Allan Gibson Steel

“ By a bumpy wicket I do not mean a fast fiery wicket where the ball only goes over the top of the stumps and raps the knuckles occasionally, but a wicket upon which you may get a shooter one over and a blow on the chest the next, as a pleasing variety to those that come frequently right over your head the first bound and straight into the hands of the long-stop without again touching the ground. ”

“ Although fast balls are easy to play on good wickets, however, it is but seldom that a wicket which is good at the beginning of a match remains so to the close. The ground wears and cuts up with the continual pitching of the ball and the tramp of feet, and fast bowling on such occasions often becomes most deadly. Then, again, a fast quick delivery to a new-comer, even though the best of batsmen, may deceive him in the pace, and, before the eye gets accustomed to the light and the hand becomes steady, cheat him into playing back at a ball which ought to have been met with forward play. ”

“ An injudicious and talkative batsman often materially assists a bowler by such remarks as, 'I can't see your bowlirig a little bit. When tossed high in the air that beastly tree is right behind;' or, 'When you bowl over the wicket the ball gets right in a line with the dark windows of the pavilion, and I can't see it at all.' Can anyone imagine for a moment that a bowler will not do his very best instantly to make the most of the dark branches of the tree or the windows of the pavilion? ”

“ The body of the batsman in many cases completely obstructs the view the wicket-keeper ought to have of the ball. Even if he can get a good sight of the ball there is that abominable bat being fiddled about, baulking the eyesight in the most tantalising manner, and there are some batsmen who have a provoking habit of waving their bats directly the bowler begins his run, and continuing their antics till the ball is right up to them; while others seem to be built like windmills, and have a limb always at hand to throw out between the unhappy wicket-keeper and the rapidly-advancing ball. ”

“ There are several seconds, therefore, when the wicket-keeper is only conjecturing what course the ball is taking, and is certain of but two things—one, that the ball is hard; the other, that it is advancing in the direction of himself with terrific rapidity. Then, even if you see the ball plainly, it may happen to be, and frequently is, straight, and a straight fast ball raises unutterable emotions in the wicket-keeper's breast; for who knows what devilish tricks the ball, to say nothing of the bails, will play after the wicket is struck, and the course of the missile diverted, not stopped? ”

“ It is always best for a fast bowler to try a ball or two before beginning, excepting in circumstances when he is called upon to bowl to some one he has never bovled to before, and especially so to some one who has never seen him bowl. How often when batting have we silently chuckled with joy at seeing a man quite unknown to us rapidly loosening his arms with two or three balls before beginning to bowl! It is a great thing to have an unknown bowler on one's side, but he loses half his value if his style and action are revealed to the batsman before he receives the ball. ”

“ It is for the rising generation either to alter the law or to learn the art of getting in front of the wicket when the ball does not pitch straight.
It is in vain to lament over long scores and unfinished matches, over dearth of bowlers and slackness in the field, whilst all the time we are doing everything we can to make matters easier and easier for the batsman, giving him perfect wickets, on which he can score loo runs without getting out of breath, devoting his legs to the new purpose of systematically intercepting the more difficult balls. ”

“ We hope none will think we are advocating anything at all unfair in the game, or anything that is even on the line between fairness and 'not quite straight.' As a rifle-shooter takes advantage of a lull in the wind to pull his trigger, as a deerstalker of every rock and unevenness of ground to approach his game—in short, just as in every kind of sport natural facilities may be utilised—so in bowling every peculiarity of time and place should be enlisted on the side of the bowler in his (in these days of good wickets and good batting) by no means easy task of getting rid of the batsman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Practice is, of course, useful for long catches, but only up to a certain point. A player may alter from a bad style of catching to a good one by practice, but a very safe catch in practice is frequently a bad performer in a match, simply on account of nervousness. For sharp catches, wicket-keeping is, perhaps, the only thing that will help. The peculiar faculty they demand is, like the spin in bowling, something that cannot be taught, the possession of which is a guarantee of genius. ”

“ But the change of tactics in not having a long-stop has had one effect that we regard as pernicious, and that is, that it has spoilt one part of the skill of wicket-keeping, and on the whole worked an enormous change for the worse in the fielding of short-slips generally. The longstop is not there, both wicket-keeper and short-slip are conscious of this, and they are aware that his place must be filled up by themselves. If a ball goes in the least to leg, even if it only just misses leg-stump, short-slip is usually to be seen backing up the wicket-keeper ”

“ 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. ”

“ He is continually rushing about, altering the field every over without any reason, shouting excitedly at the top of his voice whenever a fielder has to stop or throw up the ball, and generally creating a feeling of uneasiness and excitement among players and spectators. He is at one moment tearing his hair distractedly because some unfortunate fielder has let a ball through his legs, and the next shouting and dancing with excitement and joy when some exceptionally good catch or bit of fielding has got rid of a dangerous batsman. ”

“ Every cricketer knows the different eccentricities of indifferent fields, their wonderful varieties of error, and the specious appearance of some that fatally delude the most patient captain. There are some men who are fairly fast runners, and can throw hard, and yet are fields of a character to make angels weep. They dash in at the ball like a man charging at football, with the result that they half stop it, or, after they stop it, in attempting to pick it up, they kick it eight or ten yards behind them. ”

“ Captaining a village team is not all a bed of roses; but if you are really a cricketer at heart, you will soon acquire the absolute confidence of people of all classes, especially of the humbler order. It is not an unpleasant thing, as you walk across the green on your way to the train, to hear a pack of little boys on their way to school, who look on you as a kind of big dog that won't bite, all chattering about the match the day before. ”

“ As it is necessary for a shooter to accurately judge the pace of a driven grouse before pulling the trigger, so is it equally necessary for a batsman to judge the pace of the ball before he plays to it. ”

“ Perhaps one of the reasons why W. G. Grace is so deadly to young cricketers is this: the batsman, seeing an enormous man rushing up to the wickets, with both elbows out, great black beard blowing on each side of him, and a huge yellow cap on the top of a dark swarthy face, expects something more than the gentle lobbed-up ball that does come; he cannot believe that this baby-looking bowling is really the great man's, and gets flustered and loses his wicket. ”

“ Obviously the best chance of making runs is to hit the ball where there are no fields. Nearly the whole of the on side is open, and if one of the off balls is suitable, either by being bowled a little short or too far up, the batsman will sweep it round without a moment's hesitation. Unorthodox this may be, but he will have accomplished five great and useful feats—he will have delighted himself, added to his score, disconcerted the fields, enraged the bowler, and set the opposite captain thinking. ”

“ True, most true; but, like other great people who do great things, he must resist every natural impulse and all his lower nature, and not till he has succeeded will he stand the least chance of reaching to a pinnacle of excellence. Having briefly pointed out these difficulties and dangers, let us beg the field to treat the wicket-keeper as tenderly as possible, to cultivate a straight throw, either a catch or a long-hop, and not half-volleys or, worse still, short-hops, and never to throw hard when there is no necessity. ”

“ Yardley had not touched a bat for six months, still he might walk to the wickets and play a magnificent innings; for genius requires little or no practice. Those familiar with his play knew that they might look out for squalls if he was allowed to get set. Mr. Dale was at the other end, playing every ball with a perfectly straight bat and in the most correct style. In the minds of both of them it was a crisis; for each knew that unless they put on a lot of runs the match was lost, as five of their side were out. One mistake and Cambridge would have to retire beaten. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The danger most to be apprehended by the batsman from the off break is that in playing forward, if not quite on the pitch of the ball, he is very apt, owing to the twist, to play outside, and allow it to pass between his bat and right leg to the wicket. It is never a wise thing for the bowler to use the 'off break' every ball, although there are many who do so. Even if he is devoid of all other artifice, and has no command over the arts of 'change of pace,' 'flight,' or the 'leg-break,' he should often vary his style by a ball without any twist at all, and this should not always be straight. ”

“ But to throw hard at the wicket when there is no chance of running a man out is strongly to be condemned; it may produce an overthrow, and it is certain to inflict useless concussion on the hands of bowlers and wicket-keepers. No fieldsman is so apt to disregard this advice as the bowler; at least, it is a fact that many bowlers are particularly fond of returning the ball hard to the wicket after they have fielded it. It does not succeed in running a man out once in a thousand times, it often enables a run to be got by an overthrow, and it uselessly troubles the wicket-keeper. ”

“ If every batsman were perfectly accurate in his sight and judgment of pitch, every so-called 'yorker' would be neither more nor less than a 'full-pitch.' However, as every batsman, we are thankful to say, is liable to err in judging the pitch, and as nearly every batsman when first going in is more liable to err with a 'yorker' than any other ball, the bowler should most decidedly try it. A slow bowler should first try a medium-paced 'yorker,' somewhat faster than his usual pace, and then a slower one. ”

“ He has put his two best bowlers on, and so long as a wicket falls every thirty or forty runs, what does it matter whether or not time is being wasted by a series of profitless short-pitched maiden overs? It is the bowler's duty, not his, to get the batsmen out, and if the latter put on forty runs without a wicket falling, why it will be time enough then to try someone else, and perhaps later on he himself might have a turn with lobs if things get into a very bad state. It does not take long, with a captain like this, for a side to get thoroughly demoralised and slack. ”

“ For most decisions a good power of sight only is required, but in appeals for catches at the wicket an umpire has both to be guided by his eyes and his ears. Many cases occur where the ball and the bat pass each other with such rapidity that it is impossible for an umpire to be certain from his eyes alone that they have touched one another, and he must then, to a great extent, be guided by what he has heard. Both sight and sound must help him to come to his conclusion, and he must give no decision if it is inconsistent with the effect of either of these senses on his mind. ”

“ They have less waiting for their innings, and consequently less of that restless nervousness from which few men are free; they have the best of the wicket; they have often loosish bowling just at first, before the bowlers have warmed to their work; and, last but certainly not least, they are batting a new ball. Few people realise what a difference a new ball makes to the batsman; it goes cleaner and firmer off the bat than an old one, and, what is better than all, a hard new ball is much more difficult to twist than one that has had a hundred runs made off it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And if you are sitting in the tent when your side is in, revolving many things in your mind, and you feel that the whites of the eyes of Mr. Chummy the sweep, a good cricketer formerly, who sits on a form just outside the tent, behind a very short pipe, are glancing round on you, what a comfort it is, if you turn round, to see an almost imperceptible nod of Mr. Chummy's head—for he never speaks during a match—which says, 'Going on all right—we shall win!' That nod of the head is only intelligible to a cricketer, just as a very 'shy' rise of a trout is only perceptible to a genuine fisherman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. 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. ”

“ On wet hard wickets, when he can get no twist on, there is still life and pace in the ground; but in the sodden dead state, directly the ball touches the ground it sinks in, loses all life and pace, and comes on to the batsman like what a Yorkshire professional was once heard to call a 'diseased lawn-tennis ball.' There is no greater fallacy at cricket than to suppose that a sodden wicket is an advantage to a slow bowler. ”