Pitch (cricket)

“ The high delivery is certainly the most successful where the ground is hard, fast, and true, as then little or no twist can be put on to the ball, and the higher it is made to bound the more chance there is of the batsman making an uppish stroke. In addition to this advantage which the high has over the low delivery, the higher the arm is raised above the shoulder, the more difficult it is for a batsman to judge the pitch and flight of the ball. ”

“ You can also pull a full-pitch to leg or anywhere on the on side where fieldsmen are scarce, and it is a sign that for that particular occasion the bowler is defeated if the batsman has not permitted the ball to touch the ground.
If you find, on going out to hit a ball, that it is too short, and you cannot get at the pitch of it, you have several courses open to you. If you are a very big hitter, and the field is not very far out, it is worth while to try the experiment of hitting as hard as you can; the ball must go high, and may go over the ropes or out of harm's way ”

“ 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. ”

“ The second kind of full-pitch—the one reaching the batsman about the height of his knees—is the most usual of fullpitches, and enjoys the distinction of being considered the easiest of all balls to hit. A good batsman can hit this ball from a slow bowler to almost any part of the field; consequently, though it often happens in the chapter of accidents that a wicket falls to this ball—a. catch in the country perhaps, or a hard catch and bowl—it is of all balls the very worst for a slow bowler to deliver. ”

“ However, young players in schools are certain to get plenty of convenient balls to hit, so they must remember to throw out the left leg and hit as near to the pitch as possible and as hard as they can. The ball may start in the direction of square-leg, but its natural bias after it has gone a certain distance will be towards long-leg or behind the wicket, and the fieldsman must remember this, or he will find the ball fly away behind him on his right side. ”

“ In baseball the pitcher's ball must reach the batter before it touches the ground; in cricket, if the ball did not touch the ground first and reach the batsman on the bound, no one would ever be out at all, for the other ball, the full-pitch as we call it, is, with a flat bat, too easy to hit, for our bowlers swerve very rarely: it is the contact with the ground which enables them to give the ball its extra spin or break. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The straighter the ball, the more puzzling to the eye, and the more cramping to the hand of the batsman.
4. Short-pitched balls are not only easier to hit, but have more scope for missing the wicket, though pitched straight.
5. A free leg-hitter may often be put out by placing an extra man On side, and bowling repeatedly at leg-stump—only do not pitch very far up to him. Short-pitched leg-balls are the most difficult to hit, and produce most catches. By four or five attempts at leg-hitting, a man gains a tendency to swing round, and is off his straight play. ”

“ If the latter is bowled, the batsman, although deceived in the pace up to the pitch, has time to discover his mistake before the ball reaches him, and consequently has his bat ready in time to stop it If a ball is, however, pitched a good length, or a trifle beyond it, and up to the pitch is successful in deceiving the batsman, he will not have much chance of stopping it afterwards. ”

“ Fast bowlers occasionally get wickets under such conditions through the pace with which their deliveries come from the pitch; but as they depend upon stance and, perhaps, grip of the ball more than medium or slow bowlers, the latter are generally more useful when there is any wet on the surface of the pitch. Whenever the wicket favours run-getting, good length tells above all else, especially if supplemented by skilful change of pace and pitch. ”

“ Very many bowlers possess this downward spin in their bowling without being at all aware of the fact. They know, as also do those who play against them, that every now and then one of their balls will, in cricket slang, 'make haste from the pitch.' The batsman finds he has mistaken the pace of the ball, which flies past him before he is anything like ready to play it, and when his stumps lie prostrate, as often as not he will come back to the pavilion with the old, old story, 'Bowled with a shooter;' whereas, in fact, the ball has hit the middle or even upper part of his stumps. ”

“ These two laws contain the essence of the game of cricket as played with a single wicket. It is not sound cricket to play any bowling that may be called slow in the widest sense of the term with your right foot absolutely fixed. In the chapter on Batting the young player is advised to go out of his ground to slow bowling of a certain length and drive. But at single wicket the batsman may not move even an inch in front of the popping crease, to get a lob, for instance, on the full pitch. ”

“ The bowler may, however, see that the batsman is wide enough awake to restrain himself from hitting blindly at the pitch of this ball when straight or on the off stump; it will then be advisable to try him entirely on the leg side—a man may refuse the bait on one side but take it on the other. In these circumstances extra coverpoint, and sometimes even cover-point as well, may be brought across the wicket and placed for half-hits wide on the on—i.e. about half the distance from the batsman that a deep field would stand. ”

“ A committee of noblemen and gentlemen (including Sir Horace Mann, the Duke of Dorset, and Lord Tankerville) drew them up at the 'Star and Garter' in Pall Mall. 'The pitching of the first wicket is to be determined by the toss of a piece of money.' Does this mean that the sides tossed for which was to pitch the wicket? As Nyren shows, much turned on the pitching of the wicket Lumpy (Stevens) 'would invariably choose the ground where his balls would shoot.' [21] In the rules of 1774, the distance between the stumps is the same as at present. The crease is cut, not painted. ”

“ A large square, capable of providing about a dozen good wickets during the summer, is enclosed with posts and chains, and the patient labour of our groundman and umpire (who in his leisure hours is also a shoemaker and a lamplighter) is year by year producing better results. For although it is unwise to have a perfect pitch for half-day cricket, yet, on the other hand, it must not be dangerous, and with the limited means at the disposal of a village club, the happy medium is not easy to attain. ”

“ It is astonishing how many wickets fall to slow ‘yorkers;’ the ball is mistaken for everything but what it really is, viz. a full-pitch—for every ball pitching inside the crease must be playable as a full-pitch. ”

“ First.—The slowly delivered ball describes a curved line in the air both before it pitches, and afterwards to the bat; and balls coming in a curved line are far more difficult to play accurately than those which come quick and straight from the pitch. If the batsman properly judged the fast ball, by simply putting his bat straight forward he would always meet and stop it. It is not quite so with the slower ball. The ball, coming on to the ground in a curve, will leave it in a curve, and may consequently go over the shoulder of the bat. ”

“ Some batsmen prefer such wickets to any others. Big scores are not frequent on grounds in this state, simply because the ball comes rather dully off the pitch, and is consequently not so easy to hit hard, and because when hit it travels slowly and with difficulty along the dead ground, and the fieldsman can easily get to it to prevent boundaries. ”

“ The consequence is that by one consent the centre of the green is always left for good matches, and as every village boy learns the management of turf, you would be surprised to see what an admirable pitch youngsters of fourteen or fifteen years of age will make for themselves on somewhat rough ground with the aid of a fivepronged fork, a watering-pot and a hand-roller; and you would be surprised to see what real good cricket many of them play. ”

“ Cricket is usually played by eleven players on each side, the tactics of each party being directed by a captain. Two umpires are appointed, whose decrees, [Pg 595] if sometimes inscrutable, are always irreversible, and whose first duty it is to "pitch the wickets." Having selected the ground, they proceed to measure accurately a distance of twenty-two yards, and to erect a wicket at either extremity. ”

“ Then, at any point short of a, should the bat be placed, the ball may rise over the bat if held to the ground, or shoot under if the bat is a little raised. At b the same single act of planting the bat cannot both cover a bailer and stop a shooter. Every ball which the batsman can reach, as at a, may be met with a full bat forward; and, being taken at the pitch, it is either stopped or driven away with all its rising, cutting, shooting, or twisting propensities undeveloped. If not stopped at a, the ball may rise and shoot in six lines at least ”

“ The Tice is almost a full pitch; the way to hit it, says Caldecourt, is to go in and make it a full pitch: I cannot advise this for beginners. Going in even to a Tice puts you out oF form for the next ball, and creates a dangerous habit.
Ground balls, and all balls that touch the ground more than once between wickets, I have already hinted, are reckoned very easy, but they are always liable to prove very dangerous. Sometimes you have three hops, and the last like a good length ball: at each hop the ball may twist On or Off with the inequalities of the ground ”

“ In later years we played stump cricket and lawn tennis, but in the early days of which I am thinking the only game I clearly remember was the practice p. 62of the village cricketers in our field. It seems improbable, yet I am decidedly of opinion that the pitch was the footpath, the unmown condition of the grass making bowling elsewhere an impossibility ”

“ These the cricketer is able to make because the bat is flat and wide, and he holds it both vertically and at a slant, as occasion demands, and is allowed, at his own risk, to run out to meet the ball. In the early days of cricket, a hundred and fifty years ago, the bat was like a baseball club, but curved, and the only strokes then were much what the only baseball strokes are now—the full-strength hit and the stopping hit. So long as the pitcher delivers the ball in the air it is probable that the baseball club will remain as it is ”

“ Nearly every batsman prays for a half-volley on the leg stump, or one pitching within three or four inches of the leg stump, for, if properly timed, it is a stroke which sends a thrill of joy through the batsman. If the ball pitches on the wicket, the hit should be made between the bowler and mid-on, though with a break-back bowler the ball may often be forced wide of mid-on's right side. If the ball pitches outside the leg stump, it should be hit anywhere to the right of mid-on. ”