

Mr. Knight’s law was discussed at Lord’s (May 19, 1828), and the word elbow substituted for shoulder. But Lillywhite and Broadbridge bowled as before, and found many followers, till the M.C.C. passed the law proposed by Mr. Knight. But the hand was soon raised, and the extraordinary pace of Mr. Mynn (born 1807) was striven for by men who had not his weight and strength. These excesses caused a re-enactment of the over-the-shoulder law in 1845.

Lillywhite was now recognised as the reviver of cricket. His analysis in 1844 and 1845 gives about 6⅞ runs for each wicket. Round-hand, with a practical license for over-hand, was now established; but, as late as 1860, a high delivery was a rarity. The troublesome case of Willsher ended in permitting any height of delivery, and the greatest of all bowlers, Mr. Spofforth, sends in the ball from the utmost altitude.

This is a brief account of the evolution of round and over-hand bowling. As to slow and fast bowling, Lord Frederick Beauclerk and one of the Walkers were very slow bowlers in old days. William Clarke (b. Dec. 24, 1798) was the classical slow bowler. Clarke was not a regular lob bowler, but, like Lambert, delivered ‘about midway between the height of the elbow and the strict under-hand, accompanied by a singular peculiarity of action with the hand and wrist just as the ball is about to be discharged.[26]’ He had a tremendous twist, and great spin and ingenuity. Perhaps his success was partly due to the rarity of slow bowling in his time. Men imitated Mr. Mynn, who was as big a man as Mr. W. G. Grace, and a very fast bowler. In old underhand times, Brett had a ‘steam-engine pace,’ and later, Browne of Brighton was prodigiously fast. The Bishop of St. Andrews remembers seeing a ball of Browne’s strike the stumps with such force and at such a point that both bails flew back as far as the bowler’s wicket. That was at Brighton. He also remembers how at Lord’s, when Browne bowled, all the field were placed behind the wicket, or nearly so, that is at slip, leg, and long-stop, till Ward went in, who, playing with an upright bat, contrived to poke the ball to the off, and Browne himself (a tall, heavy man) had to go after it. But this having happened more than once, a single field was placed in front. Yet Beldham, as Mr. Pycroft tells, quite mastered Browne, and made 76 off him in a match. Beldham was then fifty-four. Browne’s pace was reckoned superior to that of Mr. Osbaldeston. It is not easy to decide who has been the fastest of fast bowlers. In our own day, I think that Mr. Cecil Boyle, when he bowled for Oxford (1873), was the swiftest I have seen, except a bowler unknown south of the Tweed, Mr. Barclay, now a clergyman in Canada. Mr. Barclay was faster with under-hand than with round-hand. Beldham and his comrades played Browne without pads; I have seen this tried against Mr. Barclay—the results were damaging. Famous names of fast bowlers are Mynn, Marcon, Fellowes, Tarrant, Jackson, Freeman, Hope Grant, Powys, and Robert Lang.

The history of bowling precedes that of batting, because the batsman must necessarily adapt his style to the bowling, not vice versâ. He must also adapt it to the state of the wickets. There are times when a purely rural style of play, a succession of ‘agrarian outrages,’ is the best policy. Given an untrustworthy wicket, good bowling, fielding ground in heavy grass, a stone wall on one side, and another wall, with a nice flooded burn beyond, on another side, and a batsman will be well advised if he lifts the ball over the boundaries and into the brook. Perhaps Mr. Steel will recognise the conditions described, and remember Dalbeattie. In the origin of cricket, when the stumps were low, and the bat a crooked club, hitting hard, high, and often must have been the rule. A strong man with good sight must have been the pride of the village. When David Harris, Tom Walker, Lumpy, Brett, and other heroes brought in accuracy, spin, twist, and pace, with taller wickets to defend, this batting was elaborated by Beldham and Sueter and others into an art. Tom Sueter, first, fathered the heresy of leaving the crease, and going in to the pitch or half-volley.[27] Sir Horace Mann’s bailiff, Aylward, was the Shrewsbury of an elder age. ‘He once stayed in two whole days, and got the highest number of runs that had ever been gained by any member—one hundred and sixty-seven.’ Tom Walker was a great stick. Lord Frederick was bowling to him at Lord’s. Every ball he dropped down just before his bat. Off went his lordship’s white, broad-brimmed hat, dash upon the ground (his constant action when disappointed), calling him at the same time ‘a confounded old beast.’ ‘I doan’t care what ee zays,’ said Tom, whose conduct showed a good deal more of courtesy and self-control than Lord Frederick’s. Perhaps the master-bat of old times was William Beldham from Farnham. He comes into Bentley’s ‘Cricket Scores’ as early as 1787. The players called him ‘Silver Billy.’ He was coached by Harry Hall, the gingerbread baker of Farnham. Hall’s great maxim was ‘the left elbow well up.’

From Nyren I extract a description of Beldham’s batting:—

Beldham was quite a young man when he joined the Hambledon Club; and even in that stage of his playing, I hardly ever saw a man with a finer command of his bat; but, with the instruction and advice of the old heads superadded, he rapidly attained to the extraordinary accomplishment of being the finest player that has appeared within the latitude of more than half a century. There can be no exception against his batting, or the severity of his hitting. He would get in at the balls, and hit them away in a gallant style; yet, in this single feat, I think I have known him excelled; but when he could cut them at the point of the bat, he was in his glory; and upon my life, their speed was as the speed of thought. One of the most beautiful sights that can be imagined, and which would have delighted an artist, was to see him make himself up to hit a ball. It was the beau idéal of grace, animation, and concentrated energy. In this peculiar exhibition of elegance with vigour, the nearest approach to him I think was Lord Frederick Beauclerc. Upon one occasion at Mary-le-bone, I remember these two admirable batters being in together, and though Beldham was then verging towards his climacteric, yet both were excited to a competition, and the display of talent that was exhibited between them that day was the most interesting sight of its kind I ever witnessed. I should not forget, among his other excellencies, to mention that Beldham was one of the best judges of a short run I ever knew; add to which, that he possessed a generally good knowledge of the game.

In 1838 Beldham used to gossip with Mr. Pycroft. That learned writer gives Fennex great credit for introducing the modern style of forward play about 1800; this on the evidence of Fennex himself (1760–1839). But probably accurate bowling, with a fast rise, on fairly good wickets, must have taught forward play naturally to Fennex, Lambert, Fuller Pilch, and others. It is not my purpose to compile a minute chronicle of cricket, to mark each match and catch, nor to chant the illustrious deeds of all famous men. The great name of Mr. Ward has been already mentioned. The Bishop of St. Andrews, when a Harrow boy, played against Mr. Ward, and lowered his illustrious wicket for three runs.[28] Thus, with Mr. Ward, we come within the memory of living cricketers. Much more is this the case with Mr. Budd, Fuller Pilch, Alfred Mynn, Hayward and Carpenter, Humphrey and Jupp. Mr. Mynn was the son of a gentleman farmer at Bearstead, near Maidstone. His extraordinary pace actually took wickets by storm; men were bowled before they knew where they were. The assiduous diligence of Mr. Ward was a match for him. When about to meet Mynn, he would practise with the fastest of the ground bowlers at Lord’s, at eighteen or nineteen yards’ rise, so to speak. Mr. Ward’s great reach also stood him in good stead. Mr. Mynn’s pace, and the excesses committed by his imitators, for some time demoralised batting. Few balls were straight (among the imitatores, servum pecus), and men went in to hit what they could reach. The joy of getting hold of a leg-ball from a very fast bowler, or of driving him, overpowered caution, and these violent delights might have had violent ends if accuracy had not returned to bowling. In 1843 Mr. Mynn’s analysis gave 5⅖ a wicket. His average was but 17 an innings. Scores were shorter fifty years ago.[29]

My attempt has been to trace the streams of tendency in cricket rather than to produce a chronicle—a work which would require a volume to itself. Nothing has been said about fielding; because, however the ball is bowled, and however hit, the tasks of catching it, stopping it, and returning it with speed have always been the same. True, different styles of batting and bowling require alterations in the position of the fielders.[30] But the principles of their conduct and the nature of their duty remain unaltered. One change may be noted. In ‘Juvenile Sports,’ by Master Michel Angelo,[31] the author speaks of byes and overthrows as ‘a new mode,’ ‘an innovation with which I am by no means pleased. It is indeed true that this places the seekers out continually on their guard, and obliges them to be more mindful of their play; but then it diminishes the credit of the player, in whose hands the bat is, as a game may be won by a very bad batsman owing to the inability of the wicket-man, or the inattention of the seekers-out.’

The fallacy of this argument does not need to be exposed.

M.C.C.

No sketch of the history of cricket would be complete without a note on the fortunes of the Marylebone Club. This is the Parliament of cricket, and includes almost all the amateurs of merit. There is nothing very formal in its construction; and any clubs which please may doubtless arrange among themselves to play not according to M.C.C. rules. But nobody so pleases; and Marylebone legislates practically for countries that were not even known to exist when wickets were pitched at Guildford in the reign of Henry VIII. Marylebone is the Omphalos, the Delos of cricket.

The club may be said to have sprung from the ashes of the White Conduit Club, dissolved in 1787. One Thomas Lord, by the aid of some members of the older association, made a ground in the space which is now Dorset Square. This was the first ‘Lord’s.’ As to Lord, he is dubiously said (like the ancestors of Nyren) to have been a Scot and a Jacobite, or mixed up, at least, in some way with the ’45. Lord was obliged to move to North Bank, and finally, in 1814, to the present ground. The famous Mr. Ward had played at Lord’s before this migration; his first match here was in 1810, and he played, more or less, till 1847, being then sixty years of age. His bats are said to have weighed four pounds. Mr. Ward bought the lease of the ground from Lord in 1825, ‘at a most exorbitant rate;’ and, in 1830, Dark bought the remainder of the lease from him. The first match on our present Lord’s, or the first recorded, was M.C.C. v. Hertfordshire, June 22, 1814. In 1825 the pavilion was burned, after a Winchester and Harrow match. The burning of the Alexandrian Library may be compared to the wholesale destruction of cricket records on this melancholy occasion. In 1816 the Club reviewed the Laws: the result will be found in Lillywhite’s ‘Scores,’ i. 385. ‘No more than two balls to be allowed at practice when a fresh bowler takes the ball before he proceeds.’ A great deal too much time is now wasted over these practice balls. ‘The ball must be delivered underhanded, not thrown or jerked, with the hand below the elbow at the time of delivering the ball.’ The umpire is to call ‘no ball,’ ‘if the back of the hand be uppermost.’ As to l.b.w., the batter is out ‘if with his foot or leg he stop the ball which the bowler, in the opinion of the umpire, shall have pitched in a straight line to the wicket, and would have hit it.’

The names of the Presidents are only on record after the fire. Ponsonby, Grimston, Darnley, Coventry are among the most notable. The renowned Mr. Aislabie was secretary till his death in 1842; in the pavilion his bust commemorates him. Mr. Kynaston and Mr. Fitzgerald, of ‘Jerks In from Short Leg,’ are other celebrated secretaries. In 1868 the Club purchased a lease of 99 years, at the cost of 11,000l. There have been recent additions to the area, and to that celebrated monument, the pavilion.

The Royal Academy Club in Marylebone Fields. (After Hayman, R.A. The property of the M.C.C.)

Lord’s is, as all the world knows, the scene, not only of Club and of Middlesex matches, but of Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, and Gentlemen and Players, which is also contested at the Oval. Winchester used moreover to play Eton here, but the head-masters have long preferred a home and home affair. In other chapters these great matches will be chronicled and criticised.

Summary

The various epochs in the history of the game may now be briefly enumerated by way of summary. First we have the prehistoric age, when cricket was dimly struggling to evolve itself out of the rudimentary forms of cat-and-dog, and stool-ball. This preceded 154-, when we find an authentic mention of the name of Cricket. Just about the end of the seventeenth century it was mainly a boys’ game. With the Augustan age it began to be taken up by statesmen, and satirised by that ideal whippersnapper, the ingenious but in all respects unsportsmanlike, Mr. Pope. By 1750 the game was matter of heavy bets, and scores began to be recorded. The old Hambledon Club gave it dignity, and the veterans endured till quite modern times dawn with Mr. Ward. Then came the prosperous heresy of round-hand bowling, which battled for existence till about 1845, when it became a recognised institution. The wandering clubs, chiefly I. Z. and the Free Foresters at first, carried good examples into the remoter gardens of our country. The migratory professional teams, the United and All England Elevens at least, showed the yokels what style meant, and taught them that Jackson and Tinley were their masters. But the lesson lasted too long. Nothing was less exhilarating than the spectacle of twenty provincial players, with Hodgson and Slinn, making many duck’s eggs, and fielding in a mob. ‘The first ‘ad me on the knee, the next on the wrist, the next blacked my eye, and the fourth bowled me,’ says the Pride of the Village, in ‘Punch,’ after enjoying ‘a hover from Jackson.’ Such violent delights had violent ends. The old travelling elevens are extinct, but railways have ‘turned large England to a little’ field, so to speak, and clubs may now meet which of old scarcely knew each other by name. The Australian elevens have in recent days given a great impulse to patriotic exertions.

Scotch cricket is a thing of this century. Football and golf are the native pastimes of my countrymen, as hurling is of Ireland. The Old Grange Club is the M.C.C. of the North. The West of Scotland and Drumpellier are other clubs of standing. That ever-flourishing veteran, Major Dickens, still upholds the honour of Kelso. The Moncrieffs have been the Wards and Budds of Edinburgh, nor will a touching patriotism allow me here to omit the name of George Charles Hamilton Dunlop. For some reasons Scotland has not been productive of bowlers. Professionals are seldom reared there, nor have amateurs devoted themselves to the more scientific and less popular part of the game. Mr. Barclay has already been commemorated for his speed; a few only will remember Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Glassford, who died young, and very much regretted. Few men have done more for Scotch cricket than Mr. H. H. Almond, head-master of Loretto School, which has contributed several players to the Oxford eleven. An old ‘pewter’ may here congratulate Mr. Almond on the energy with which he kept his boys to the mark, and on the undaunted example which he set by always going in first. The names of Arthur Cheyne, Jack Mackenzie, Edward Henderson, Chalmers, Hay Brown, Leslie Balfour, and Tom Marshall are only a few that crowd on the memory of the elderly Caledonian cricketer. In the Border district, of which more hereafter, the houses of Buccleuch and Roxburgh have been great friends of the game, and that was a proud day for ‘the Rough Clan’ when Lord George Scott scored over 160 in the University match of 1887. Abbotsford, too, has been well to the front, thanks to the Hon. J. Maxwell Scott, and, for some reason, Scotland has been occasionally represented by Mr. A. G. Steel, and the Hon. Ivo Bligh, known to the local press as ‘the Titled Batsman.’ But these are alien glories et non sua poma.

Three things are prejudicial to Scotch cricket. First, there is the climate, about which more words were superfluous. Next, boys leave school earlier than in England, for professions or for college. Lastly, the University ‘session’ is in the winter months, and the University clubs are therefore at a great disadvantage. I shall never forget the miraculous wickets we tried to pitch on the old College Green at Glasgow, and the courage displayed by divinity students in standing up to Mr. Barclay there. As for St. Andrews, golf is too much with us on that friendly shore, and will brook no rival.

*** The author of the historical introduction is much indebted to the Bishop of St. Andrews, a veteran of the first University Match, for his kindness in revising proofs, and adding notes. He has also to thank the Viscountess Wolseley for the loan of her picture of ‘Miss Wicket’; and Mr. Charles Mills, M.P., for a sight of the silver ball of the Vine Club. It was filled with snuff, and tossed from hand to hand after dinner; he who dropped it being fined in claret, or some other liquor.

FOOTNOTES:

• [1] Outside of England Mrs. Piozzi found ‘a game called Pallamajo, something like our cricket.’ If she meant Pallone, she merely proved herself no cricketer. Mr. Arthur Evans has noticed, in Dalmatia, a kind of trap-bat, a ‘cat’ being used in place of a ball, and the length of hits being measured by the stick that serves as bat.
• [2] The learned have debated as to the origin of the local term ‘Dex.’ Let it suffice to say that it is not what they suppose.
• [3] See M. de Charnay’s Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 96. London, 1887.
• [4] Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, 1810, pp. 89, 90; cf. Durfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy, i. 91.
• [5] Popular Antiquities, i. 153, note. London, 1813. The lines are quoted by Brand from A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies, p. 74. London, 1657. He might have gone straight to Herrick, Hesperides (1648), p. 280.
• [6] Edinburgh, 1841.
• [7] In married life, two are quite enough to play ‘cat and dog.’
• [8] Compare Loggat. See Hamlet, v. 1, and Nares’ Glossary, s. v.
• [9] Brand, ii. 287, quotes a reference to ‘cat and doug’ from the Life of the Scotch Rogue. London, 1722. The Scotch Rogue says nothing about cricket.
• [10] P. 101.
• [11] The miniature in which a woman bowls to a back-handed player with no wicket is dated 1344. Bodl., 264. But the evidence of art is never very trustworthy. The painter may have been a woman, or a monk, or an uneducated person. Many of the pictures in modern books give a misleading view of cricket.
• [12] Etymological Dictionary, 1882. The writer here owes a great deal to Dr. Murray, of the English Dictionary, who kindly lent him the ‘slips’ (short, of course) on Cricket, as far as they have been collected.—A. L.
• [13] See M. Charles Deulin’s tale, ‘Le Grand Choleur,’ in Contes du Roi Gambrinus. There is a good deal of information in Germinal, by M. Zola. The balls are egg-shaped, and of boxwood. The game is a kind of golf, played across country.
• [14] Cotgrave’s French Dictionary, ‘Crosse,’ 1611.
• [15] Diary, p. 159; May, 1676.
• [16] i. p. 197. Letter xxi.
• [17] The bibliography of the Dunciad is not a subject to be rushed into rashly, nor in a note; but this must have been written between 1726–1735, there or thereabouts. The Scholiasts recognise Lord John Sackville as the Senator, and quote a familiar passage from Horace Walpole (June 8, 1747) about Cricketalia, instituted in his honour. We may, perhaps, regard Lord John as one of the early patrons of the game.
• [18] Gray’s Works, 1807, ii. p. 2. See also ‘urge the flying ball,’ which must refer, I think, to cricket. That ode was first published in 1747. Johnson carelessly paraphrases ‘drives the hoop, or tosses the ball!’—C. W.
• [19] To George Montagu, May 6, 1726.
• [20] See also his Wiccamical Chaplet, 1804, where there is an excellent ‘Cricket Song’ (p. 131 to 133) for the Hambledon Club, Hants, 1767, in the course of which the following names of cricketers occur: Nyren, Small, Buck, Curry, Hogsflesh, Barber Rich (‘whose swiftness in bowling was never equalled yet’), ‘Little George, the longstop, and Tom Suter, the Stumper,’ Sackville, Manns, Boyton, Lanns, Mincing, Miller, Lumpy, Francis.—C. W.
• [21] The Cricketers Guide, fourth edition, s. a., p. 58.
• [22] The Bishop of St. Andrews can remember when the creases were cut, before chalk was used.
• [23] Cricket, An Heroic Poem, illustrated with the critical observations of Scriblerus Maximus. By James Love, Comedian, London. Printed for the Author, MDCCLXX. (Price, One Shilling.)
• [24] Talking of appearances, there is just one story of a ghost at a cricket match. He took great interest in the game, and went home in a dog-cart as it seemed to the spectators, though he (the real man, not the wraith) was on his death-bed at a considerable distance. The spectral dog-cart is the puzzle of the Psychical Society. The scene of the apparition was the cricket ground of a public school.
• [25] The edition of Nyren’s Cricketer’s Guide, used here, is the fourth, London, s. a. I owe it to Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald. Any cricketer who has borrowed my own copy of the Editio Princeps will oblige me by returning it.—A. L.
• [26] Sketches of the Players, p. 23.
• [27] Nyren, op. cit. p. 50.
• [28] It was three or five—I forget which. I know it was the lowest score he had that year!—C. W.
• [29] Was this so? The long scores caused the introduction of round-hand bowling. From among my brother’s papers (late Bishop of Lincoln) a letter has lately been returned to me which contains the following:—‘Christ Church, Oxford: May 24, 1831.—Cricket, I suppose, does not interest you; but you may like to know that in three following innings, on three following days last week, I got 328 runs. Christ Church has been playing—and beating—the University.’—C. W.
• [30] My experience, in one respect, is, I suppose, unique. Hitting a leg-ball, I alarmed the umpire, who turned round, and I was caught by the wicket-keeper off his back! Naturally enough—but yet—justly? he gave me out!—C. W.
• [31] London, 1776, p. 76.

[CHAPTER II.]
BATTING.
(By the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton.)

Fig. 1.—The champion.

Fig. 1.—The champion.

The great and supreme art of batting constitutes to the large majority of cricketers the most enjoyable part of the game. There are three especially delightful moments in life connected with games, and only those who have experienced all three can realise what these moments are. They are (1) the cut stroke at tennis, when the striker wins chase one and two on the floor; (2) the successful drive at golf, when the globe is despatched on a journey of 180 yards; (3) a crack to square-leg off a half-volley just outside the legs. When once the sensation has been realised by any happy mortal, he is almost entitled to chant in a minor key a ‘Nunc Dimittis,’ to feel that the supreme moment has come, and that he has not lived in vain.

After what has been said in the foregoing chapter we shall here only touch upon the cricket of the past in so far as seems necessary to make this dissertation on batting tolerably complete, and shall then proceed to discuss the principles and science of the art as it now exists.

The shape of the bat in the year 1746—which may be taken as a beginning, for it was in that year that the first score of a match was printed and handed down to posterity, at any rate in Lillywhite’s ‘Scores and Biographies’—resembled a thick crooked stick more than a modern bat.

From the shape of the bat, obviously adapted to meet the ball when moving along the ground, one may infer that the bowlers habitually delivered a style of ball we now call a ‘sneak.’ How long this system of bowling remained in vogue cannot exactly be told. The famous William Beldham, who was born in 1766, and lived for nearly one hundred years, is reported by Nyren to have said that when he was a boy nearly all bowling was fast and along the ground. As long as this was the case it is probable that the bat was nothing but a club, for if the ball never left the ground the operative part of the bat would naturally be at the very bottom, as is usual in clubs. The renowned Tom Walker was the earliest lob bowler; he probably took to the style late in life, or about the year 1800, and several bowlers, notably the great E. H. Budd, raised the arm slightly; but it is believed that the first genuine round-arm bowlers were William Lillywhite and James Broadbridge, both of Sussex, who first bowled the new style in 1827. That year was from this cause a year of revolution in cricket, and the shape of the modern bat dates from that period. As a rule, up to the year 1800 the style of batting was back. William Fennex is supposed to have been the inventor of forward play, and Beldham reports a saying of one Squire Paulett, who was watching Fennex play: ‘You do frighten me there, jumping out of your ground.’ The great batsmen of the early era of cricket were Lord Frederick Beauclerk, Mr. Budd, Beldham, Bentley, Osbaldeston, William Ward, Beagley, William Lambert, Jem Broadbridge, W. Hooker, Saunders, and Searle. The great skill of these players, when opposed to under-hand bowling, was what determined the Sussex players to alter the style of bowling, and, indeed, it is generally the fact that too great abundance of runs raises questions as to the desirability of altering rules.

After the year 1827 the shape of the bat became very like what it is now, but it was much heavier in the blade and thinner in the handle, which seems to indicate that the play was mostly of the forward driving style, and the great exponent of this method of play was the renowned Fuller Pilch. Anyone who has the opportunity of handling a bat of this period will find that its weight renders it inconvenient for cutting, but suitable for forward play. The change from under-hand bowling to round-arm having been effected by slow developments makes it probable that the style of play was generally forward until the under-hand bowling was altogether superseded by round-arm. Some bowlers followed the new order of things by changing from under to round-arm. Round-arm bowling was at first less accurate than under-hand, and consequently all-round hitting greatly developed; and we find Felix, the father of cutting, who began play in 1828, chiefly renowned for this hit. Scoring greatly diminished when round-arm bowling was thoroughly established, and increased again as grounds got better.

Judging from the scores of that day, the best bat in England from 1827 to 1850 was Fuller Pilch, and his scoring would compare favourably with that of nearly all modern players till 1874, with the exception of W. G. Grace. He was a tall man, and used to smother the ball by playing right out forward.

The principle on which his whole play was founded was evidently to get at the pitch and take care of the ball before breaks, bumps, and shooters had time to work their devilries. In order to carry out this method, he used frequently to leave his ground, and consequently the famous Wm. Clarke always found Pilch a harder nut to crack than any of his other contemporaries.

Clarke’s slow balls tolerably well up were met by Pilch, who left his ground and drove him forward with a straight bat. His master appears to have been the great Sam Redgate, who was fast and ripping, and who on one occasion got him out for a pair of spectacles, while, on the other hand, twice in his life he got over 100 runs against Wm. Lillywhite’s bowling, considered in those days to be an extraordinary feat. After Pilch, Joseph Guy, of Nottingham, and E. G. Wenman, of Kent, were considered the best; but several—C. G. Taylor, Mynn, Felix, and Marsden, for example—scored largely, and they all passed through a golden age of bowling, namely, about 1839, when Lillywhite, Redgate, Mynn, Cobbett, and Hillyer all flourished, to say nothing of Sir F. Bathurst, Tom Barker, and others.

From the year 1855, when Fuller Pilch left off play, to the year 1868, when W. G. Grace burst on the world with a lustre that no previous batsman had ever approached, there was, nevertheless, a grand array of batsmen—among professionals, Hayward, Carpenter, Parr, Daft, Caffyn, Mortlock, and Julius Cæsar; and among amateurs, Hankey, F. H. Norman, C. G. Lane, C. G. Lyttelton, Mitchell, Lubbock, Buller, V. E. Walker, and Maitland. These are a few of the great names. They are, however, surrounded by several almost as renowned, such as Stephenson, T. Humphrey, Hearne, Cooper, Burbidge, Griffith, and others; all these, we think, made this era of the game productive of more exciting cricket than has been known since. It may seem odd, but the overpowering genius of W. G. Grace after this time somewhat spoilt the excitement of the game. His side was never beaten. Crowds thronged to see him play, all bowling was alike to him, and the record of Gloucestershire cricket, champion county for some time through his efforts, is the only instance of one man practically making an eleven for several years. The other Gloucestershire players will be the first to acknowledge the truth of this. Gloucestershire rose with a bound into the highest rank among counties when W. G. Grace attained his position amongst batsmen, a head and shoulders above any other cricketer. In his prime Gloucestershire challenged and on one occasion defeated England; when he declined, Gloucestershire declined; in his old age she shows signs of renewing her youth, for which all credit is due to young Townsend, Jessop, Champain, and Board. To return to the period between 1855 and 1868: the greater equality of players made the matches more exciting and established a keener because more evenly balanced rivalry. The grounds were not so true as those of to-day, and the matches were not so numerous; consequently cricketers were not so frequently worn out by the wear and tear of long fielding and days and nights of travel as they are now. The long individual scores having been less in number and at longer intervals, the few great innings were more vividly stamped on the memory, and it is doubtful if even the modern 200 runs per innings will survive as historical facts longer than Hankey’s famous innings of 70 against the Players on Lord’s, Daft’s 118 in North v South on the same ground, and Hayward’s 112 against Gentlemen, also on Lord’s.

The bowling during this period was generally fast or medium, varied by lobs, but of genuine slow round, like that of Peate, Buchanan, Alfred Shaw, and Tyler, there was hardly any in first-class matches. To fast bowling runs come quicker than they do to slow; consequently the game was of more interest to the ordinary spectator, and there was none of that painful slowness, in consequence of the extraordinary accuracy of modern slower bowling, that is so common now, and helps to produce so many drawn matches. Though now, in the year 1897, the average bowling pace is slower than it was in the sixties, it is nevertheless faster than it was in the seventies. The professionals had literally only one genuine slow round-arm bowler in those days—George Bennett, of Kent—and of course this fact accounted largely for the batting style of the period. Wickets being often rough, the most paying length for fast bowling was naturally that length which gave the ground most chance, and prevented the smothering style of play—a little shorter than the blind spot, compelling back play over the crease, instead of forward play. The best batsmen were great masters of this style of play, with which the name of Carpenter is strongly identified. To modern players the sight of Carpenter or Daft dropping down on a dead shooter from a bowler of the pace of George Freeman or Jackson was a wonderful one; but it is rapidly becoming a memory only, for in these days a shooter may be said not to exist. Now, in 1897, a wonderful feature of our great fast bowlers—pre-eminently Richardson—is not that they bowl straighter than Freeman or Jackson, but that they never bowl a ball on the legs or outside the legs. The result is that orthodox leg hitting, and in particular the smite to long-leg with a horizontal bat, and much nearer the ground than a square-leg hit, is never seen. During the entire progress of a match nowadays, between Notts and Lancashire, or Yorkshire and Notts, the unhappy batsman will not get a single ball outside his legs to hit. So great is the accuracy of the bowling, that over after over will go by, and not even a ball on his legs will soothe his careworn and anxious brain. This accurate bowling has caused another change in the way of batting. As no ball is bowled on the leg side at all, so it consequently follows there is no fieldsman on the on side except a forward short-leg and a deep field. The batsman therefore waits till the bowler slightly overtosses a ball—whether pitched outside the off stump or on the wicket he cares not; he sweeps it round to square leg, where no fieldsman stands, and he makes four runs by the hit. In other words, he deliberately ‘pulls’ it. Twenty years ago, on seeing such a hit, the famous Bob Grimston would have shown his emphatic disapproval in a characteristic manner. But the match must be won by runs; to attain this object the ball must be hit where there is no field, and it is useless to waste energy by hitting the ball to every fieldsman on the off side.

W. W. Read, Stoddart, and F. S. Jackson are all masters of this stroke, which revives the drooping attention of the crowd and relieves the monotony of the scorers. To all fast bowling the cut is a hit largely in vogue, and the perfection to which some players arrive with regard to this stroke is a joy to themselves and to the spectators. It is, of course, as will be explained later on, much easier to cut fast bowling than slow, and the heroes of the cut whenever fast bowling is on are, and were, always numerous.

The champion cutter of old times, by universal testimony, was C. G. Lyttelton, whose hits in the direction of point are remembered by spectators to this day. Tom Humphrey, of Surrey, was another great cutter; and there was a player, not of the first rank, who was famous for this hit—namely, E. P. Ash, of the Cambridge University Eleven, 1865 and 1866.

The five champion bats of this era—1855 to 1868—were, in the opinion of the writer, Hayward, Carpenter, Parr, Daft, and R. A. H. Mitchell. The scoring of Hayward and Carpenter between 1860 and 1864 was very large; both excelled on rough wickets, and it is on these wickets that genius exhibits itself.

In all times of cricket, until the appearance of W. G. Grace, there has been a large predominance of skill amongst the professionals as compared with the amateurs. We are talking now of batting; in bowling the difference has been still more to the advantage of the professionals. The Gentlemen won a match now and then, but their inferiority was very great. W. G. Grace altered all this; and from 1868 to 1880 the Gentlemen had a run of success which will probably never be seen again. It was entirely owing to him, though the Players were astonishingly weak in batting from 1870 to 1876; but nothing could stop the crack, and his scoring in the two annual contests was simply miraculous.

We will now attempt to lay before our readers a more detailed exposition of the principles which ought to govern sound batting, and a careful observance of which is found in the method of every sound player. The first consideration is the choice of a bat, and as to this each individual must determine for himself what is the most suitable. It is probable that a strong man will prefer a heavier bat than a batsman of less muscular calibre. In any case the style of play is an important consideration, but the secret of all batting, and especially hitting, is correct timing; this is a quality which cannot be taught, but this is what makes a weak man hit harder than a strong man—the one knows exactly the fraction of a second when all that is muscular, all that he has got in wrist and shoulders, must be applied, the other does not.

At the beginning of this century, when the bowling was fast under-hand, the bat used was of a style suitable for meeting such balls—namely, a heavy blade with great weight at the bottom; for, as already mentioned, the bowling being straight and frequently on the ground, driving was the common stroke, and for this a heavy blade is best adapted. So now, if a player finds that he does not possess a wrist style of play, but a forward driving game, he will probably choose a heavier bat than the wrist-player; for a forward drive is more of a body stroke—that is, the whole muscular strength of the shoulders and back is brought into use, and the ball, being fully met, gives more resistance to the bat than a ball which is cut. This, perhaps, needs a little explanation. Just consider for a moment, and realise the fact that a tolerably fast ball, well up and quite straight, has been delivered. Such a ball is just the ball that ought to be driven. The batsman lunges forward and meets it with very nearly the centre of his bat, just after the ball has landed on the ground, at the time, therefore, when, if there is any spin on it, it is going at its fastest pace. Obviously, therefore, when the pace and weight of the ball are taken into consideration, there is great resistance given to the lunge forward of the bat. The heavier the blade of the bat the better is it able to withstand and resist the contrary motion of the ball. As a rule, players are not equally good both at the forward driving and the wrist-playing games. Some few excel in both, but usually batsmen have preferences. Now let us examine the cut—of course we are now discussing a ball on the off side of the wicket. A wrist-player will cut a ball that the exponent of the driving style would drive, and therefore meet with the full, or nearly full, bat. The cutter does not meet the ball, for the ball has gone past him before he hits it. Take a common long-hop on the off side. The driver meets it with a more or less horizontal bat, and hits it forward between cover-point and mid-off, or cover-point and point, thereby resisting the ball and sending it almost in an opposite direction to its natural course. He hits the ball some time before it arrives on a level with his body, while the cutter, on the other hand, does not hit the ball so soon; in fact, he hits it when it is about a foot in front of the line of the wicket, sometimes almost on a level with the wicket. He then, with his wrist, hits it in the direction of third man. He does not meet the ball at all, but he takes advantage of the natural pace of the ball and, as it were, steers it from the normal course towards long-stop, in the direction of third man. The whole essence of the distinction lies in this fact, that in driving the ball is met directly by the bat; in cutting this is not so; but the ball is, as it were, helped on, only in a different direction. The faster the bowling, the harder, therefore, will be the cut. The reader will at once see from this that the wrist-player will probably prefer a lighter bat than the driving batsman, and a bat that comes up well, as it is called, or is more evenly balanced.

We will now suppose a batsman properly equipped in pads and, at any rate, one glove on the right hand, and with a bat to his taste; our next inquiry must be as to his position at the wicket. He must remember that, after having chosen one position—the most natural and convenient to him—he ought to adopt that position invariably; not alter it from day to day. You never see any material alteration in the position of any great player, and if anyone takes the very necessary trouble to find out the easiest position, he will be a foolish man who varies it, as any change must be for the worse. There is an old engraving, often seen, of a match between Surrey and Kent about the year 1840. Old William Lillywhite is about to bowl, and Fuller Pilch is about to play. The attitude and position of Pilch were taken by the author of ‘The Cricket Field’ as a model; and there is no objection to be raised to the position: it is a fair assumption that it was the natural and most convenient position for Fuller Pilch himself. The author, however, goes on to say that this is substantially the attitude of every good batsman. To this we can only rejoin, that out of the thousands of batsmen who have played cricket, it would be difficult to find two who stand exactly alike. To begin with, some stand with their feet close together, others have them apart; some indeed so far apart that it almost seems as if they were trying to solve the problem of how much length of ground can be covered between the two feet. Some stand with the right foot just on the leg side of a straight line drawn between the leg-stump of the batsman’s wicket and the off stump of the opposite wicket; others stand with the right foot twelve inches or thereabouts from the leg-stump in the direction of short-leg. Players who adopt this position run a risk of being bowled off their legs, one would think; but they ought to know best; we should not, however, advise a beginner to adopt this attitude. W. G. Grace faces the ball, and there is no intervening space between his hands whilst holding the bat and his legs. If you look at the position of Pilch, you will see a considerable interval of distance from the back of his left hand and the right leg. There were three notable batsmen—namely, A. N. Hornby, W. Yardley, and F. E. R. Fryer—who used to throw their left leg right across the wicket so as almost to hide it from the view of the bowler.

Fig. 2.—W. G. Grace ready to receive the ball.

Mr. A. J. Webbe stoops very much in his position, while some players stand almost at full height; notably is this the case with W. G. Grace. There are, as far as we know, only three rules which must be observed in taking up a position. The first is (1) stand so that no part of the right foot is in front of the wicket or outside the crease; (2) stand in the attitude most natural and convenient to yourself; (3) do not place the toes of the right foot materially nearer the wicket than the heel. The first rule is essential, for the good player never ought to move his right foot to fast bowling. If, therefore, any part is in front of the wicket, he runs a risk of being leg before wicket when the ball beats the bat; if his foot is outside the crease he is in danger of being stumped; and if the toes of the right foot are materially nearer the wicket than the heel, he will find himself in a very awkward position, unable to get over the ball. Subject to these rules, the batsman takes any position he pleases. The bat should be held firmly with the right hand and loosely or comparatively loosely with the left; neither hand should be tightly clenched. The late Mr. Wm. Ward spoke the truth when he told a sculptor who had made a statue of a batsman at guard that he was no cricketer—the wrists were too rigid and hands too much clenched. It seems that most players lift their bat from the block-hole while the bowler is running prior to delivering the ball, and [fig. 2] shows W. G. Grace standing just before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand. His whole position is changed from what it was a few seconds before. His first position before the bowler has begun his run, is given in the sketch at [the head of the chapter]. The [figure here] shows him to be standing almost at his full height, his bat suspended in the air, and his weight if anything thrown rather on his right foot. Most players, however, take up a position and stick to it, except that they raise the bat slightly just before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand. Nature is the best guide. Let every player therefore find out the easiest attitude and always adopt it.

We will now consider the manner in which the bat should be held by the hands. This varies in a few trifling particulars with different players: but in very rare instances is there any substantial difference. The muscles ought not to be in a state of rigidity, and whilst the batsman is standing in position waiting for the ball the bat should be held firmly, but not by any means tightly. The batsman cannot depend on any particular ball coming to him; consequently, while the ball is in the air, his mind has to be made up; he has then to set himself for a stroke determined absolutely by the pace, length, and direction of the ball, and there are only a few seconds for him both to make up his mind and make the stroke. There is, no doubt, a scientific, anatomical reason why quickness of hand and muscles is incompatible with rigidity of muscle, but quite practicable when the muscles and sinews are in a natural and easy state of elasticity; but any man will find this out for himself if he begins to play. Hold the bat, then, loosely with the left hand, nearly at the top of the handle, with the back of the hand turned full towards the bowler, the fingers folded round the handle, and the thumb lying easily between the first and second fingers. The right hand is fixed exactly contrary to the left as far as the back and fingers are concerned, for the back is turned away from the bowler and the fingers are turned towards him. The thumb lies across and rests on the top of the first finger, touching the finger about a quarter of an inch from the top on the inside. When any sort of hit or block is made the bat at that instant is held tightly, and both thumbs are slightly shifted so as to lie on and clutch, not the fingers that hold the handle, but the handle itself. Whether the hands are high up on the handle or low down near the blade depends very much on the style of the player. There is no rule on the subject, but we think the old motto, ‘In medio tutissimus ibis,’ is good to observe, and the middle of the handle is, on the whole, the safest. Some players, however—notably Mr. Frank Penn, in his day a tremendous off-hitter and altogether a grand bat—hold the bat with the knuckle of the first finger of the right hand almost touching the top of the blade; and big hitters, rather of the slogging order, as a rule hold the bat higher up, with the left hand almost on the top; in fact, they adopt what may be called the ‘long-handled style.’ In holding the bat, however, follow the precept given before—namely, ascertain the most natural method, and cling to it for your cricketing life.

The actual position at the wicket is the same for both slow bowling and fast, with perhaps this trifling difference, that the batsman ought not to stand so firmly on the right foot to slow as he would to fast. The reason of this will be explained hereafter, when we consider the right method of playing slow bowling. At present we will confine our attention to playing fast bowling, and let us assume that the batsman has taken his natural position with his right toe clear of the wicket and that a fast right-handed bowler is bowling with hand raised above the shoulder and over the wicket. This is the method of bowling most in vogue in these days; in fact, the strict round-arm bowling round the wicket, with a curl from leg, is for some inscrutable reason now comparatively rare. Why this is so nobody can tell, and we believe that some of the present gigantic scoring is partly owing to the absence of this sort of bowling.

However, the popular method will be the first we shall try and instruct the batsman to meet successfully, and we will suppose that the wicket is fast and true. We will begin with laying down one or two rules that must rigorously be observed by every player if he wishes to become a first-rate cricketer. (1) Never move the right foot when playing fast bowling except to cut, or when you want to pull a very short ball. Nobody will ever become a first-rate player if he does not strictly observe this rule. The spot of ground on which the right foot rests is the vantage-point from which every batsman has to judge of the direction of the ball, and if he shifts away from this, all sorts of faults will crop up, chief of which will be an inability to play with a straight or perpendicular bat. He will also, if he moves his right foot towards short-leg—which is the commonest form this vice takes—find that he will drive balls with a crooked bat to the off, when from a proper position he would have hit them on the on side. He will also find himself further removed from the off side, and quite unable, therefore, to play with a straight bat on the off stump. These are a few of the faults that come from not keeping the right foot still. All coaches know that this habit of moving the right leg is the fault most commonly found in young players, and it is most difficult to remove. This arises from the fact that the ball is a hard substance; the beginner naturally dislikes being hit anywhere on the body, and his first and most powerful instinct is therefore to run away. But many instincts are base in their nature, and the young cricketer must realise in this, as in other cases, that the old Adam must be put away and the new man put on. He will find, as he improves, that in these days of true wickets he will not often get hit; the bat will, as a rule, protect him, and if he is hit anywhere on or below the knee the pads will perform a similar function. If he does get hit, well, he must grin and bear it, and try to emulate the heroism of some giants of old in ante-pad-and-glove days, of one of whom, the famous Tom Walker, we read that he used to rub his bleeding fingers in the dust, after the Mold of those days had performed a tattoo on his fingers. (2) Never pull a straight fast ball to leg unless it is very short and you are well in. If you miss it, you are either bowled out or else you run a great chance of being given out leg before wicket. The dead true wickets of these days have no doubt made many more batsmen proficient at this stroke, but still it is sound to remember that you must have got thoroughly used to the pace of the ground before you try this stroke. Ranjitsinhji’s skill at this stroke is marvellous, but few have such supple wrists. (3) Never slog wildly at a ball well outside the off stump, but of a good length. This hit also may occasionally come off, but there is no trap more frequently laid by modern bowlers. Attewell, for example, bowls it so frequently that ‘the Attewell trap’ is becoming a stock phrase, and a little consideration will show how dangerous a stroke it is. A good length ball is one that it is impossible to smother at the pitch, and if it is outside the off stump it has to be played with a more or less horizontal bat, if the slog is attempted. What must be the consequence? The ball is not smothered, consequently any break, hang, or rise that the bowler or the ground may impart to the ball must almost inevitably produce a bad stroke, frequently terminating in a catch somewhere on the off side. The proper way to play such a ball will be discussed later on, but under no circumstances must the ball be hit at wildly at the pitch. (4) Keep the left shoulder and elbow well forward when playing the ball. It is more important in back play than forward, because in forward play the ball is, or ought to be, smothered at the pitch, and the value of the left shoulder being forward is that you are much more master of the ball if it should happen to bump or hang; besides which, the bat cannot easily be held straight unless this rule is observed, neither can the full face of the bat be presented to the ball. In the case of the shooter, or ball which keeps low after the pitch, the movement of the left shoulder towards the left or leg side will inevitably make it more difficult to ground or lower the bottom of the bat.

The art of defence—which is the style of play adapted to stop the ball, as distinguished from the offensive method, where the object is to hit the ball so as to obtain runs—may be roughly divided into forward play and back play. The object of all forward play is to smother the ball at its pitch; that is to say, the contact of the bat with the ball must be almost simultaneous with the contact of the ball with the ground. The player must reach out with a straight bat as near to the pitch of the ball as is possible. It stands to reason that a tall man will reach out much further than a short man, and a bowler, if he is wise, will bowl shorter-pitched balls to a tall man than he will to a short. Let anybody take a bat and reach forward as far as he can, keeping the bat, when it touches the ground at the end of the stroke, slanting so that the top of the handle is nearer to the bowler than the bottom of the blade. There comes a distance when this slant cannot be maintained, and the bat has either to be held in a perpendicular position or with the handle sloping behind the blade and pointing towards the wicket-keeper. Here, then, we come to an invariable rule, viz. never play forward to a ball so that you are unable to keep the bat at the proper slant, with the handle of the bat further forward than the blade. Also, let every player remember that the left foot must be placed as far forward as the bottom of the bat, and all play, whether forward or back, is really between the two feet, or, more strictly speaking, in forward play the bat must not be put further forward than the left foot, and in back play not further back than the level of the right foot.

Some old players may very likely not agree with this precept, and players of the date of Fuller Pilch constantly had their bat a great deal further out than the left foot, which used not to be thrown out so far. Mr. C. F. Buller, again, in his day a magnificent bat, used to play forward in the same style. But let anyone take a bat and throw out his left foot to the fullest extent; he will find that the bat ought not to go any further if the proper slant be maintained, and he will find also that he has greater command over the ball in this position than in Fuller Pilch’s. Look at the position in [fig. 3], and you will see that the bat has come down strictly on a level with the left foot. That a greater command is obtained by this method cannot be proved in writing, but anyone who tries the old and the new style will find that the new is preferable as far as command of the ball is concerned. We are not implying that the great players of the old style were bad players because they played in the contrary way, for great players rise above rules and play by the force of their greatness; but we are chiefly concerned with the ordinary mortal, and our advice is, throw the left leg right out and play to the level of the left foot. Some good players maintain that, as the shooter comes so seldom nowadays, it is wasting power to ground the bat when playing forward, it being sufficient if it is placed according to circumstances, varying with the state of the ground. This is no doubt true when the wickets are hard, but if the miraculous should happen and a shooter come, the batsman is out, and on soft wickets they still come. [Fig. 3] illustrates grounding the bat in forward play, and [fig. 14], at the end of this chapter, illustrates playing forward without grounding.

Fig. 3. —Forward Play.

The ball which is too short for the player to play forward to with his bat at the proper slant must be played back and not forward. To be a good judge of a ball’s length is a source of strength in any player, and a strictly accurate player seldom makes the mistake of playing forward when he ought to play back, and vice versâ. In cricket, however, poor human nature is apt to err oftener perhaps than in most walks of life, and the question may now be asked, What is the batsmen to do when he finds himself playing forward, but unable to smother the ball at the pitch? He has made a mistake; how is he to get out of the difficulty? Let it be remembered that we are at present only concerned with a fast and true wicket, the play on a slow tricky wicket being so different that it will be noticed separately.

Let us assume, then, that the batsman is forward in the position here shown, but that he finds he cannot reach far enough to smother the ball at the pitch. On a fast wicket there is no time to rectify the error by getting back and playing the ball in the orthodox manner; and yet the batsman must do something or he will be bowled out. There are three courses open to him. (1) He must trust to Providence and a good eye, and take a slog, or adopt what a humorous cricketer once called ‘the closed-eye blow,’ in which case, if hit at all, the ball will probably be hit into the air, but perhaps out of harm’s way, or, as is quite as likely, into a fielder’s hands. The famous E. M. Grace, who is blessed with as good an eye as any cricketer, frequently plays this stroke with success. (2) He may adopt what lawyers would call the cy-près doctrine; in other words, though he ought to play forward and smother a ball, he may at the same time play forward and not smother the ball, which may hit the bat nevertheless. The dangers of this play are obvious to every cricketer, for it leaves him at the mercy of the ball that bumps, hangs, or turns. Modern grounds are so good that this stroke is far safer than it used to be; for in the majority of instances the ball comes straight on, and only the experienced observer sees that the batsman comes off with flying colours owing to the excellence of the ground rather than to his skill. (3) He may, after he has got forward and perceived his error, effect a compromise and perform what is sometimes called a ‘half-cock stroke.’ This stroke does not require a violent shuffling about of the legs and feet, which are placed as they would be while playing forward, but, instead of the arms and hands reaching forward, they are brought back so as to hold the bat quite straight over, or a little in front of, the popping crease. This position and style of play may be observed in [fig. 4], and it is worth a careful examination; for, in our opinion, it is the proper way for a man to extricate himself out of the difficulty he has been led into by misjudging the length of the ball. Nobody can play a ball in this way more skilfully than W. G. Grace, and the figure shows him in the act of thus playing to a ball which is on the blind spot—that is, either adapted for forward or back play, and therefore eminently qualified for over the crease play, a compromise between the two. The merit of this style of play is that it gives the batsman time to watch the ball, and if it should bump or turn he may alter his tactics to meet it, whereas by the second method his play is fixed and cannot be altered, and the awkward hanging, bumping, or twisting ball beats him. Practise by all means this half-cock stroke; on fast grounds it may be found more useful than even the orthodox back play; for in back play, unless the ball is very short, the pace of the ground may beat a man, especially when he first goes in and has not got accustomed to the pace. The golden rules to guide the beginner in playing forward may be very briefly stated. (1) Play forward when the ball is fairly well pitched up, but remember that the faster the bowling and the faster the wicket the more frequently will forward play be the safer style of play. (2) Keep the bat quite straight and the left shoulder and elbow well forward. (3) Get as near to the pitch of the ball as possible. (4) Do not put the bat further forward than the level of the left foot, which ought to be thrown right forward.

Fig. 4.—‘Half-cock’ or over the crease play.

It is often a doubtful question whether a straight drive forward is what is technically a drive or hit, or mere forward play. Of course, when the batsman is well set he may hit as hard as he can to a straight half-volley; but there are many players whose forward play is so powerful that it practically amounts to a drive. Stoddart’s forward play frequently makes mid-off tremble, and the same used to be said of Ford and several other players.

But to the beginner again: until you are well set, do not let all your strength go out to any straight ball; if you do, you will lose more than you gain. On Lord’s, for instance, a hit over the ropes can only realise four, the same as a hit under the ropes; you will very likely, therefore, score as many for a straight hard bit of forward play as you will for a regular swipe.

When the art of back play to fast bowling is discussed, the converse of what has been said about forward play is true, viz. that as the faster the ground the more balls ought to be played forward, so under the same circumstances will fewer balls be played back. As a general rule, it may be observed that strong-wristed players play more back than batsmen who play chiefly with their arms and shoulders. A weak-wristed player playing back on a very fast wicket will frequently be late, and either miss the ball altogether or else half-stop it, in which latter case it may dribble into the wicket. The value of a strong wrist is that the batsman can dab down on a ball and do the feat in a far shorter space of time than a shoulder-and-arm player. The difference between a strong wrist and a weak wrist in playing back is a little similar to what is observed in an altogether different line. Look at a great underbred cart-horse with a leg like a weaver’s beam, and then look at the real thoroughbred with its slim proportions; at first sight it appears that a kick from the cart-horse will inflict much greater damage than a kick from the thoroughbred. People who are learned in horses, however, inform us that the contrary is the case, and the greater weight of the leg of the cart-horse is more than counterbalanced by the far more rapid and sudden movement of the thoroughbred. The bat wielded by a player with a strong wrist goes through the air like lightning, and comes down on the ball far quicker and harder than a ponderous stroke from the arms and shoulders of the batsman with no wrist action. Perhaps the champion back-player of the century was Robert Carpenter, of Cambridgeshire and United All England renown, whose back play on Lord’s to the terrific fast bowling of Jackson and Tarrant will never be forgotten by those who beheld it.

Fig. 5.—‘Back play’ to a bumping ball.

A back style of play does not smother the ball at the pitch, but plays at the ball when its course after contact with the ground is finally determined, and a careful watching of the ball is therefore of the highest importance. It is bad ever to assume that, because a ball has pitched on a line with the off stump, therefore you are safe if you protect the off stump only, on the assumption that the ball is going on straight. The ball may break back, and in order to ascertain that it has done so, and to shift your bat to guard the middle and leg stumps, you must carefully watch the ball. Apart from breaking or curling, the ball may shoot or bump; in either case the batsman has only his eye to guide him, and the wrist has to obey the eye. [Fig. 5] represents ‘back play’ to a bumping ball. Sometimes a ball may be so short that if the batsman has got his eye well in, and is thoroughly accustomed to the pace of the ground, he may by a turn of the wrist, keeping the left shoulder and elbow well forward, steer the ball through the slips. The beginner, however, must be careful to attempt nothing but the orthodox forms of play; he is not W. G. Grace or Shrewsbury and such-like, who, in their turn, do not attempt exceptional feats until they are well set. The ball ought to be met with the full face of the bat, and under no circumstances ought the ball to be allowed to hit the bat, which must be the propeller, not the propelled. Mind to respect and carefully follow out the two great commandments—never to move the right foot, and to keep the left shoulder forward and left elbow up. The number of hours that a youngster has to be bowled at before that fatal right foot can be relied upon to keep still is prodigious; but the bat cannot be straight if the body is gravitating towards the direction of short leg while the ball is in the air. To a very short ball different methods of play may be adopted. The one alluded to above, the steering of the ball through the slips, is not often attempted, and a safer method would be to try and come heavily down on the ball and force it past the fields for two or three runs. This is a safe stroke, much safer to adopt than the other. The bat must be straight, and it is wise not to let your whole strength go out, for one or two contingencies may arise for which the player ought to be prepared. In the first place, the ball may shoot, and the crisis must be met accordingly. Now, if the whole of the strength and all the faculties of a batsman are bent towards the carrying out of one particular stroke, there will be no reserve left to provide for any other contingency, for the muscles will be wholly set for one stroke, and one stroke only, and the player will infallibly be late if the ball should keep a little low. Of course, on a great many grounds in these days the chances of such contingencies are reduced almost to a minimum on account of the excellence of modern wickets; but still we have to inform the reader what may happen, not only what happens commonly. Some few players rise superior to grounds, and though of course they can get many more runs on easy wickets, still they show good cricket when the wicket is in favour of the bowler.

The prevalence of easy wickets is not, in our opinion, an unmixed blessing. You may go and watch a match when the ground is as hard as iron and as true as truth, and see a magnificent innings played by some batsman. The same player on a bowler’s wicket is not less uncomfortable than the proverbial fish out of water. A man may be a lion on a lawn, but a mere pigmy when the ground is not a lawn. There are a great many of these lions on lawns in these days, and to hear them all with one consent begin to make excuse when they have been bowled out on a crumbling wicket is very amusing. The ball hung, or it kept low, or ‘broke back a foot, I assure you, dear boy. W. G. in his best days wouldn’t have been near it.’ In his best days, and almost in his worst, Mr. Grace would have often played it, and so would Steel, Shrewsbury, and one or two others—planets among the stars, to watch whom getting thirty runs out of a total of eighty on a difficult wicket is far more enjoyable to a skilled spectator than to see the hundreds got on ABC wickets. The chances that on a hard smooth wicket the very short ball will do anything abnormal is, nowadays, reduced to a minimum. But still it may happen, and it is therefore wise to have in reserve a little strength and a little elasticity. You can play very hard, nevertheless, and for this hard forcing stroke off a short straight ball W. Yardley, the late B. Pauncefote, H. C. Maul, and F. G. J. Ford have never been surpassed.

The ball most to be dreaded for the forcing stroke is the hanging ball, which stops and does not come on evenly and fast to the bat. The batsman will fail to time the ball, with the almost certain consequence that the bat will go on and the ball will be hit from underneath, and up it will go. The advice that has been given to keep a slight reserve of strength to provide against such contingencies as the hanging ball has the same force now. If you have not altogether let the whole force go out, you will have a better chance of doing the correct thing to a ball of this description—namely, to drop the bat and allow the ball to hit it, the exact opposite of your original intention. This is an exception to the general rule that the bat should hit the ball, and not the ball the bat.

In all cases a quick and correct eye will enable its owner to come out of the difficulty with flying colours, and any rules that may be laid down will be utterly useless to him who puts his bat just where the ball is not, but where his inaccurate eye thinks it is. If a youth with the best intentions, but with a false and crooked eye, after reading and thoroughly comprehending every rule directing how every ball ought to be played, stands up and tries to play cricket, what will be the result? He may even have courageously learnt to pin his right foot firmly to the ground; but, notwithstanding this, the result of his efforts will be that, though all proper and necessary postures may be assumed, he will be bowled out, for the bat, except by a lucky chance, will always be in the wrong place, though held quite straight. If cricket could be played with no ball, the careful eyeless cricketer would shine; but the introduction of that disturbing element dashes all his hopes to the ground.

There is a ball that in these days more frequently than any other succeeds in bowling people out, and that is the familiar ‘tice’ or ‘yorker.’ This is nothing else than a ball right up, that pitches in fact near the block-hole, but is not a full pitch. This ball ought to be met by the bat just when it touches the ground, and the bat ought to come down very heavily on the ball. It is a little difficult to understand why this ball is so frequently fatal, as it comes straight up and only requires a straight bat and correct timing. Probably most batsmen hope that the eagerly-looked-for half-volley has at length come; this induces them to lay themselves out for a smite, and when they see their mistake it is too late to alter the tactics. Others, on the contrary, think that a full-pitch is coming, and advance their bat to meet it; the result is, the ball gets underneath it. In fact, the length of the ball is not correctly judged, and the batsman is caught in two minds. A bowler who is in the habit of sending down ‘yorkers’ is fond of doing so the first ball after a new batsman comes in, and if a batsman is known to be of a nervous temperament there is no better ball to give in the first over. It may be here said, however, that it is next door to impossible to bowl a ‘yorker’ to some batsmen. W. G. Grace, for instance, seems always to be able to make a full-pitch of this ball, and a fourer often results. It is obvious that if a ball pitches near or on a level with the block-hole when the batsman is standing still, it ought to be easy to make it a full-pitch by stepping out to meet it. Mr. Grace does this even to fast bowling.

Having endeavoured to the best of our ability to enunciate a few principles as to defensive tactics, we will now try and discuss offensive tactics, or hitting. A curious feature of the present day is that new hits have come into existence. These have not sprung up because they were not occasionally brought off in earlier days, but formerly when they were the batsman used to apologise to the bowler for having wounded his feelings, and a sort of groan used to be heard all round, as if there had been some gross violation of a cricket commandment. The grounds have improved to such an extent that bowlers have had to resort to new tactics to effect the grand object of all bowlers—namely, to get wickets.

A fast bowler has one system of tactics, a medium and slow bowler another. On hard level wickets a fast bowler in these days is very apt to bowl short on the off stump and try and make the ball bump, and to cram a lot of fields in the slips, while the wicket-keeper stands back. The sort of ball that bowls a man out is frequently a ‘yorker.’ This is not the perfection of bowling, it is a bad style that the modern perfect wicket has caused to come in. A bowler who keeps a splendid length with really scientific methods, like Hearne, has his reward in uncertain weather and on catchy wickets, but the baked smooth wickets of modern-day cricket produce such bowlers as Jessop and Jones the Australian, who mainly bowl for catches in the slips—and who can blame them? Slow bowlers have to sacrifice accuracy and length to get twist or break like Trott, the Australian captain, and Hartley the Oxonian, and Wainwright; this is also because the perfect wickets will not allow the combination of length and break. So the bowlers have to cultivate an abnormal break, which cannot be done without the sacrifice of length.

Fig. 6.—Gunn cutting.

Of all hits, the most fascinating to the intelligent spectator is the cut. This requires a very strong use of the wrist, and, like all wrist strokes, charms the spectator by accomplishing great results at the expense of apparently little effort. Cricket reporters of the present day are very apt to call any hit that goes in any direction between cover-point and long-slip a cut, and thereby make the term include both snicks and off drives. This is a mistake, as nearly every cricketer can sometimes make an off drive, and all can snick the ball, even the worst; indeed, with some it is the only stroke they seem to possess, but there are many who have hardly ever made a genuine cut in their lives. The real genuine cut goes to the left side of point—assuming that point stands on a line with the wicket—it is made with the right leg thrown over, and its severity depends largely on the perfectly correct timing of the ball. The ball is hit when it has reached a point almost on a line with the wicket, and the length of the ball is rather short; if far up, it is a ball to drive and not to cut. The bat should hit the ball slightly on the top, and the most correct cutting makes the ball bound before it gets more than six yards from the player. Figs.[ 6] and [ 7] show Gunn and Shrewsbury in the position proper for cutting. It is a mistake to suppose that the right leg should be thrown over a long way; it is sufficient if the foot be put in front of the off stump. When the player is well in and has thoroughly got the pace of the ground, he very often makes what may be called a clean cut; that is to say, he hits with a bat quite horizontal to the ball, and not over it. This produces a harder hit, as the force is wholly directed towards sending the ball in the proper direction, and not hard on the ground. It is not so safe, because, if the ball should bump, the bat, not being over the ball, may hit its lower side and send it up. Therefore be careful to hit over, and sacrifice some of the severity, if you wish to play a safe game.

Fig. 7.—Shrewsbury cutting.

Some careful players would hit over the ball even after they have scored one hundred runs, and we have never seen Shrewsbury, for instance, cut in any other way. In the figure the ball must be presumed to lie rather low, for it is certain that he is following his invariable custom of getting over the ball. In any case we should never recommend the clean cut to any but the best players, and that only on a perfect wicket and when they are well set. If you are in the position to cut and the ball should bump, it is wise to leave it alone, for the danger of being caught at third man is very great. We have seen lusty hitters get right under a bumping off ball and send it high over third man’s head, but it is a perilous stroke, and is not correct cricket. If the ball, on the other hand, keeps a bit low after the pitch, it is a most effective stroke to come heavily down on it; if the force is put on the ball at the right moment it will go very hard, and may be called a ‘chop.’ Messrs. K. J. Key and O’Brien, who are strong players from every point of view, excel at this stroke, and they hit the ground at the same time as the ball with a great power of wrist. It is useless for anybody to hope to cut well unless he has both a strong wrist and the power of timing.

The question now arises, What is the player with a weak wrist to do with a ball that a strong-wristed man cuts? Some would say that if he cannot cut in the orthodox vigorous way he ought at any rate to go as near to it as he can, and if he cannot make a clean cut for four, at least he should content himself with two. We think, however, there is for such players a more excellent way. In the cut we have been describing the right foot is shifted across: suppose the player now moves his left foot, not across, but simply straight forward to a ball that is in every way suitable to cut; let him then wait till the ball has gone just past his body, and then hit it with the full force of his arms and shoulders and with as much wrist as he has got. The ball will naturally go in the same direction as the orthodox cut, and quite as hard. The player must stand upright, and must especially be careful not to hit the ball before it has passed his body. If he does this off a fast long hop, he will bring off a vulgar sort of stroke, which cannot go so hard as the ball hit later, because there is greater resistance to the bat; in the correct way the bat hits the ball partly behind it and, as it were, helps it on in its natural course, whereas at the incorrect moment the ball has to be thumped in order to send it in an exactly opposite direction from that in which it is going before meeting the bat.

In our judgment coaches ought to teach all beginners this stroke whenever they find weakness of wrist. The body is put in such a way as to compensate for a weak wrist, and if anyone takes up this position with a bat in his hand he will find that the stroke partakes of the qualities of a drive more than of a cut. Young players are generally rather impatient, and very apt to hit the ball before it reaches the level of the body, and this fault must be removed.

Fig. 8.—Old-fashioned sweep to leg. (Gunn.)

Let us now discuss the leg hit—most glorious of hits—where every muscle of the body may safely be exerted; for if you miss it the ball is not straight, so you cannot be bowled, and the harder the hit the less chance is there of being caught, at any rate in first-class matches in these days of boundaries. Bowling having become more accurate, there is not half so much leg hitting now as there used to be, and in the present day you hardly ever hear of a batsman known for his hitting as George Parr was formerly, as also Mr. R. A. H. Mitchell, and several others.

There are plenty of men who can hit to leg, but in these days they do not often get a chance, and it is a rare event nowadays to see any fieldsman standing at the old-fashioned position of long-leg. There is generally a field stationed against the ropes to save four byes when a fast bowler is on, who can also stop leg snicks from going to the ropes; but, to carry the illustration farther, as in leg hitting there is no George Parr, so in fielding at long leg there is no Jack Smith of Cambridge. It is rapidly dying out. In a match which we ourselves saw at Sheffield in 1887, between Notts and Yorkshire, for a whole day and a half there was not one genuine leg smack except off lobs, and at no time was a field placed there. This is hard for the batsman, but it is even harder for the spectators, who love to see a grand square-leg hit. George Parr’s leg hit, for which he was unrivalled, was the sweep to long-leg off a shortish ball that many modern players would lie back to and play off their legs. George Parr would extend his left leg straight forward, and sweeping round with a horizontal bat, send the ball very hard, and frequently along the ground. This hit has really totally disappeared in these days. When George Parr played he used to punish terrifically bowlers like Martingell, of Surrey and Kent, who relied on a curl from leg and bowled round the wicket—a most effective style, naturally producing, however, many leg balls. It is all the other way now, and it may be taken for certain that for every leg ball you see now in first-class matches you saw ten or twenty in former days. However, young players in schools are certain to get plenty of convenient balls to hit, so they must remember to throw out the left leg and hit as near to the pitch as possible and as hard as they can. The ball may start in the direction of square-leg, but its natural bias after it has gone a certain distance will be towards long-leg or behind the wicket, and the fieldsman must remember this, or he will find the ball fly away behind him on his right side. Be very careful never to try this stroke to balls that are on the wicket, or even nearer the wicket than four inches at least. If it is within that distance it is a ball to drive, and not to hit to leg. [Fig. 8] shows Gunn carrying out this stroke, and the batsman may put his left leg in front of the wicket if he is certain the ball did not pitch straight. This hit ought only to be attempted when the ball is short of a half-volley. If the ball is a half-volley or at any rate well up, the proper hit is in front of the wicket or to square-leg, and with a vertical, not a horizontal bat. In this hit, how far to throw out the left leg depends on the length of the ball; the batsman may even sometimes have to draw it back a little and stand upright and face the ball if it is well up. There is no hit that can be made harder than this to square-leg, and there have been many records of gigantic square-leg hits. Some hitters have sent the ball as far by the lofty smack straight over the bowler’s head, but more batsmen can generally hit farther to square-leg, and only a short time ago Mr. Key sent a ball right out of the Oval. In years gone by Lord Cobham and R. A. H. Mitchell were renowned for their square-leg hitting, as was Carpenter also. There is no very special rule to be observed for this hit, except that the ball must be on the legs or just outside them, and not straight, or within four or five inches of the leg stump. If the ball is tolerably wide on the leg the bat will be more horizontal as it hits the ball, which will in consequence go sharper, and vice versâ, if the ball is just crooked enough to hit; it will, when hit, go more straight, and be called by the cricket reporters an ‘on drive,’ though it is a square-leg hit. [Fig. 9] is supposed to represent W. G. Grace hitting to square-leg, and the reader must assume that the fieldsman is running to field the ball going on a line or in front of the wicket, and not behind it.

Fig. 9.—Square-leg hit. (W. G. Grace.)

Some players there are who never seem to hit at any ball, but push it all along the ground, and for this purpose they get farther over the ball, and simply use the weight of the body, using the arms and shoulders but little.

This is an eminently safe game, but to these players we would only observe that they deprive themselves of the glorious sensation, alluded to at the beginning of this chapter, which comes when a ball is hit with all the force that nature can supply and a fine driving bat can supplement. Cricket is a game; the primary object of games is to give pleasure to the players, and it is quite impossible that the same amount of keen gratification can await the stick who never hits as is realised by the man who, though he may only be at the wickets half the time, yet in that time makes at least ten great hits that will realise forty runs. There is, however, a good length ball on the legs to which this push can be usefully applied if the batsman is one of the numerous class of cricketers who cannot make use of the sweep to leg. This stroke is made by slightly moving out of the ground, or rather, the whole weight of the body being inclined forward the right foot is dragged forward also. This may seem to violate a cardinal rule laid down before—that the right foot should never be moved. It must be remembered that the reasons why the right foot should not be moved mainly apply when the foot is moved in front of the wicket or towards short-leg. It is invariably wrong to go out of your ground when the fast ball is straight or on the off side, for in both these instances, if you miss the ball, even if it does not hit the wicket, you are under the risk of being stumped. But to move out of your ground to a fast ball on your legs practically lays you open to no danger of being stumped, for if you should miss the ball you will stop it with your legs. Now imagine yourself utterly unable to sweep the ball to leg as George Parr used to do, and receiving a ball that you cannot reach at the pitch so as to hit with a straight bat—in other words, rather a short ball—what are you to do? If the ball is very short you will probably get back, bring your left foot on a line with, and close to, the right, and try either to make the ball glide off your bat to long-leg or play it with a full face for a single in front of short-leg.

[Fig. 10] shows W. G. Grace attempting the glide, and apparently he has hardly moved either leg; presumably, therefore, the ball is not very short, but only just too short to hit. This is a stroke in which W. G. Grace excels, as indeed he does in most others; but it is a dangerous one unless the left elbow is kept well up, for otherwise, if the ball bumps, you will find your bat sloping backwards and the ball will go up.

Fig. 10.—‘The glide.’ (W. G. Grace.)

We must now think of the proper way to play a ball on the legs that is not short enough for the batsman to play back to in this way, though, on the other hand, it cannot be hit to square-leg with a straight bat. The batsman also, on account of some natural disability, has always been unable to learn the secret of the George Parr sweep. This sort of ball must be played forward, and, if necessary, the batsman may even leave his ground and push it in front of short leg. As has been said before, if he should miss the ball his legs will save him from being stumped. The ball must be smothered as far as possible and pushed on in front of short-leg, and the reason why it is not hit harder is simply because you cannot quite get at the pitch, and if, therefore, you hit hard at it, you would probably sky the ball. The bat must be kept at the proper slope: as the body is lunging forward a great deal of impetus will be given to the hit by the mere weight of the body, and the ball will frequently find its way to the ropes. This play is most useful when opposed to left-handed bowlers, for then the ball is apt to follow the arm and come straight in the direction of the batsman’s left hip. The famous trio of Uppingham cricketers, Messrs. Patterson, Lucas, and D. Q. Steel, were very strong in this stroke, and in an innings of over a hundred which Mr. Patterson played at Lord’s in 1876 against Oxford a large proportion of his runs were made in this way. In ancient days many balls on the leg side used to be played by a now practically obsolete stroke called the ‘draw,’ which consisted of an ugly lifting up of the left leg and letting the ball glide off the bat between the legs towards long-leg. It was as much part of the répertoire of a player of the old style as a cut or a drive, but it has utterly gone out of fashion as a stroke to be learnt, simply because it had no further effect than the glide off the bat as now practised; the modern style has also the additional advantage of being more elegant, and there is less chance of the ball hitting the foot. The famous Jemmy Grundy used frequently to play this stroke, and his mantle appears to have descended on some younger Nottingham players, for at the present day they sometimes use it. It used to be brought off occasionally by the famous Richard Daft, and was in fact the only stroke of this graceful and most correct player that was not elegant. As we have now got on the subject of the draw, we may as well describe the other sort of obsolete draw, which was performed by just touching the ball with the bat quite straight, but with its left side turned towards the wicket-keeper, or what soldiers would call left half-face, held some way behind the body. Tom Hearne used to be great at this sort of draw, but it is even more entirely gone out of fashion as a stroke than the other style. The same effect is produced by what is frequently seen—namely, a batsman only just snicking a ball off the leg stump, or just touching it, leaving the spectator uncertain whether the ball has been played or has hit the wicket. Tom Hearne, who was the last player who used to practise this stroke methodically, was in the habit of jumping with both feet towards short-leg, and leaving the bat in the correct position for the draw; and not unfrequently he was caught at the wicket owing to the ball not being turned sufficiently; sometimes, though not often, if the bound towards short-leg happened to be a little too much in front, he used to be stumped. This stroke necessitated moving the right leg towards short-leg, and it is on this ground mainly that we contend that it is not sound cricket; but, as has before been stated, it is now quite obsolete, and to imagine it you must also imagine yourself in the days of tall hats, pads under the trousers, and braces holding up a curious type of pantaloon, such as the late Mr. Burgoyne, treasurer of the M.C.C., used to wear up to the day of his death. The play shown in [fig. 11] is made by drawing back the left foot, coming hard on to the ball, and forcing it in the direction of short-leg. In our judgment, this is the right play for all short balls on the legs, for the ball is near to the body and consequently to the eye; you have therefore great facility in placing it, and you have also the bat at a proper angle. It is more correct than the stroke shown in [fig. 10], for there if the ball should bump it will run up the shoulder of the bat, and possibly get caught by the wicket-keeper, short-slip, or even point and short-leg, and we have seen several instances of the ball hitting the bat, not in the front but at the side of the bat. In the former play the ball has to hit the bat, in the latter the bat hits the ball, and, according to the fancy of the batsman, can either be hit in front of short-leg or be suffered to glide towards very sharp long-leg. The figure, however, does not quite convey the impression that the ball is being hit hard. The bat may have descended from over the batsman’s head, especially if the ball is very short, while the figure only shows the end of the stroke.

Fig. 11.—Forcing stroke off the legs.

The off drive in the direction of cover-point and to the right hand of point is a favourite hit with many players. Barnes of Nottingham plays it to perfection. The ball to hit in this way is one well up on the off side, though it need not be a half-volley. The left foot is thrown across, the ball is hit with a nearly perpendicular bat, and the stronger the wrist the cleaner and harder will be the hit. In this and every other hit correct timing is most important, and whatever the beginner may try, do not let him attempt to hit wildly at the pitch of the ball. Let the left foot be put across, and be careful to hit over the ball in order to keep it down, for if you do not, and the ball bumps, it will inevitably go up. The ball should be a foot or so wide of the wicket; the batsman at the moment of striking the ball will be facing cover-point, and will have his left shoulder well forward, as in [fig. 12]. The bat is well over the shoulder, and is coming down nearly perpendicularly on the ball, which is not a half-volley; if it were, the bat would be straighter and the ball would be driven straighter. But the ball is hit after it has gone about a foot from the pitch. If the ball is a foot or two wide of the wicket and well up it would be hit in a similar position, for the bat cannot be held straight to hit a ball at this distance from the wicket; if it should go straight it would be a pull and not a clean hit, and the further the ball from the wicket the further ought the left foot to be moved across. Whatever you do, refrain from hitting a ball when there is reasonable expectation of the umpire calling ‘Wide.’ You may hit it for two or three runs; you are more likely only just to touch it with the end of the bat and get caught by third man or point; you are still more likely to cover it and not score off it, thereby losing a run for your side.

CAUGHT AT THE WICKET

So completely has the modern method of bowling on the off side for catches established itself, that cautious players like Donnan and Abel have got into the habit of leaving off balls altogether alone. Granted that the bowling is accurate and the fields well placed, county clubs will very soon find out that, if this course is pursued much further, cricket will become a very dull game to watch, and a match will probably seldom lead to a decisive result. It may be done to a good length ball outside the off stump when you first go in, and have neither got a good sight of the ball nor the pace of the ground; but that batsmen should habitually watch the wicket-keeper take the ball while they stand right in front of the wicket, with their bats behind them, is carrying caution so far that some people would call it not a virtue but a vice. We actually saw a cautious player receive four consecutive off balls and not make an attempt to hit one. What pleasure can there be in batting if these tactics are adopted? And let such players please think of the unhappy spectators. The ball can be hit if you will only get your left foot well across and get well over the ball, and even if your energies are chiefly directed towards hitting the ball on the ground, the ball will be hit, and the field may make a mistake; at any rate you have made an effort, and not given up in despair. It is like a timid man running away from danger instead of facing it, as he should, and it is better to try and to fail than not to try at all. Never mind your average; you cannot win a match by such tactics, though you may make a draw of it.

Fig. 12.—Off drive.

The off drive by cover-point must be always made by putting the left leg across, and not the right; and the old principle never to be departed from, namely, to keep the left shoulder and elbow well forward, must be again emphasised. When you have once got into position you are master of the situation: you are right over the ball, and you may leave it alone if it should bump; or you may wait till the ball has passed you, and then make the cut with left leg over in the way described before. You are not in the most favourable attitude for the cut, because your left leg is too much over, but it can be brought off; and if only a great deal of practice is given to this off drive there will be no necessity for leaving balls alone.

There are several players to whom is denied the ability and capacity to make these off strokes, who are defective in wrist and careful timing of the ball, but who are fully capable of taking quite proper care of a half-volley or balls well up. Such players are under a great disadvantage when they get balls on the off side that are shorter than the half-volley, for they certainly cannot take the same advantage of them. But they have a great many courses open to them, and if they will get the left leg over, and hit over the ball, they will run no risk of getting out, and a casual ball will be well timed and hit accordingly. But they have also the waiting stroke open to them, and this consists of letting the ball get past them, and simply letting it glide off the bat in the direction of long-slip. The faster the bowling the more runs will result from this stroke, as the ball is hit at a longer time after it has pitched than it is when the batsman meets it by the more effective method; there is more time to observe its pace and direction; and if such a player is only careful to get over the ball, he will get a lot of runs in this way.

Lastly, there is the hard drive, which partakes largely of forward play, but yet is a hit to which you can open your shoulders. It is made with a straight bat either on the off side, on side, or straight over the bowler’s head.

To fast bowling the difficulty arises of distinguishing this stroke from forward play, for so many balls from fast bowlers on hard wickets are played forward that are not by any means half-volleys and yet go very hard. In fact, there are occasions when fast grounds and fast bowling combine to make batting very easy—when, as a well-known Yorkshire fast bowler said, ‘If you poke at her she goes for four.’ There is no real necessity for ever having a regular smack at straight balls from a very fast bowler; it is practically as effective to play them forward, with the weight of the body thrown on the left foot and the arms and shoulders kept free and loose. No more beautiful exponent of this graceful forward play has ever lived than Lionel Palairet of Somerset. But by all means hit as hard as you possibly can at a half-volley outside the off stump; the ball will either make mid-off tremble, or else go straight to the ropes between mid-off and cover-point. You move the left foot slightly forward a little in front of the wicket, and you hit at the ball with a straight bat and get well over it to keep it along the ground. Hold your bat tight, for if it should turn in your hands there will be a miss-hit and you will be caught at cover-point or elsewhere. You can hit your hardest at the half-volley just off the wicket, for the simple reason that if you do miss the ball you cannot be bowled, and there is no more chance of missing if you put out your whole strength to it than if you simply drive it forward with a straight bat. So keep a little reserve of strength in all straight balls, but to a crooked half-volley put your whole force into the blow and hit as though you wished to do the ball an injury.

About the half-volley on the on side very little need be said. We have observed before that the ball just outside the leg stump, to within two or three inches of it, is a ball to drive and not hit to leg. It should be hit towards mid-on or between the bowler and mid-on; and to apply what has been said before, hit it as hard as you can, as if you do miss it you will not be bowled. Keep the right leg still and lunge forward on to your left foot, which should be a little thrown forward, and hold the bat tight.

We have now sufficiently discussed the principles that ought to guide the young player in playing fast bowling on a good fast wicket, and if he observes what has been said he will find that he plays a good safe game, assuming that his eye is straight and that he is able to put his bat in the place where his eye shows him it ought to go. The play to fast bowling on slow tricky wickets brings out the batsman’s real talent, and he will discover that what was easy on a hard wicket is full of difficulty on a soft. There are no decisive rules to guide the player on such wickets; he must trust to his eye and capacity for watching the ball. The player that can watch the ball carefully is the man who will succeed on slow difficult wickets; and anybody who has seen Grace, Shrewsbury, and A. G. Steel bat under these circumstances will understand what this watching the ball means. If the ground is very fast there is hardly any time for a careful watching of the ball; the player must play largely by instinct, which will tell him where the ball is going, and as the wickets nowadays are so very true the ball will nearly always take a natural course, that is, straight from the pitch. The left-handed bowler round the wicket will come with the bowler’s arm slightly from off to leg, the right-handed bowler also round the wicket from leg to off, but these are both the natural courses the ball ought to take. On slow wickets, however, the ball will come slower; it will take all sorts of fantastical turns and twists, it will get up straight, and sometimes hang or stop a little. It will generally be found that very fast bowlers do not shine on slow soft wickets, for they have great difficulty in getting a good foothold. It is the medium and slow bowlers who revel on such ground, as Briggs and Giffen can tell you. The batsman will find that he is bound to play more back and less forward, for it is little good to play forward unless the ball can be smothered, owing to the extraordinary pranks the ball will indulge in after it has pitched. He will therefore be found playing more on his right leg, and the runs will inevitably come much slower. It has been ascertained by experience that hitters are of more value on these difficult wickets than sticks; for the latter, though they may stay in for an hour, will perhaps not get a dozen runs during that period. The hitter, however, if he brings off four hits, does more execution in a quarter of an hour than the stick will do in thrice that time.

The value of three or four hitters in an eleven was never more distinctly shown than in the case of the Australian Elevens of 1882 and 1884, and the Gloucestershire and Cambridge Elevens of 1897. In the Gloucestershire and Cambridge Elevens of 1897 Jessop’s hitting has on several occasions turned a match in a quarter of an hour, and this player certainly has the greatest gift we ever saw of hitting balls of any and all lengths. The Australian 1882 eleven had four big hitters—McDonnell, Bonnor, Giffen, and Massie. In the great international match at the Oval in 1882, Massie got the fifty-five runs in Australia’s second innings that practically won the match, and to say he hit at every ball is scarcely an exaggeration. There was also a match against Yorkshire at Holbeck, where McDonnell’s scores of over thirty in one innings and over forty in the other certainly won the match for his side. In 1886 Surrey had to go in to get eighty-seven runs to win. Abel was playing for an hour and three-quarters, while Garrett and Evans were bowling, every ball dead on the wicket, and during that time laboriously compiled thirteen runs. The result of the match was really very doubtful after the fall of the seventh wicket, but Jones, a courageous cricketer, seeing what was the right game, went out and hit Palmer over the ropes for four, and the value of this hit cannot be exaggerated. As a rule it may be taken for granted that steady and slow play, useful and good as it is in its way, will not win matches on slow difficult wickets unless there is a sprinkling of three or four hitters in the eleven. By the doctrine of chances you will find that one of the number will come off, and one innings like Massie’s may win the match. To the player who has any hit in him we therefore advise the playing of a freer game on slow difficult wickets than on easy ones. In the latter case runs are bound to come if only you stop there, but they will not in the former. You may leave your ground even to fast bowling on slow wickets if you think you can bring off a hit by so doing, and generally hold the bat nearer the top and give her the long handle. The defensive player, if he cannot do this, must play generally back with the weight on the right leg, watch the ball very carefully, take advantage of any loose ball that may be bowled, and try and place the ball for singles to short-leg, or in the slips. The bowlers find it more easy to put on break or curl on soft wickets, so whereas on hard wickets you may almost assume that the ball will play no pranks but come on straight, on soft you may almost assume the contrary. The ball that hangs or stops a bit after pitching instead of coming on is perhaps the most fatal ball that is bowled. If the batsman plays forward to such a ball he will very likely find that he has done playing before the ball has reached his bat; this means that the bottom of the bat goes on and gets under the ball, and he is caught and bowled. So frequently does this ball come that it is well not to play hard on soft wickets, for if the ball hangs at all it must go up on being hit. For defensive play, we think the bat ought not to be held at all tightly, but rather slackly, for you cannot get a run by hard forward play or hard back play on such wickets.

The general characteristics of play to slow bowling such as that of Tyler, Peel, Briggs, and others are so very different that we must make a few special remarks on them. The great amount of slow bowling is a development of modern times; not that slow round-arm bowling did not formerly exist, but it certainly did not to anything like the extent it does now. In the days which we all of us have heard talked about by old cricketers at Lord’s, when Mynn, Redgate, Hillyer, and Lillywhite flourished, there were some lob bowlers, notably the famous Wm. Clarke, but there were few genuine slow round-arm bowlers, and Wm. Lillywhite had a long stop even when the renowned Tom Box was keeping wicket, as may be seen in the well-known engraving of the match between Kent and Sussex played about the year 1840. Coming to later times, from 1860 to 1868, there was, as far as we can gather, but one real professional slow round-arm bowler, namely, George Bennett. Between 1870 and 1887 may be said to be the dark age of amateur fast bowling, and to a less degree of professional. Since that date, however, the amateur fast bowling has wonderfully improved, and the famous S. M. J. Woods led the way, and has been followed by Jessop, Jackson, Kortright, Cunliffe, and others, while the great Richardson, we think, is the best fast bowler that has ever bowled, when the amount of work and the perfect wickets are considered.

From a theoretical point of view, to real slow bowling all forward play ought to be banished. If the ball is short, play back to it; if it is tolerably well up there ought to be time to go out and meet it, and drive it at the pitch. There are some quick-footed players who carry this theory into practice, but generally, if you observe first-class cricket, you will find that there are plenty of players who never leave their ground, even to slow bowling, unless they are really well set. This partly comes from the great caution which is undoubtedly exercised more now than it was twenty or thirty years ago, and partly from the fact that the bowling, though some of it very slow, is not tossed up so high in the air as it was by Bennett and earlier bowlers. Peate, for instance, in his prime the best length bowler for the last twenty years, did not toss the ball at all high in the air, nor did the renowned Alfred Shaw, the most accurate bowler that ever lived. But we still think that more running in might be practised, for there is nothing that more completely demoralises a bowler than a player who comes out and drives when the ball is at all over-pitched. We have seen slow bowlers who do not possess much head completely demoralised by a quick-footed player like Mr. A. G. Steel. They preserve their dignity by bowling so short, that though maiden overs might abound wickets certainly would not fall. Let the cricketer, when playing to slow bowling, stand a little easier, in order that, when he has made up his mind to meet the ball, his right foot will not be rooted to the ground, as it ought to be when playing to fast bowling on fast wickets. [Fig. 13] shows Shrewsbury going out to drive, but he is evidently only at the beginning of his jump, and by the time the bat has got over the ball he will be a couple of yards outside the crease. Remember, if you are to be stumped, you may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. You are equally out if you are an inch or ten yards out of your ground, so never hesitate to go out as far as you can in order to make the hit a certainty, and if you can hit the ball full-pitch by all means do so, as you ought never to miss a full-pitch. You can also pull a full-pitch to leg or anywhere on the on side where fieldsmen are scarce, and it is a sign that for that particular occasion the bowler is defeated if the batsman has not permitted the ball to touch the ground.

Fig. 13.—Running out to drive. (Shrewsbury.)

If you find, on going out to hit a ball, that it is too short, and you cannot get at the pitch of it, you have several courses open to you. If you are a very big hitter, and the field is not very far out, it is worth while to try the experiment of hitting as hard as you can; the ball must go high, and may go over the ropes or out of harm’s way; indeed, some great hitters seem to prefer a ball that is not quite a half-volley. Mr. C. I. Thornton, the biggest hitter the world has ever beheld, with the exception of G. J. Bonnor and perhaps Lyons, has made his longest hits off such balls as these; while Bonnor, who possesses a prodigious reach, seldom leaves his ground at all, and constantly sends the ball out of the ground by hitting short of the actual pitch. If the ball is smothered it cannot go up in the air, and though it is more correct cricket to get over the ball and drive it forward, as Shrewsbury and A. G. Steel do, it is probable that the great hitters would lose more than they gained by playing the orthodox game. There is a golden rule to be carefully remembered in playing slows, and that is, never to run out to a ball that is well outside the off stump. We do not mean to bar the player from running out to a ball which is absurdly over-pitched, and which he is certain to get full-pitch if he goes out; but he should not leave his ground to the half-volley unless it is nearly straight. There is more than one reason for this. In the first place, if you miss the ball, it is the easiest sort for the wicket-keeper to take, and any moderately decent wicket-keeper will certainly have you out. In the second place, an off ball is one that it is impossible to hit or play with a straight bat, and if you run out to slows you ought always to hit thus; and this rule is sound even when you run out to a ball on your legs, for that is generally hit to long-on with a straight bat, and not to leg. It is generally true that you should never leave your ground to any ball that may be called crooked, whether it is to leg or to the off, for in either case you run a serious risk of being stumped; it is only straight or nearly straight balls that you ought to meet by going out of your ground. The modern slow bowler is so very accurate that he very rarely bowls on the leg side at all, and the old-fashioned lobber who used to bowl on the leg side with a twist from leg and have four or five fields on the leg side is gradually disappearing. The ball that in nineteen cases out of twenty you have to meet by going out of your ground is, therefore, the straight ball.

As far as lobs are concerned, you can play them by stopping in your ground; but the really good player to lobs runs out to a certainty when the ball is overpitched, and the famous Wm. Clarke used to say that Pilch played him best, as he used to wait his opportunity and meet him and run him down with a straight bat. If you come to reason out the theory of batting to slows, and think how you can best defend your wicket and best score off such bowling, you will easily satisfy yourself that by playing back and gently forward you may ensure safety for a considerable period, but you cannot score even moderately fast. The ball does not come up to the bat fast off the ground as in fast bowling, and if you play forward hard you run the enormous risk of being caught and bowled or caught at mid off. In other words, while to fast bowling you play forward to get runs, to slow bowling you play forward to defend your wicket. If, therefore, you play the extra-cautious game and stick in your ground, or from some cause or another are unable ever to ‘give her the rush,’ you will not be able to score except by casual singles, unless you wait and fully avail yourself of a full pitch or an outrageous long hop, relished, and often obtained, when amateurs are bowling, but very seldom delivered in first-class matches, and practically never by professional players.

It is difficult to know what to do with the good length off ball. It is much harder to cut slow bowling than fast: greater strength of wrist is wanted, and there are many players who are unable to do more than merely pat the ball towards third man for a single or two runs. Slow bowlers have a great fancy for bowling without a field at third man, and this is to the advantage of the batsman; but even if there is a third man, at any rate he cannot cover more than a certain amount of ground, and you will find that many a run may be got by the pat. Mind and get over the ball, and you cannot then come to grief by being caught at third man or short-slip, and very rarely by the wicket-keeper. The bumping ball ought to be left alone; this sort of ball is the only one in meeting which prudence is the better part of valour, and no attempt ought to be made to hit at all. The old Adam within them forces a great many players to try and hit, but it is almost a certainty that if the ball is hit it must be from underneath, and up in the air it will consequently go. On a soft slow wicket any run getting to good slow bowling is extremely difficult, but even on such wickets you will lose nothing and gain the casual single by the pat.

The good length ball on the off side is the modern batsman’s bugbear, but it is far easier to play when the bowling is fast than when it is slow. It is easier to cut in the first instance, and there are seldom so many fields on the off side to the fast bowler. But the slow ball can be and ought to be driven along the ground if the batsman gets well over it, times it correctly, and throws the left leg across in the same way as we explained in describing the proper method of making this stroke off fast bowling. It is more difficult to time good slow bowling, when the bowler is continually altering his pace, than fast, and herein lies the difficulty of hitting these off balls. Bear in mind, however, that by keeping well over the ball you practically run no risk of being caught anywhere; sooner or later you will get your eye in, and when that desirable consummation is accomplished, you will be astonished to find how safely you will hit many balls that when you are looking on it seems impossible to hit without incurring considerable danger. But nothing can be gained by leaving balls alone; you run the minimum of risk by hitting at them, if only you observe the two rules which ought to be hung in your bedroom and branded into your brain, ‘Put the left leg over,’ and ‘Get on the top of the ball.’ Above all things do not play for a draw.

From what has been said on the principles which govern the proper playing of fast and slow bowling, the reader may be led to think that slow bowling is far more difficult to play successfully than fast. Chacun à son goût is true, no doubt, but we are inclined to think that, to the majority of players in the prime of their play, slow bowling is on the whole more difficult to play, especially on hard wickets. Take the case of W. G. Grace. It was almost a waste of time on hard wickets to put on fast bowlers when Mr. Grace was at his best. The sole advantage to be derived from so doing arose from the fact that it was advisable to distract his eye, and for this purpose a fast bowler was useful. By this we mean that, when slow bowlers were on at both ends, his eye would become more accustomed to the pace of the ground, and in a shorter time than it would have been if a fast bowler had been on at one end. But the fast bowler was on mainly to enable the slow bowler to get him out, and if the reader looks at Mr. Grace’s enormous scores of twenty years back he will find that Shaw, Southerton, Peate, and Lillywhite got him out a dozen times to the fast bowlers’ once. And the runs that came from bowlers like Martin McIntyre were astonishing; anywhere, cuts, pushes through any number of short-legs, big drives and colossal leg hits—all were alike to the great batsman.

On soft wickets, though many think otherwise, we believe that fast or medium-paced bowling is more difficult. This must be assumed only in the case of those fast bowlers who have power to keep their precision and pace on slow wickets, like Morley and Richardson. The variety of wickets, as is shown in the chapter on Bowling, is very great, and on the real mud farmyard sort of wicket it is generally safe to presume that fast bowlers cannot act. When there is a slight drizzling rain, which keeps the ball and surface of the ground wet, fast bowlers flounder about like porpoises, and the only bowlers who can act at all are the slow, though they are very much handicapped. But on the real bowler’s wicket, soft, yet gradually hardening by the effect of the sun, cæteris paribus, the fast or fast medium bowler will, as a rule, be the most deadly. The year 1879 was, on the whole, the wettest year for cricket that the present generation has seen, and it is instructive to turn to the result of the season’s bowling for the county of Nottingham. This county possessed in Alfred Shaw and Morley the two best bowlers in England—one slow, the other fast. Here is the analysis of each for Nottingham:—

It will be seen from this pair of analyses that Morley’s is slightly better all round than Shaw, with the exception of the number of maiden overs. But maiden overs are not the final goal of the bowler’s ambition. They are only means to an end. The true bowler’s one idea is to get wickets. The reader will note that Morley, the fast bowler, got no fewer than twenty-seven wickets more than Shaw, which more than makes up for the latter’s greater success in bowling maidens. The year 1879 was doubtless a great year for bowlers, but none the less we doubt whether, taking a whole season’s work for a county, this record has ever been surpassed by any pair of bowlers at any time, and it is as good an illustration of the truth of our theory that in wet years slow bowlers are not likely to succeed so well as fast or medium-pace.

It has always appeared to us that the reason why real slow bowling is slightly less deadly than fast or medium on slow wickets is simply that the batsman is more at the mercy of the eccentricities of the ground when playing to the latter class of bowling than when playing to the former. He always has the power, if he would only exercise it, of leaving his ground to balls of a certain length from the slow bowler, and smothering them. And again let the beginner lay this axiom to heart: the ground can commit no devilry if the ball is smothered at the pitch. On slow wickets, therefore, to slow bowling leave your ground with even less hesitation than on fast, and argue in this way, that as life against these bowlers and on this wicket is certain to be a short one, therefore it had better be a merry one for the sake of the score.

There are and have been a few great men with the bat who obey no law, but possess that strange indefinable gift called genius, which rises superior to any difficulty of ground or bowling; these batting luminaries may play their ordinary game on slow difficult wickets, and their genius enables them to do what ordinary mortals cannot. On really difficult wickets Shrewsbury shone, and on the whole he has proved himself the best player the world has ever seen on caking, difficult, soft wickets. But let the ordinary player, who has acquired a certain amount of skill in batting, remember that cricket on hard and fast wickets and cricket on slow are two quite different things, and that he must alter his game to suit the circumstances. The very fast-footed bookish sort of player is the one who is most at sea on soft wickets; and this last bit of advice we respectfully urge upon him—that one hit for four and out next ball will probably be of more value to his side than twenty minutes’ careful defence and no run. It is not on soft wickets that drawn games are played, unless there is rain after the match has begun; it is on dry wickets, with boundaries close in, that the plethora of runs makes the game dull to all except the ignorant spectator and the voracious batsman. Of course, if there is only a short time left before the drawing of stumps and conclusion of the match, say an hour and a half or two hours, it may be of importance to play for a draw; then the twenty-minutes-without-a-run batsman may be the means of salvation for his side, as Louis Hall has proved to be more than once for Yorkshire; but, except under such circumstances, the hitter who runs a certain risk for the sake of a hit is the more valuable man.

A few words now on running. A man is out if run out as decisively as if his middle stump is knocked down; but being run out is more annoying than being bowled, so everybody ought to learn how to run. Some fieldsmen are so renowned for their throwing and rapidity of movement that when such a man is going for the ball the batsman will not venture on a run which, under ordinary circumstances, he might safely make. In any event do not run if you feel any doubt of its safety. The first invariable rule is that the striker calls the run if the ball is hit in front of the wicket. This is simple to remember and there is no exception unless it be when the ball is hit to third man under certain circumstances. These circumstances refer to the fieldsman himself. If the third man knows his business and throws to the bowler, the striker has to run the risk; therefore he ought to call. If the third man is a player of tradition and always throws to the wicket-keeper, the non-striker is in danger, but if he is backing up he never will be run out. All hits behind the wicket—except in the case above mentioned—must be called by the non-striker, and the striker must not look at the ball after he has hit it, but at the non-striker. The man who has not to judge the run must have a simple childlike faith in the judgment of his partner, and if he gets run out he may remonstrate gently with him afterwards with good reason. The man who is receiving the ball can easily get into the habit of watching it after it has passed him on its way to the long-stop or if he has hit it to long-slip; but this is a bad habit, and if indulged in will result in the two batsmen holding different ideas as to whether a run can be got or not, on which subject there must be no difference of opinion. If the batsman to whom rightly belongs the call shouts ‘run,’ and his colleague shouts ‘no,’ unless one gives way promptly there may be a crisis at hand. Never do batsmen look so foolish as when they affectionately meet at the same wicket, and nothing is so maddening to the supporters of a side as to see a good batsman well set deliberately lose his wicket by the folly of either his colleague or himself. If batsmen will only remember that the decision of the run must rest with one man, and that his call must be obeyed at once, there will not be many runs out. When, say, the third run is being made, and the question whether a fourth can be successfully attempted arises, that batsman who has to run to the wicket nearest the ball ought to call. The reason of this is, that as the ball is a considerable way from the nearest wicket it is almost certain to be thrown there, and the batsman who calls ought to be he who runs the risk. We will give the following rules to be remembered by every cricketer with regard to running. (1) The striker must call every time when the ball is hit in front of the wicket. (2) The non-striker must call every run when the ball is hit behind the wicket, except in the case of hits to third man as mentioned above. (3) Whoever has to shout, let him shout loudly; there is no penalty attaching to a yell, and it is comforting to a man to know his colleague’s intention without any doubt. (4) If a bye is being run, the striker must run straight down the wicket, as he may be saved from being run out by the ball hitting his head instead of the wicket, for which mercy he ought to be duly thankful. (5) On all other occasions run wide of the wicket so as not to cut it up. (6) Always run for a catch if sent reasonably high into the air; if it is caught no harm is done to you, and to be missed and to secure a run in one and the same hit is a veritable triumph. (7) Run the first run as hard as you can, and turn quickly after grounding your bat within the popping crease, for the fieldsman may bungle even the easiest ball, and it is never safe to assume that there can be no second run.

We hope that we have now explained the true principles of batting to guide the youthful player in his path. One other word of caution. A young cricketer may go to Lord’s and watch a great match; he may see the giants of the game perform—MacLaren, Ranjitsinhji, Jackson, and Palairet. He will wonder and admire, but let him beware of imitation, which may lead him into innumerable quagmires. In another walk of life, literature, you will find facetious writers who are fond of imitating the style of famous authors, and very amusing the attempts sometimes are; but it is easily seen that the points they successfully imitate are the roughnesses and eccentricities which are frequently characteristic of great authors. An imitator of Carlyle, for instance, revels in the brusque eccentricities of the great man’s style, but he never succeeds in portraying his noble qualities. It is much the same in cricket: genius defies imitation, and is only by poor struggling humanity to be admired. In the prime of his play nothing in cricket was grander than the sight of W. G. Grace scoring two runs off a ball that any other cricketer would have been only too happy to stop. No school coach that understood his business would tell a youth to play certain balls as they are played by Mr. A. G. Steel, who sometimes adopts the most daring methods, and it is not safe to infer that anybody else in the world can play in a like manner. It is so with hitting. Bonnor, Lyons, O’Brien, Ford, and Jessop can hit many balls which the great majority of other cricketers would only venture to play gently forward. Some critics who are great at criticism, but great at nothing else, have been known to shake their heads at some of the methods of great players; but we can assure these gentlemen that real genius admits no more of criticism than it does of imitation. The four never-to-be-violated rules previously mentioned need not trouble the genius at all; no human law need concern him: he is a law to himself, and looks down from a lofty eminence on his weaker brethren. What is the good of telling A. G. Steel not to move out of his ground to fast bowling, seeing that he does so constantly, and gets four runs by a fine hit when he ‘gives her the rush’? He will not heed you; and why should he?

Apart altogether from the natural accuracy and quickness of hand and eye, without a proper allowance of which labour will be in vain, a great deal depends on the temperament of each player. Whether failure is owing to health, to inability to recover elasticity of spirits after a few defeats, or to some other cause, it is impossible to say. But let the good player who goes through a whole month, or perhaps even a season, with very bad luck, and comes out in the end with a bad average, comfort himself with this reflection, that not only have good players had these reverses, but even the very best. Mr. W. G. Grace must be accustomed to hear and see his name referred to, but even he has had spells of bad luck, and he will, we are sure, excuse us if we put in full the following figures of innings which were played when he was in his prime:—

These figures show how the mighty do sometimes fall, and this certainly ought to console those in the humbler walks of the cricket world. Some players have shot up like rockets, played for a season or so, and then have been heard of no more; but the county that plays a series of county matches will act unwisely if it shunts a player who has shown that he possesses real batting ability. Of course there are limits to the patience of every club committee, but all committees would be wise if they were to err on the side of leniency in this matter.

It is of very little avail writing any sort of homily on nervousness, which is in the constitution, and cannot be got rid of by much or any reading. It is common to all, in greater or less degree, and if any man tells you that he does not know what nervousness in cricket is, do not believe him. To say that there is no sensation other than a distinctly pleasant one in walking to the wickets is absurd. It is true that nervousness does not appear to affect the play of some batsmen, who on first going in seem to be playing their ordinary game. But the sensation is there, and these are the fortunate men whose play suffers but little in consequence.

Nervous players must try and reason to the effect that they are sometimes in the habit of making runs, and that therefore there is no great presumption on their part if they assume that the chances are they will do so again. They must also remember that, after all, cricket is but a game, and no moral disgrace will attach to them if they fail. These are but poor consolations at the best, but the game is so glorious that, as we have before remarked, it is better to try and to fail than never try at all.

It has always been assumed that the crack English Eleven that failed to make the necessary seventy-nine runs against the Australians in 1882 were nervous because they did not succeed in making them. We are not sure that they all were, or that there was more nervousness than usual; but the wicket was difficult, the Australians’ fielding superb, and their bowling extraordinarily good. Certainly two or three of the Englishmen were nervous, and no eleven could be got together anywhere to play such an important match without this being the case. But the longer anyone plays the less nervous will he become, and the fortunate men in cricket are those, like the famous Tom Emmett of Yorkshire, who can, as he modestly said, ‘bowl a bit sometimes.’ The player who plays only because he is a good bat, and never bowls after he has laid his duck egg, has no opportunity of retrieving his character by getting four or five wickets with the ball. The unhappy batsman makes one bad stroke and his wicket is lost, and he has possibly no further chance in the match. But though the bowler may bowl a wide one ball he may take a wicket the next, and we believe that these all-round players find more enjoyment in cricket than the man who only bats. To their credit be it said that at no previous period have the professionals combined the two more than they do now, and we congratulate Peel, Briggs, Attewell, Rawlin, Davidson, Hirst, and Wainwright accordingly.

The obvious advice to give to players whose success depends mainly on health is to implore them to look after and pay great respect to the laws by which health is regulated. Not to eat and drink too much, great though the temptation may be to do both, is a rule that ought to be observed by cricketers; but there is another, not so obvious, but of great importance, and that is, avoid sitting up late at night. There is such a lot of cricket in these days that some amateurs and a great many professionals play six days in the week. There is the corresponding amount of travelling to be got through, and a lot of fatigue to be undergone; sleep, therefore, must not be neglected, and long hours devoted to convivial evenings not only entail loss of health but loss of runs also. It is a curious and unwholesome feature of the present day that it is judged expedient to have enormous meals in the middle of the day, with salmon, forced meats, creams, jellies, champagne, and everything calculated to disturb digestion and pervert the sight. This meal is not only the cause of much indigestion, but also of a gross waste of time. Instead of half an hour being taken up by the legitimate luncheon, a precious hour is stolen from the middle of the day. It must be said that on the principal public grounds there is no reason to complain of the luncheons: excess is more the custom on private grounds.

As we have in this chapter implored captains of elevens to be merciful to good players who may happen to be out of luck, so now, in justice to the other side of the question, let us beg the batsman not to be superstitious.

Superstitions abound in most games, but we have no objection to examples of the weakness which cause inconvenience to nobody except the possessor. We have heard, for instance, of a really great player who never goes in to bat in a match with anything new about him, not even a shoe-lace; but such superstitions are harmless. There is, however, the man who has got it into his head, or possibly has dreamt, that it is quite impossible for him to score if he goes in first or fifth, or in some particular place; consequently the unhappy captain, after he has written out, with great care, an order of going in, is bothered and worried by men who begin to make excuse. One is certain that he cannot score if he goes in first, another thinks he ought not to be put so low down as eighth, and so on. Our advice to the captain is to care for none of these things; let him use his own judgment and not consider the absurd whims and eccentricities of nervous batsmen. The responsibility of managing a match is quite enough anxiety and trouble for him without being bothered by a mutinous eleven, and we entreat batsmen to obey without murmuring their captain’s orders, and go in without grumbling.

The rules of cricket are imperfectly understood even by some reputedly famous umpires; it may be well, therefore, to remind batsmen how many ways there are of getting out. They know what it is to be bowled out, caught out, stumped, run out, to get out leg before wicket, or to hit wicket; and a great many think that nothing else will get them out. This is a mistake, and it was a comical sight to see, as we saw some years ago, a first-rate professional diddled out in another way. It is against the rules, properly understood, to wilfully hit the ball twice. The rule runs: ‘The batsman is out if the ball be struck ... and he wilfully strike it again, except it be done for the purpose of guarding his wicket.’ But if a batsman plays a ball and a proper interval elapses the ball is dead, and he may return the ball to the bowler. The old rule reads: ‘if the striker touch or take up the ball while in play.’ In the case alluded to, Barlow was batting in a North and South match at Lord’s. He hit the ball twice, and, unfortunately for him, started to run. This starting to run proved the more or less wilful nature of the act. There was a roar of ‘How’s that?’ from the colossal throat of W. G. Grace, standing at point; it was a case of ‘You’ll have to go, Barlow,’ and naturally, in a somewhat moody manner, Barlow went to the pavilion. It is absurd to say that there was anything unfair in this; he violated a distinct rule of cricket. A lot of players think that the ball must not be hit twice under any circumstances, and they would as soon think of touching a red-hot coal as hitting the ball a second time. If there is no wicket-keeper and the ball is played dead against the foot, it may save a few seconds of time if the batsman shove the ball back to the bowler with his bat and stand still, thus saving point the trouble of picking the ball up and returning it. The ball while ‘in play’ must never be picked up by the hand, for handling the ball wilfully loses a wicket as much as having two stumps knocked down. It is an easy rule to remember, and is very rarely broken, but still it is a rule that must be observed. Obstructing the field is another violation of rule for which the extreme penalty is exacted. Of course a witness may tell an untruth in the witness-box, but unless it is spoken wilfully it is not perjury. So it is with obstructing the field. Many hundreds of times has a batsman standing in his ground prevented a wicket-keeper from catching him out; the mere fact that the player’s body, being in a certain position, forces the wicket-keeper to run round him instead of straight at the ball will make an uppish ball as unreachable as the sun. The fieldsman is obstructed, but not wilfully, so no penalty is incurred. But if the batsman were to hit up a ball to point, for instance, and either strike at the ball with his bat or wilfully baulk the fieldsman in any way, he would be out, and deservedly so. In this, as in other like matters, the umpire must be the sole judge, and it ought to be pretty plain and easy for him to give a right decision. About twenty years ago the well-known Cambridge University cricketer, Mr. C. A. Absalom, playing for his University against Surrey, was running a bye, and whilst running to the opposite wicket the ball hit his bat, possibly preventing him from being run out. The umpire gave him out; but the umpire was wrong, for the ball came from behind him, and as it was never alleged that he looked to see the course the ball was taking and then interposed his bat, it was obviously impossible that he could have wilfully obstructed the ball: it merely chanced that while running in towards the wicket the ball by accident hit his bat. We do not mean to imply that the batsman ought to run wide of the wicket to a short run in order to give the fieldsman every chance of running him out; on the contrary, if a short bye is to be run, we advise the batsman to run straight down the wicket, for then, as pointed out elsewhere, the ball will very likely hit him and prevent him being run out. But he must not deliberately get in the way of the ball or in any way contribute to the fact of the ball hitting him. A case of wilful obstruction ought easily to be detected by any decent umpire.

It is amusing to ask experienced cricketers in how many ways it is possible for a man to be got out at cricket, and it is astonishing to find many who give most absurd answers. There are nine distinct ways of getting out—(1) bowled; (2) caught; (3) stumped; (4) leg before wicket; (5) hit wicket; (6) run out; (7) handling the ball; (8) obstructing the field; (9) hitting ball twice. It is well to know these facts, for the batsman who gets out in an untoward and unusual way feels himself to be a fool, and generally looks like one. Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, when playing some years ago for Cambridge University Eleven against M.C.C. at Lord’s, got back to a slow long hop and with his foot just touched the leg stump, the bail of which did not at once fall off. Oblivious of this fact, and only conscious that he had caught the ball in the middle of the bat and sent it far away, off he started for his runs with radiancy on his face and a mocking smile on his lips. No less than five runs were run, and not until then did anyone except the wicket-keeper notice that the leg bail, after hanging on a frail basis for a few seconds, had fallen off. The appeal was made and the facts examined, the deadly verdict was given, and it was a case of a return to the pavilion. The batsman on such occasions as these may look pleasant; but that is only one of the beneficent results of civilisation, for, as a matter of fact, he feels extremely bitter, and there are innumerable swords in his heart. In the case mentioned the unhappy batsman felt hot and out of breath after his exertions in running the five runs, and there was a sad reversal of the pleasant feelings that attend a successful hit—the applause of the crowd was all wasted, the expected increase to the score was not realised, all had vanished, and a melancholy man walked drearily to the dressing-room.

Batting may be called the most enjoyable feature of the great and glorious game of cricket. A man even in full training invariably feels the effect of fatigue after bowling sixty or seventy overs, and fieldsmen go through the same experience during a long outing. But it may with truth be said that the keen pleasure which is realised by every cricketer worthy of the name, while he is actually at the wickets, prevents him from feeling fatigue as an inconvenience until the innings is over. We do not believe, though with bated breath let it be said, that the fine rider on a fine horse in a good position and over a grass country with a burning scent can feel so supremely content with the world and its glorious surroundings while galloping and jumping close to hounds, as does a batsman who feels himself master of the bowling on a good wicket in a first-class match, with a fine day and a large crowd keenly anxious for his well-doing. He is conscious that his side is gaining a glorious victory by his efforts, and life can give him no prouder moments. To the young cricketer let us therefore say, in conclusion, that, as the pleasure is so intense and the excitement so keen, he should strive to attain proficiency by care, practice, and the advice of great masters. Above all, he must cultivate the moral qualities that of necessity must have a place in such a great, glorious, and unsurpassable game as cricket.

Fig. 14.—Gunn playing forward.