“ Among all the famous slow left-handers there is one that to me stands out more clearly than the rest, whether his striking personality—for who did not know that bouncing ball of a man?—whether his wonderful all-round skill, or his possession of that golden quality on a cricket field, the golden quality of life, stood uppermost in my mind, I cannot say, but to this day, as often as I think on the game, there always arises the short, thick-set figure of poor Johnny Briggs. ”

“ I do not think that batsmen jump out enough to slow bowling, for there is nothing so demoralising to a bowler as a batsman who comes out of his ground and hits when the ball is at all overpitched. Remember, if you do make up your mind to jump out and hit, to get right to the pitch of the ball; forget, too, for the moment, that there is such a person as the wicket-keeper. ”

“ On grounds like these the batsman assuredly cometh into his own, and metaphorically layeth the bowler by the heel, bruising him hip and thigh through the weary hours of an August day, till the welcome news of the last over revives the rag of a man that is left, and he slowly wends his way to the rabbit-hutch, in sore need of the well-earned bath and its ensuing rub down—in sore need of a ginger beer. ”

“ What matter from a selfish point of view? His fun for the day has not departed. He bowls and bowls, and continues to bowl; and probably the blind goddess gives in the end the wherewithal to be cheerful. Therefore, on this miserable lowest ground of self-interest, be a bowler! ”

“ We, the solitary few who still strive to hold upright the tottering pillars in the ruined temple of lob bowling, unto whose shrine the bowlers of the olden time for ever flocked, to-day we are but of small account; there is scarcely a ground in England where derision is not our lot, or where laughter and jaunting jeers are not hurled broadcast at us. ”

“ I have suggested that we owe the increase of cricket to the growth of county cricket, and the reasons are not far to seek. When once a county is included in the first class, or aspires to it, its first effort is to enlist all its available talent, and as the reward of the great cricketer is no mean one, whether that reward come in the shape of reputation and amusement to the amateur, or of good red gold to the professional, the aim and ambition of every promising player and of the club to which he belongs is to get at least a fair trial in the higher spheres of the game. ”

“ Wickets in those days were not quite the perfect wickets of to-day, and with Spofforth bowling his fastest and best, the manner in which Blackham stood close up to the wicket, and without the aid of a long-stop, was looked upon as something approaching the marvellous. Magnificent keepers as we have had, since he revolutionised the art of wicket-keeping, he is still without an equal.
No one, unless he possesses a natural aptitude for the position, is likely to achieve any considerable success, though it is a mistake to suppose that a wicket-keeper, like the poet, is born, not made. ”

“ When one considers that the best batsman in the world is not absolutely certain of scoring a run, and that a good fieldsman nearly always saves 20 or 30, the importance of fielding can at once be appreciated.
From a spectacular point of view there is no more stirring sight than to see eleven players, each of whom is striving his utmost to outdo the other in his efforts to save runs, bringing off catches that an ordinary field would not even attempt, and saving runs in a manner which at times borders on the miraculous. It is such a sight as this that saves cricket from becoming too monotonous. ”

“ Batting on a hard, true wicket and on a sticky, difficult one are two entirely different things, and one often sees a man who is a fine player on a fast wicket absolutely at sea when rain has ruined the pitch. A left-handed bowler like Rhodes is then in his element, for he pitches the ball a good length on the leg stump; it comes across quickly to the off, and you stand a very good chance of being either bowled, or caught by David Hunter at the wicket, or snapped up by eager and lengthy John Tunnicliffe at short slip. ”

“ Wicket after wicket has he got at mid-off through Sam's fearless fielding, and run after run has he been saved. A great many cautious batsmen, too, have been irritated into hitting through the close proximity of Sam at silly point, and this silly point to a bowler of Tyler's pace is no sinecure, even with the most gentle of batsmen. I often wonder that this placing of a man right under the batsman's nose is not more often adopted, as the result seems always to justify it, for whether you get the man out or not, he is most decidedly put off his game. ”

“ Some of the most promising boys lose their interest in the game when they think they are men, and become loafers; some go out to work in other places, and the team knows them no more; but you are amply repaid if two or three of one generation at last find their strength, and after a year or more of painstaking duck-eggs suddenly blossom out into consistent scorers, to the no small astonishment of their friends and their own huge delight. ”

“ A batsman, by scoring 50 runs, feels that he may have had a material hand in the success of his side, and in the same way so does a bowler who takes five or six wickets, for they both have something tangible to show in the score-sheet. True, the fieldsman may have helped the bowler by a brilliant catch or two, but there is no record of the amount of runs he may have saved. Thus it is that a little selfishness may crop up, for whereas the fieldsman may feel that, like the spoke of a wheel, he is only part of a whole, the batsman or bowler feels that he is an individual. ”

“ It is useless trying to make a Barlow into a Lyons, or a Lyons into a Barlow.
Always endeavour to reach the ground in good time before a match begins, and to have five or ten minutes’ practice; though there are some batsmen who do not believe in too much net practice. Every man must of course decide what suits himself best, but I cannot believe that a few minutes at a net can do anything but good, for one gains a sight of the ball, and gets the pace of the wicket. ”

“ Bat in strict and strong relief stands out the figure of Nottingham, a county that, to the best of my knowledge, has never played a "home" match away from the Trent Bridge ground, and has never been blest with a superabundance of this world's goods, yet has for many years not only possessed a formidable eleven of its own, but has also been able to send out a full and steady stream of professional players of all classes, some of whom, though not exactly thankless children, have proved a veritable set of serpent's teeth when arrayed against the mother county. ”

“ They take out of themselves by adopting a gigantic long run and banging the ball down from straight over their head at a terrific pace. Flesh and blood cannot stand this for more than a short time. A human being is but human after all; he is not a machine built to order like a steam engine, and work like what he has to undergo knocks him up. ”

“ Older cricketers well remember Jemmy Grundy in an old velvet cap more fitted for the North Pole than an English cricket ground, such a cap as a poacher would wear. You can see prints of Hayward and Carpenter in spotted shirts and large belts and ties, and Jemmy Shaw bowling his hardest in a yellow shirt that did duty apparently for the whole summer. Now, without any disrespect to the amateurs, the professional is as smartly dressed as his opponents. He is clad in spotless white; he is smart; and, in fact, as far as appearance goes, he is an amateur, and good at that. ”

“ Seven-and-twenty years after the match in question, a junior among the last Australian team expressed his opinion that Mr. Lucas was among the first flight of English batsmen of to-day. One critic has judiciously remarked that he never attempts to place a ball, or he would have scored three times as many runs, but for sheer accuracy who can ever have surpassed him? A colleague was Mr. Edward Lyttelton, most famous but one of all the family—a fine bat, remarkably free, a magnificent field anywhere, with heart and soul in the game. ”

“ He has every variation of pace, and, on a wicket that suits him, as much off break as he wants; and he bowls, or did bowl at his best, a length that only a very few bowlers like Alfred Shaw ever excelled. It has been said that on a perfect wicket he plays a man in. Well, perhaps he does; but those of us who on a sticky wicket at Lord's—and at Lord's a sticky wicket spells perdition—have had the temerity to stand up against him, bowling as he nearly always is from the pavilion end, know with what difficulty he can be stopped, and with what superhuman effort scored off. ”

“ When cricket is degenerating into a business, when too many eke out a pseudo-amateurism in unsatisfactory ways, when individuals play for their averages and sides play against the clock, we hail the University match as the recurrent triumph of the true amateur, the keenest, manliest, most entrancing, and most spirited match of the year—and likewise the one haloed by the richest traditions. ”