Cricket 1887

APRIL 28, 1887. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 83 Codlingsby , have “ liked wopping ” young Horace. In 1743 an Asa wrote thus in the Gentleman'a Magazine —his stupid wisdom is valuable, beoause it proves that our noble game was by 1742 thoroughly recognised in the highest circles—“ Cricket is certainly a very innocent and wholesome exercise. Yet it may be abused if either great or little people make it their business. It is greatly abused when it is made the subject of public adver­ tisements, to draw together great crowds of people who ought all of them to be somewhere else.” Why, where could they be better than watching the cricket of that time, the huge eurved bats, some of them five pounds in weight, the game which knew not of blocking, and the hitting “ blooming hard, blooming high, and blooming often ? ” But the thought­ ful writer in the Gentleman's Magazine was right in one point. Cricket was then, like racing now, a medium of speculation. Big matches were always played for very high stakes, betting was general, matches were sold, professional plavers were corrupted, and the harmless cricket-neld was little better than the nefarious turf of to-day The contem­ porary poet complained — “ Our well- bred heirs Gamestersand jockeys turn, and cricket players.” The ericket of that date is best understood by aid of old pic­ tures and prints, several of which we engrave. A fin e f u 11- Iength view of the bat may be got from the little portrait group a fte r Downman of a boy with his sisters. Down­ man was a nomadic artist who used to v i s i t t h e houses of the nobility and gentry, and sketch their e h ild re n in the pleasant water - colour draw ings of which there is a portfolio in the British Museum. A friend of my own once had an interview, a tete-d-tete, I may say, with a burglar in awkward circum­ stances. The burglar, though only a pro­ vincial practitioner, was armed with a grievous crab-tree cudgel” like Bunyan’s Giant Despair, whereas my friend had no weapon of any description. Looking round him for a tool, his eye fell on a bat, with which he gently but firmly induced the burglar to take his departure, and saw him off the premises. But he complained that a bat was really an awkward, unhandy sort of weapon, not to be trusted by reason of the thmness of its handle. Now the bat in the sketch on page 748 is as grievous a cudgel as a householder (who did not wish to “ give the point ”) could desire to have handy. Observe the gradual thickening from the handle through the curved pod to the lump at the end. Here are none of the well-marked f-Joulders of the modern bat. No fear that the handle of this bludgeon will yield. ±>ut what an extraordinary, obsolete Style of play does this bat indicate ! The curved blade is not meant to stop a length ball—using this instrument you could not play with a straight bat, the very essence of the modern game. Again, compare the bat with that in the hands of the hitter in the print from a picture by Hayman. This bat is even still more crooked at the end, in fact it is an exaggerated hockey stick. The inference is that the crook of the primitive bat was made for hitting a grounder, grub, sneak, or daisy cropper, a ball which rarely rose off the ground in its course from the bowler’s hand to the wicket. Indeed we see that this kind of delivery is being offered by the bowler in the icture. Every one knows how easy it is to it a ball lying on the ground with the crook of a stick, and how little can be done with the other end. Therefore we may infer from the oldest bats alone, if we had no other evidence, that sneaks were the only style of bowling in times past, and that the batter, with his crooked, heavy club, tried to punish the sneaks as hard as he possibly cbuld, without thought of defence, which was scarcely pos- VIEW OF HARROW SCHOOL. From the “ European Magazine ,” Nov., 1802. sible in the circumstances. The picture we have been criticising represents a single wicket affair among country fellows. The fields are probably set rather at random, as the artist happened to prefer. Indeed we must not rely too much on the evidence of art. Even in popular modern periodicals, sketches of cricket are often drawn by men who manifestly know nothiug of the sport. There is much more method in our next engraving from avery fine picture by Hayman of the Royal Academy Club in Marylebone Fields, which was exhibited some years ago at Burlington House. Here, as in the sketch last noticed, we find that the old short two stumps and the single bale are still in use, though both pictures are subsequent to the date when ihe hole between the stumps became obsolete. As every one knows, the third stiynp was added about 1775, because it was observed that the straightest balls went between the wickets without removiDg the bale. This, people may say, would at once have occurred to the feeblest capacity. But mark the conservatism of the human mind, and the march of evolution. There was originally no middle stamp, because the batter, when regaining his ground after a run, placed his bat in the hole between the stumps, itself a survival from cat and dog. The hole was filled up, and a crease (cut at first, not marked in whitewash, as at present) was substituted, to prevent the bat from coming down on the hands of the wicket­ keeper, as he put down the wicket by placing the ball in the hole. Yet, though men had got rid of the hole, they did not at once add a third stick, custom and use were too strong for them, and we see the old unfair two stumps in both the designs before us. Indeed they appear as late as 1793, in a picture of a match between Lord Winchilsea and Lord Darnley for £1,000 a-side. Mark also the height of the wickets. Their lowness, liko the shape of the contemporary bat, testifies to the habit of bowling grubs. A modern ball would rise high over these wickets, which would only be knocked down by a shooter or a Yorker, or perhaps a half volley. Next observe the d isp o si­ tions of the field. There is a man out in the long- field on,a mid- o square-leg far out. There is a wicket-keep­ er, long-stop, point, third man, long hit off, mid- off and c o v e r - point. Appa­ rently hard, straight driv­ ing on the off side was not expected. The bowler holds the ball to his eye, like the i m m o r t a l tru n d le r of Dingley Dell. The game, in spite of odd wickets, odd bats, and low underhand de- liveries, re­ quired a dis­ position of the field not un­ like that to which we are accustomed. The long-stop, of course, would now be superfluous among good players. The quaint little cut of cricket at Harrow in the old times teaches us very little, as the boys are not engaged in a formal game, and the fielders are set anyhow. Modern cricket was well under way towards its present perfection when (1774) a committee of noblemen and gentlemen met at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall and settled the laws. The stumps were still but twenty-two inches high and only one bale was used. Nothing is said? in these early laws about l.b.w. Obstructing he ball’ s progress to the wicket with the leg tis first heard of in the scoring sheets towards the close of the century. Here is a queer rule: “ When the ball is struck up, either of the players may hinder the catch iri his running ground, or if she is hit directly across the wickets the other player may place his body anywhere within swing of his bat so as to hinder the bowler from catch­ ing her, but he must neither strike at her nor touch her with his hands.” By way of a final lesson from the old engravings we should