Test cricket

“ The only hope of making cricket as really attractive and useful to young boys as it might be, is to reduce the size of the ball as well as the size of the bat, and keep the full distance. At present a diminutive brat pummels the big ball with all his might, and it barely reaches cover point; his best half-volley drive goes meekly into mid-on’s hands—or, rather, it would, if the ball were not too big to get there. Not only is his hitting spoilt: the throwing becomes painful, and the bowling in spite of the short distance strains the shoulder. ”

“ In like manner in back play the youngster puts his right leg up to his bat, and this is an innovation about which it may be said that cricket would be improved if it was no longer the fashion. In fact, the modern idea is that, failing the bat, the legs must protect the wicket; and we say most emphatically that this is against the spirit of the rules and practice of cricket. One hears a batsman who has been given out l.b.w. come away from the wicket and talk as if he were the victim of the greatest hardship. And why? Because he maintains that the ball pitched perhaps an inch off the off stump. ”

“ Amateurs play cricket for recreation—as a pleasure, not a business—and experience shows that any alteration which would encourage the practice of bowling would greatly improve cricket. In country matches, bowlers stipulate for four balls or six; why not make matches to play with a wicket of eight inches, or even twelve? I had rather see a ball go anywhere than into the long-stop's hands, or into the batsman's face. ”

“ This game of trundling along the ground at a two-foot wide wicket, and a man with a hockey-stick defending it, is really rather a travesty of the great and glorious game. The origin of cricket it was, no doubt, and as such is to be most piously revered, but actual cricket—hardly. Consider that old print of a game in progress on the Artillery Fields, where the players are equipped with the curved bats, wear knee-breeches, and the wicket is low and wide, with two stumps upright and one across. There is not a fieldsman on the off side of the wicket—a significant fact in itself ”

“ It is not to be supposed that even we, for all our legislation, have witnessed the final evolution of cricket. Legislate we never so often, something will always remain to be bettered—the width of the wicket or the law of the follow on. About the earliest records that have come down to us there is a notable incompleteness that we must certainly regret. The bowler gets no credit for wickets caught or stumped off his bowling. What would become of the analysis of the underhand bowler of to-day if wickets caught and stumped were not credited to him? ”

“ But first-class cricket is more difficult of attainment when the field is so crowded as to make it hard to decide which player out of three or four has caught you out, while your only chance of not being run out first ball is to take the wicket with you—always a possibility when the wicket is somebody's coat that has a way of getting mixed up with the batsman's feet. ”

“ It seems to me that in cricket the nearer the striker’s body is to the ball, the more likely he is to make a correct stroke, for the reason that his eye is nearer to the object he is striking at. If then a batsman keeps his right foot firmly fixed just off the leg stump to a ball which pitches on the off stump or a couple of inches outside it, his eye is necessarily farther away from that ball than if he moved his right leg across the wicket in the direction the ball is taking. ”

“ Let the cricket fielder constantly bear in mind that the time allotted to him to pick up and return the ball to the wicket is less than that required for a fast runner to traverse 18 yards at speed. If he is just as fast as the runner his exertions are lost to his side, for the batsman has reached his crease. The fielder must therefore be mentally and physically active while the ball is in play. It is not enough for him to take the ball and return it to the wicket keeper. Thousands of wickets have been held by a failure on the part of the fielder to return to the right wicket. ”

“ In the second place, the rules of single-wicket cricket make it essential that driving in front of the wicket must be the staple stroke of the batsman, and for this reason, because the second rule provides that, to entitle the striker to a run, the ball must be hit before the bounds. ”

“ The presence of the spectators, the keen desire to master the bowling and defy the fielding, should make it impossible for a batsman to find cricket monotonous. Similar arguments apply to the case of the batsman or the fielder. Cricket is an inspiriting game; and anything which raises the spirits and cheers the heart relieves to a great extent any strain on the muscles, just as dulness and monotony increase or exaggerate fatigue. Staleness, in the athletic or restricted meaning of the word, does not seem possible in cricket. ”

“ It would be far better to tell people how to field, or even how to watch with a view to interest and improvement. Reforms must aim at giving amusement, interest, attractiveness to the play of the average cricketer.
Let us consider a common experience in a one-day College match at Cambridge, putting aside the wet or rather the difficult wicket on which every player gets a knock; we want to think of Cricket at its best—on a{237} fine day and a good wicket. The side that wins the toss sends in its first two or three bats; they pile up some hundreds of runs ”

“ The men who can do this are the chosen few. Where one man can show scientific cricket on soft, caking grounds, ten at least can be found who can play and hit bowling when the wicket is hard and fast. There are two sorts of players whose methods are entirely different and entirely opposite. The really scientific batsman who plays correct and orthodox cricket, watching every ball with the eye of a hawk, keeping his left shoulder well forward and thereby getting well over the bumping ball, holding the bat, when occasion demands, loosely—such a bat hardly exists. ”

“ In cricket a bowler who delivered the ball with the action of a pitcher would be disqualified for "throwing": it is one of the laws of cricket that the bowler's elbow must not be bent.
In cricket (I mean in the first-class variety of the game) the decisions of the umpire are never questioned, either by players or public.
In baseball there are but two strokes for the batter: either the "swipe," or "slog," as we call it, where he uses all his might, or the "bunt," usually a sacrificial effort; in cricket there are scores of strokes, before the wicket, behind it, and at every angle to it. ”

“ 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 batsman to do when he finds himself playing forward, but unable to smother the ball at the pitch? ”

“ But the best “trundlers” give chances to the shoulder hitter, and when accepted the spectator feels gratified that the science of cricket has been momentarily relaxed. If the muscular power of the batsman be not fully exerted upon the natural hits, we think all good cricketers will agree with us, that safety demands that the ball should be “let alone.” ”

“ Anyone who has charge of village cricket falls very short of his duty if he does not arrange at least one real practice afternoon a day or two before a match. He must have a good wicket made, and all who are going to play in the match must come for some part of the play. And this is a good opportunity for letting young bowlers come and try their hand, with sixpence on the wicket. I have much faith in that sixpence on the wicket. It is useless to waste any trouble on a boy who has not got cricket at heart, but it is a great deal of use training one who has. ”

“ An account was lately given in the papers of a man recognised as a first-class county bat who was in on a fast hard wicket in the first innings of a match three hours and forty minutes for thirty-two runs. More shame to him! He did his best to draw the match, and by puddling about for so long only helped to wear out the ground for more capable scorers who were to follow him. Sometimes, when the ground is very bad, it is good to have a sticker, but taken altogether cricket would be very much better off if the whole race of stickers occasionally adopted a somewhat freer style. ”

“ The Trinidad ground is infested with mole crickets, and the wicket is so impossible that, unless matting is put down, cricket will languish, for no young cricketer can be taught to bat really well on such a wicket, and a bowler may be in danger of thinking himself a good one, when in fact he is only just beginning to bowl. ”

“ It does not require any great amount of technical cricket knowledge to understand that, if a bowler delivers every ball at the same uniform pace, his bowling is easier for a batsman to judge and play than when he is continually altering and changing the pace. If a batsman misjudges the pace of the ball he often loses his wicket. If he plays too slow for a fast ball, or too fast for a slow one, he generally makes a fatal mistake. ”

“ The side that bats second is nearly always in at the close of the first day's play, and the lights and shadows between six and seven often make the ball very difficult to judge accurately; at Lord's, especially, the light gets bad towards the close of the day; a haze overspreads the ground, making clear and accurate sight extremely difficult. As for the respective difficulties of making and saving runs, a cricketer need only look at his scores and references to see how often the out side at the close of a match has prevented the in side from getting the runs required. ”

“ Companions can practice fielding indoors or almost anywhere, if a ball is provided. Cricketers will find a ball a delightful companion. Passing it around gives the practice which fielders must have to become expert. A dozen occasions innure the hands to the sensation of stopping a fast ball. It will no longer feel hard, but the fielder will take it at lightning speed.
Perfect fielding is absolutely unknown on the American cricket fields. Errors are so numerous even among the best players, that bowlers lose courage and nerve. Each fielder should recollect that he is the support of the bowler. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Umpires do not like being teased. Besides, appeals that are not bona fide are directly opposed to the spirit in which cricket should be played. The ball is not often taken cleanly on the leg-side, but when it is, it should be swept into the wicket at once, as most batsmen frequently drag their foot or jump about in playing to leg. It is not necessary to appeal every time the bails are knocked off. It is difficult to take leg-balls, so a young wicket-keeper is advised to pay more attention in his early practice to those that come over the wicket or slightly to the off. ”

“ We extract the following:—
"The judge of the Brentford County Court has decided that cricket is a legal game, so as to render the stakeholder liable in an action for the recovery of the stakes, in a case where one of the parties had refused to play."
Cricket is not solely a game of skill—chance has sway enough to leave the vanquished an if and a but. A long innings bespeaks good play; but "out the first ball" is no disgrace. A game, to be really a game, really playful, should admit of chance as well as skill. ”

“ We yield to nobody in our enthusiasm for the game of cricket, but we are certainly in favour of judicious reform in the laws which govern the game; and we can scarcely help supposing that the opponents of all change are either oblivious of the enormous alteration that has taken place in cricket in consequence of the improvement of grounds, or else their attention is principally devoted to batting, and this causes them to think a little too much of the joys of hitting. No doubt they revel in the hot days, perfect wickets, and loose bowling that bring about the supremacy of batting. ”

“ The very best players, however, cannot ensure anything like a certainty, as they know there will come a time, and that not far distant, when their limbs will grow stiff and their eyes less keen. Cricket is a game which requires quickness of eye and of limb, and, as a rule, after thirty-four or thirty-five, either one of the two—the former or the latter, and perhaps both—must begin to fail. Then the professional cricketer is going downhill, and shortly will have to retire and see his place filled by younger and more active men. ”