Cricket

“ Cricket forms no debasing habits: unlike the bull-fights of Spain, and the earlier sports of England, it is suited to the softer feelings of a refined age. No living creature suffers for our sport: no frogs or minnows impaled, or worms writhing upon fish-hooks,—no hare screaming before the hounds,—no wounded partridge cowering in its agony, haunts the imagination to qualify our pleasure.
Cricket lies within the reach of average powers. A good head will compensate for hand and heels. It is no monopoly for a gifted few, nor are we soon superannuated. ”

“ FIELDING. American Cricket owes a debt of gratitude to base ball. The undaunted pluck that stops and holds the fierce grounder; the strong arm which returns it to the baseman; the steady judgement that guides the out-fielder to the fly; all deserve the highest praise. Cricket welcomes the base ball fielder to the cricket ground, gives him the post of severest duty, depends upon his keen eyesight, splendid throwing, quick action and steady nerve. ”

“ People now go to watch a cricket match, not for the sake of seeing a fair duel between bowler and batsman, a close finish, or a decisive result, but merely a batting spectacle. Fast bowlers get worn out prematurely, and are driven to banging the ball down in the hope of the batsman giving catches in the slips; while slow bowlers, in the attempt to bring about impossible breaks, sacrifice length, direction, and spin. The field grows weary, and cricket, instead of being a grand game, becomes a toil and a weariness. ”

“ The common itself is the prettiest part of the prospect, half covered with low furze, whose golden blossoms reflect so intensely the last beams of the setting sun, and alive with cows and sheep, and two sets of cricketers: one of young men, surrounded with spectators—some standing, some stretched on the grass, all taking a delightful interest in the game: the other a group of little boys at an humble distance, for whom even cricket is scarcely lively enough, shouting, leaping, and enjoying themselves to their hearts’ content. ”

“ Or he might stay the whole afternoon at Millstead, lazily watching the cricket from a deck-chair on the pavilion verandah and sipping the tuck-shop's iced lemonade. Less often he would play cricket himself, never scoring more than ten or a dozen runs, but fielding with a dogged energy which occasionally only just missed deserving the epithet brilliant. ”

“ Not that my task is the more modest, for, having a just regard for relative values, I think that it is of cricket I write, such cricket as small boys play in dreams (ah, me, those sixes that small boys hit in dreams!) ; such cricket as the ghosts enjoy at nights at Lord’s. It is well for the eye to take pleasure in shining flannels and ivory-white boots; there is a thrill in the science of the game, the swerve of the new red ball, the quick play of the batsmen’s feet ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But whatever change has taken place in cricket—or in me—I swear there is no change in the jolly Oval crowd. It is, as it has always been, the liveliest, most intense, most good-humoured mob that ever shouted itself hoarse at cricket. It is as different from the Lord's crowd as a country fair is from the Church Congress. At Lord's we take our cricket as solemnly as if we were at a prayer-meeting. We sit and smoke and knit our brows with portentous gravity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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; but further, and far more significant, a spectator is reclining on the ground, entirely at his ease, precisely in the position that point would occupy to-day. ”

“ They come into contact on the cricket-field, and on the committee of our reading-room. For our vicar, in spite of a tendency to myopia, conceives it his duty to encourage cricket by his participation. Duty—to encourage cricket! So figure the scene to yourself. The sunlit green, and a match in progress,—the ball has just snipped a stump askew,—my ancient, leaning on a stout cabbage stick, and with the light overcoat that is sacred to umpires upon his arm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But what is cricket? Descriptions of lively things are apt to be dull, and it is indeed no easy task to render a detailed description of cricket intelligible, much less entertaining, to the uninitiated. The veriest enthusiast never thought the forty-seven "laws of cricket" light reading, and, resembling as they do certain other statutes whose only apparent design is to perplex the inquiring layman, they would, if cited here, be "caviare to the general."
But come with us, in imagination, on a bright May-day to a great match—say on the Germantown cricket-ground. ”

“ Fellowes bowl on any but the smoothest ground—why then, we will not say that any thing which that hardest of hitters and thorough cricketer does, is not cricket, but certainly it is anything but play. ”

“ All one can say is that the charm of the game consists in an aggregate of pleasant feelings which is greater than that given by any other. And I think the reason must be that cricket calls into play more faculties, and gives them freer play and wider scope, than any other game. This is what a cricketer means when he says there is so much in the game. People who have not played or been closely concerned with cricket have not the faintest conception what there is in it. ”

“ But there is another respect in which cricket is pre-eminent as a game. It seems to have an extraordinarily good influence both upon those who take an active part in it and upon those who are merely spectators. I have tried to suggest some of the ways in which games are beneficial to the nation as a whole. They are a splendid form of recreation and an excellent physical training, and cricket as the best of them may fairly be regarded as conferring the greatest benefits. ”

“ Cricket began when first a man-monkey, instead of catching a cocoa-nut thrown him playfully by a fellow-anthropoid, hit it away from him with a stick which he chanced to be holding in his hand. But the date of this occurrence is not easy to ascertain, and therefore it is impossible to fix the date of the invention of cricket. For cricket has passed through so many stages of evolution before arriving at the phase in which we find it to-day that it is difficult to say when the name, as we understand its meaning, first became rightly applicable to it. ”

“ I have declared that Cricket is a genteel game. It is. Our British Cricketer, having finished his day's labor at noon, may don his negligee shirt, his white trousers, his gorgeous hosiery and his canvas shoes, and sally forth to the field of sport, with his sweetheart on one arm and his Cricket bat under the other, knowing that he may engage in his national pastime without soiling his linen or neglecting his lady. ”

“ Border cricket is very pleasant, because it is played in such a pleasant country. You see the angler going to Tweedside, or Teviot, and pausing to watch the game as he strolls by the cricket -ground. The hills lie all around, these old, unmoved, unchangeable spectators of man's tragedy and sport. The broken towers of Melrose or Jedburgh or Kelso look down on you. They used to 'look down,' as well they might, on very bad wickets. ”

“ There is no finer sight in cricket than that of a really good fielding side trying its level best to win or save a match. It is marvellous what can be done, and is done, in such circumstances. Even the uninitiated can appreciate a magnificent catch or a hairbreadth save just on the boundary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The game of cricket, philosophically considered, is a standing panegyric on the English character: none but an orderly and sensible race of people would so amuse themselves. It calls into requisition all the cardinal virtues, some moralist would say. As with the Grecian games of old, the player must be sober and temperate. Patience, fortitude, and self-denial, the various bumps of order, obedience, and good-humour, with an unruffled temper, are indispensable. ”

“ A spectator picks the ball up, chucks it to the expectant field, who dribbles it along the ground to the bowler, while the batsman, having had his smack, saunters about in the most unconcerned way and prepares for the next ball. Cricketers well understand that this saving of breath to a batsman is an enormous advantage; he is enabled to stand quite cool and collected in his ground, and hit away without, as a rule, having to run more than two runs, while the bowlers and field are perspiring away in their efforts to get the side out. ”

“ It is always difficult to analyse a game with a view to finding out why it gives pleasure. Richard Daft seems to me to go to the root of the matter with regard to cricket when he says that it requires of its followers a high degree not only of bodily but of mental skill, and exercises both in a very pleasurable way. But there is something in the game of cricket which cannot be expressed in words—a peculiar charm and fascination. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I do not propose to inquire whether there is benefit in the general spreading of cricket through the country, or whether it may not be said that it occupies too much time and takes men away from other more advantageous occupations, or whether the combination of amateur and professional skill which is found in great matches is a good thing; but I wish, briefly, to point out one or two points in human nature which seem to me to be developed by cricket. ”

“ It is our intention to give some hints to those, who seek pleasure and health from cricket pure and simple, for we are most firm in the belief that good fielding, good bowling, and above all good wicket keeping, now almost a lost art in America will popularize cricket. ”

“ Class amusements, be they for dukes or plow-boys, always become nuisances and curses to a country. The true charm of cricket [28] and hunting is, that they are still, more or less sociable and universal; there's a place for every man who will come and take his part. ”

“ But on the other hand, on rough grounds much is left to chance and luck; cricket, as played on a billiard-table wicket certainly favours the batsman, but it admits of a brilliancy and finish in the matter of style that are impossible on the old-fashioned wicket. Whilst the modern bowler has learnt extraordinary accuracy of pitch, the batsman has perfected the art of "timing" the ball. ”