James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1876

16 enough to dovoto your attention to the mysteries of break and spin. Only recently I read somewhere of the extraordinary capacity of a celebrated Oxford bowler in producing shooters at will. Bui this faculty exists nowhere except in the imagination of the writer ; and tlie intelligence was, perhaps, as novel and original to the Oxonian a< it was to anyone who had a practi­ cal knowledge of the game. Reduce shooters to a certainty, and to a great extent the proverbial uncertainty of cricket is no more. After this digression it may be as well to state that some deliveries favour shooters, and that these are usually produced by a low sling action, as was that of Mr. Fellows. To impart the mysteries of the rotary motion of a ball is not only dillicult hut impossible, except by personal initiation. That the secret of good bowling is the spin infused into the course of the ball is so obvious that the statement does not require more than a passing comment. Much of this rotary ten­ dency is derived from the method in which the ball is held when it leaves the hand, though it is ess ntiallv the combination of arm and wrist that forms the positive instrument. There are some few who hold the hall in the palm of the hand, but there is no better plan, to my mind, than to allow the tips of the fingers to touch tlie seam of the hall, holding it tightly, so as to give it the greatest amount of spin. But in this matter much must be left to the young bowler. Experiments will soon prove fruitful or fruitless, until more or less success is gained, and “ use will father what's begot by sense." Care must be taken, too, not to overdo matters by an excess of practice, as it will be found best to employ short intervals for the purpose, and not to go in for undue taxation of energy. Above all, it is nccessaiy that a howler should learn to accom­ modate himself to Die play of a batsman. To do this requires a reasonable amount of perception, without which slow bowling would be useless. As I have said before, the batsman must be flattered, and hi *weakness encouraged until he is hooked. 'With complete command over the ball, “ pitch’ ' will be of course a certainty, and the other incidental devices will follow. The variation of the pitch of Die hall must not only he studied, but alteration of pace, which is quite as important a point. Slow under-hand, too, should be cultivated, and indeed, at the outset it would he advisable to acquire a first modicum of accuracy by this practice. Here, too, constant alteration should be the chief aim. The chief defect of slow bowlers, in my opinion, is that th y are generally too slow, and that, moreover, the balls are tossed too high. A batsman should never, except at the option of the bowler, be allowed to meet the ball at full pitch, as he can so often in these days. Of course an occasional toss, with the aid of a good field, is a useful experiment, but the mixture should he administered in moderation. And now a few words on the managament of howling. This may be old advice, but it is systematically overlooked. When a batsman is regularly set any change is bet or than none. Constant maiden overs weary the Held as wrell as the spectators. Any port in a storm, and a bad howler will get a wicket when the best have failed. Try a change at both ends if necessary, and when the bat men are separated you can go back to Die former bowlers. Don’t keep a man on simply because he has got a wicket. A man may be a recognised public bowler, but as he is only one of the eleven lie must look to the other ten for help, and unless they can aid him by good fielding they have no right to places in the team. The advantages of any change are often visible in Die b( t matches. See how Wild settled Mr.* W. G. Grace at Lords, in 1809, in w,r meteh between Nottinghamshire and the Marylebone Club, when he was