Cricket. Robert Henry Lyttelton

       I BATTING

       Table of Contents

      Cricket may for descriptive purposes be divided into two separate classes: (1) Batting, (2) Bowling and Fielding. There are certain conditions of wicket when the attacking party may be said to be the batsmen and the defending party the bowlers; on other conditions of wicket exactly the contrary state of things is brought about. In a hot summer, when the wicket is true and fast, English bowlers can bowl a good length, but few can turn the ball or cause it to come at different speeds from the ground when delivered at the same pace before reaching the ground. The batsman has, therefore, comparatively an easy task, and ​instead of devoting his mind to merely keeping his wicket from falling, i.e., to defensive purposes, he attacks, and makes run-getting his primary object; but on a soft, caking wicket the bowler has a good time of it, and becomes the attacking party, while the ordinary run of batsmen have to defend. In the present chapter, therefore, I propose to treat of batting under two distinct heads: first, when the wicket is true and hard, and against the bowlers; and second, when the wicket is soft and tricky, and in favour of the bowlers.

      Thirty years ago wickets generally were more in favour of bowlers than they are now, for the mowing machine and the heavy roller make modern wickets like billiard tables. Whereas on the old grounds you had to prepare your mind for an occasional bumping ball as well as a dead shooter, now, in years like 1896, for instance, you can assume that the ball will come true and of a certain altitude, and may play accordingly.

      A batsman can generally tell what the ​wicket is going to do even before he begins batting, the state of the weather for a week previous and the reputation of the ground will be enough; and he will go in with a light heart and look forward to a pleasant hour. There are many sorts of players. There is the batsman whose temperament, if he is not sure about the length of a ball, will lead him to try a smack, while another will play at the same ball carefully. There are some, like Abel, who absolutely refuse to hit at any ball except those that exactly suit their fancy, and those particular balls they will hit for four; there are others, on the contrary, like O'Brien and Jessop, who, when they get set, seem to have the power to hit balls of any length or pace. W. G. Grace in his prime did not appear to hit, in the sense of putting out the whole of his strength; in fact he did not hit, strictly speaking, except sometimes to leg and a cut, but he had the supreme art of pushing the ball for four and placing it out of the reach of the field. Of course Grace's play is a feature by itself, unique, ​unapproached and unapproachable. In making comparisons between this and that player, or sets of players; it is always understood that 'Grace is left out of the question—his standard, so far as batting is concerned, is to be looked at; not emulated. Those who never saw him in his prime, like our University players of to-day, can never know what cricket was when Grace was king; for half-an-hour of Grace's batting was to bowlers and field what Rudyard Kipling says of the Zulus and the British soldier:—

      "An 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush

      Will last an 'ealthy Tommy for a year."

      Half-an-hour of Grace's batting found the bowlers demoralised, the fields at their wits' end, the captain tearing his hair, and this not once or twice only, but week after week, year after year.

      To return, however, to our batsman who on a hot day steps out to try his luck at the wicket, at the beginning of a match when the ball is red and the wickets very green. ​a very fast bowler on at one end and a medium pace at the other. Now some bats have what to others is an extraordinary knack of playing back on fast wickets to fast bowling; and all Nottingham was probably talking; in 1897, of Gunn's great innings in the Notts and Surrey match. It was reported that the feature of that innings was Gunn's back play to Richardson. Back play by most bats to Richardson on a fast wicket would simply result in a waste of strength by a fruitless movement of the bat, a noise among the stumps, and a walk to the pavilion. But Gunn has in these days, and Carpenter had in the sixties, the power, given to few, of playing back to fast bowlers; and this power must be found out for the batsman by the batsman himself, and, if found to answer, persevered in. Hardly a coach and teacher exists who would teach a boy to play back to fast bowling unless the ball is very short; it is far easier for the general run of bats to play forward, for the great pace of the ball makes it a gift to be ​quick enough to come down on the ball before it is past the bat. To an ordinary player it is wise to say that the ball of which you must be careful when you first go in is a very fast and short ball that you must play back to, but which is very likely to bowl you before you have got accustomed to the pace of the ground. You must be careful of such a ball; you must concentrate your mind on stopping it; and the obvious truth must be pressed home again, that, for at any rate a quarter of an hour, defence, not attack, must be your one consideration; and to the fast bowler the best advice for most batsmen is to make forward play the backbone of your play. There are players like Jessop, of Cambridge University and Gloucestershire, whose play is all hit. Such players have a splendid eye, often only staying about fifteen minutes at the wicket, but during that time scoring about a run and a half a minute. An ideal side ought to have at least one such hitter in its ranks. A great deal of the success of the various Australian elevens was due to the ​fact that some great hitter or hitters were to be found who, in a few minutes, used sometimes to turn a match. Of course such players must carry out their regular tactics. They are almost to a certainty weak in defence, and so they had better trust to their eye and play their own game.

      About nervousness nothing can be said. Every cricketer who is played for his batting is nervous, and if you hear anybody say he does not know what it is to feel nervous, catalogue that individual as one of many who do not like their true feelings to be known of men. Now we will suppose our friend, after a single, to have got down to the other end and to be preparing to meet the medium pace bowler, who has the power of changing his pace. If it is necessary to be careful for a quarter of an hour to fast bowling, it is probably correct to say that you had better pay respect to a "dodgy" bowler for half-an-hour before you play a free game. With the fast bowler you may assume that the pace for every ball is very much alike; ​but with the medium dodgy bowler like Lohmann this is not by any means the case; if you hit at all wildly you will find it easy to mis-hit, and if you leave your ground the wicket-keeper finds it easy to stump you. Let the different principles necessary for playing fast bowling and slow be here briefly examined.

      Before going further, it must be remembered that each age has its characteristics,