Robert Henry Lyttelton

“ School cricket has every element of fun and enjoyment in it; the scoring is not too high, for the wickets are not always dead true; the hits, except in the school matches, are all run out, the spirits are elastic, and hope springs eternal in the boyish breast. The school hours have to be kept, and in the games there is not often continuous cricket for more than two to three hours, so there is none of the weariness that is the curse of the modern first-class cricket—the inevitable result of batting preponderance and bowling impotence. ”

“ What more can a bowler do than bowl such a good ball that the batsman fails to touch it with his bat, and only stops it with his leg? The bowler suffers the hardship. He has done all that a man can do, but, under the present law, he has not met with his reward. In the case of by far the largest class of bowlers—those who bowl right hand and with a break back—there is no reason whatever why the leg should ever prevent the ball from hitting the wicket. It is the essence of forward play that the ball should be smothered. ”

“ We are all conscious of having in our hearts some soft spot for a real hero, and at cricket each man has his hero. If he happens to be a bat, who does not know the sensation that runs through our frame when he is seen walking to the wicket? It may be a difficult bowler's wicket, yet somehow we have trust and confidence in him, for the first essential of our hero must be that he succeeds where others fail. In these days everybody gets runs except when there is a soft wicket and a sun caking it on the top; then there are few indeed who can show even moderate batting except our hero. ”

“ If a man is off his drive he nevertheless has to play with his driver or brassey off the tee, for to drive with a cleek is ignominious and fatiguing withal. The player with only an ordinary capacity perhaps may feel really confident with only one club, and yet has to play with several; so of him it may be said that every stroke—except that played with one club—is a trial to his nerves. A fearless man is fearless because he has confidence, and to feel confidence is impossible when playing with a club that bitter experience has told you you cannot use. ”

“ A genius at any game is not, and cannot be available for purposes of comparison, for he is sui generis; and I am inclined to think that Vardon, Roberts, and Grace must be placed on three equal pedestals as geniuses at golf, billiards, and cricket. But in considering the question as to the top players outside those on whom is stamped genius, there is not very much to choose. At any rate, I have heard men of undoubted fairness and every qualification to judge, admit they cannot say. ”

“ I am trying to put forward what I cannot help thinking tends to the good of the game, and I think that anything which promotes medal or score play unduly and depresses match play is not to be encouraged. It is easy to say it, but I implore everybody who plays golf to remember that it is a game and not a business. A singularly charming form of golf is a foursome suitable for all ages and links, and can there exist any golfer who would prefer playing a foursome by strokes and not by holes? ”

“ I have heard it said that batsmen will not consent to have their powers of run-getting crippled, that they refuse to allow that any reform is necessary. I refuse to believe that batsmen as a class are so selfish, have so little of the true interests of the game at heart. If true, it is a most melancholy fact. If anybody, of course, is really of opinion that it is immaterial whether a match is finished or not, that person is justified in opposing any reform. ”

“ In football you run your hardest and kick your hardest, and few spectators are much the wiser; and a nervous man can always hit hard at golf off the tee and through the green, for as he has not got to think of strength, he is less likely to fidget and foozle the ball. But when you are fifty yards from the hole, and a bunker yawning between you and it, or when you have to lay an approach putt of twenty yards more or less dead to win or halve a hole, then the question of nerve becomes everything, because strength is everything. ”

“ My own opinion is that, though the batsman and wicket-keeper may be in a better position to judge than the umpires, they cannot be infallible, and that the only man in the world who can know whether the ball is thrown or bowled is the bowler himself. Nobody could convince me that in Utopia, or any other place where all cricketers were sportsmen, and everybody wholly virtuous, there would be any bowling that was not fair. ”

“ No longer do batting and bowling, when the wickets are hard and easy, meet on equal terms. The game has become a question of how many hundreds can be scored; the bowler has been beaten by the mowing machine and the heavy roller; and the only people who can be said to enjoy the game are some of the spectators, who have probably never played cricket, and care only to see hard hitting, and the batsmen themselves. It is no wonder that the busy man, who can only afford to play a game one day in the week, has taken to golf. ”

“ Real cricketers who love a close finish and a decisive result can only see their hearts' desire on a wet wicket and unpleasant weather. The ignorant spectator who understands and appreciates a hard hit, but does not understand or appreciate a hanging ball being beautifully timed and returned along the ground to the bowler, might have been taught better things, but his taste has been vitiated and his baser nature pandered to by the high scoring of the day. ”

“ If the difference between a hero and the common herd may be defined, it is that one possesses real genius and the rest do not. When, however, we are asked to define genius, all we have to say is that to do so is impossible; but, for our present purpose, it is sufficient to say that a batting genius is a man who can adapt his play to circumstances and has the power of watching the ball. If the wicket is fast and easy, the man of genius can play forward and hit all round the ground, but his style is not stereotyped ”

“ At cricket you may play against any eleven, and you may enjoy your game. But golf is a painful game when played against an opponent of a certain type. The sulky player who is moody and never smiles, the fierce-tempered man who makes you miserable while he curses his caddie who has not the right of reply, the man who seems to be caring for nothing except for his own welfare and is barely civil to you, and, lastly, the man with a total absence of humour. ”

“ There is one simple reason why, as it appears to me, fast, vigorous batting is likely in Australia to die a natural death, and this reason is what I call the detestable system of playing matches to a finish, regardless of time. One side wins the toss, goes in to bat on a hot day, and stays in as long as it can on wickets like the proverbial billiard-table. Time is no object, and that side develops a painfully slow style of play. In some conversation I had this year with Howell, the Australian bowler, I said, "I cannot imagine how you ever get a good batsman out!" ”

“ Here is one of the reasons why golf has been taken to in England with a vigour and force that certainly is the most astonishing feature in the history of games that I have any experience of at all.
I have said that nobody can become a really first-rate golfer who has not begun the game early in life. I believe this to be absolutely true; but it is equally true that a very respectable skill can be acquired by men whose eye and muscles are attuned to games, if they have never handled a club till thirty years old. ”

“ What can be said of golf? What is the reason of golf coming to stay in England and in America, too, if report speaks truly? It is not easy to say why such is the case. Anybody can understand why football is a popular game; it is fast for one thing, and there is violent exercise in it, which an Englishman always loves. And in the case of cricket anybody can understand the joy of hitting a ball over the ropes, while the excitement of playing before crowds appeals strongly to many of us. ”

“ If you don't want to talk yourself you can be as dumb as a drum with a hole in it, as Sam Weller says, and you may go farther, and forbid anybody to speak to you; but to stamp and swear because somebody within hearing distance of you chooses to talk to a friend is ridiculous and silly, partly because it is contemptible, and partly because, as you are not in a position to stop all conversation on the links, you must grin and bear it. ”

“ When a golfer or billiard player of mature years wonders why he is never able to play a certain club or a particular stroke, you may point out to him the fact that there are a great many boy cricketers with quite a fair talent for the game, who with the best coaching in the world cannot get rid of some particular fault, such as a fatal one of pulling a leg-stump ball. In practice the coach sometimes hugs himself with the belief that the fiend is banished, but in a match it may come back any moment ”

“ You cannot in golf ever be quite certain how the ball will lie except on the tee and putting-green. You experience during your walk of 150 yards to the ball alternate feelings of hope and fear, hope that the ball is lying on a smooth place and easy to hit, fear that it is in a cup or has a lump behind it. There is also the uncertainty that has a twinge of agony about it, and that is the question how you are going to hit it; even the best players foozle sometimes. Without uncertainty there is no really first-class game where a ball is concerned ”

“ A man is somehow apt to feel that it is no good playing a good stroke, the probability being that his rival will bring off one equally good or better. The fact is overlooked that even a grand player fails occasionally, and that everybody finds it very hard to beat a very steady player, who can profit so much by one of his opponent's mistakes. Somehow or other a blight is on you; try how you will, you cannot forget or put out of your mind the prowess of the great player who is opposing you; he strikes a terror. This is one characteristic of golf, and it is one which golf shares with billiards. ”

“ Some men abuse their poor innocent beast of burden, the caddie, in a manner painful to hear. It is far better and more humane to abuse your opponent who has a right of reply, than your caddie who has none. The tempers of some golfers have their humorous side, but there are also some that are painful to witness. We must congratulate ourselves that the glorious element of humour is never quite absent from golf, serious though the game and the Scotch nation be. ”

“ Cricket, during the progress of a match, may present every form of excitement or the reverse. The game may at one moment look an absolute certainty for one side, ten minutes after it looks an equal certainty for the other side; the downfall of a batsman who is well in and scoring rapidly often has, and it is to be hoped often will again, turn the fortunes of a match. While he was in, the scoring was fast, and the bowling looked easy: now he is out, the boot is altogether on the other leg, the bowlers are happy, and the two batsmen who are at the wickets both look like getting out every over. ”

“ It would be absolutely impossible to play a good game with the feather balls which are exhibited as curiosities in some club rooms, as it would be at cricket to play a good innings with Robinson's bat, of colossal weight in the blade and very thin handle, which you may see at Lords. But the very old players had to play with feather balls, while the modern player has had every imaginable choice of the finest gutta-percha to choose from. ”

“ In other words, given a man of inexhaustible patience, a straight bat, and a good eye, there is no reason why he should ever be got out. Anybody who saw Noble bat in this year's test match at Manchester will see that this is no exaggeration. It is not possible in England to devote more than three days to any match, and I, for one, maintain that it would be the ruin of the game if more time were given. A continuation of summers like 1899 and no alteration of the rules would produce an absolute deadlock of international cricket in this country. ”

“ We all know the golfer with fads. I have played at many games, but golf is played by more faddists than have been returned to the House of Commons during the past ten years. To write of these fads, just to state in bold English what they are, is enough to show their absurdity. One man insists on having his caddie and everybody he may be playing with, fixed behind his back and nowhere else—on the absurd ground, I suppose, that if they take up their position in any other spot they catch his eye. ”

“ The easy wicket has made batting so easy that the proper proportion and balance of the game are lost. It is not only the good batsmen who make hundreds and two hundreds: the inferior batsman, who ought never on his merits to score above 50 runs in an innings, going in ninth or tenth, on perfect wickets, and against fatigued bowlers, finds it easy to hit away all over the place, and the runs come in numbers. The result of such run-getting is in every way pernicious. ”

“ There is nothing more certain than that in golf, as in cricket, great length of hit is possible to those whose joints are full of oil and supple, and to those only, which in other words means youth. It is possible to lay out a course entirely in the way I have described. Every hole may be at least 400 yards long, and such a links could only tempt the young long-hitting player. The old-fashioned golfer may exaggerate the old-fashioned style of lofting and cutting and approaching, but still he has some argument in his favour. ”

“ He may have a ten yards' putt to win or halve a hole; he takes time and care and the ball goes down; and lastly, as has been pointed out before, the golfing hero produces more or less of a paralysis in his opponents. It is the same at all games; the field are nervous when the batting hero is in, and he is more often missed than the ordinary batsman. In golf the genius is always tempting his mediocre rival to imitate him. If the genius drives a long ball, his rival presses to do the same and tops the ball into a bunker ”

“ This element of progress is a highly important feature, and largely accounts for the popularity of the game.
As years go on, a man's golf undergoes changes. A player's stance has to be altered gradually when his rapidly-changing figure makes a view of his feet not always easy. When younger he prided himself on the length of his drive, but golf provides compensation for the very material abbreviation that inevitably comes to the drive of the middle-aged. Experience is a great thing in all games, but in none more than in golf. ”

“ I know perfectly well that a man may feel unutterably nervous before he goes in to bat at cricket, but his nervousness goes when he has scored twenty runs, and been in half-an-hour. If you get out, well you have no further opportunity of getting nervous till your second innings comes round, and under no circumstances ought a bowler to be nervous, as one bad ball may always be redeemed by a wicket next ball. ”

“ It must not be supposed, however, that there is no excitement in cricket; there may be, and frequently ought to be a long drawn out and painfully exciting phase of the match that may last for some hours. A fourth innings of a match, when the quantity of runs necessary to win is the right number, the number that seems likely to ensure the inside winning by one wicket, or the outside by twelve runs, unless there is a collapse or pounding of the bowling by the earlier batsmen—such an innings is according to the best judgment the finest spectacle to watch that any game can afford. ”