James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1889

1 0 LILLYWHITE'SCRICKETERS' ANNUAL. public schools . Everything went so swimmingly at first -the weather wasfine , though rather cold , the wickets were true and fairly fast , and school coaches were in ecstasies at the improvement which their young hands were making. Suddenly there came a change. W e had been crying out for water ; not only did our cricket grounds want a few days of steady rain , but throughout the country anticipations of the most dismal character were indulged in ; indeed it was confidently asserted that we were on the eve of a serious water famine. H o wwell we rememberthose days of drought, and howwelonged for the rain , whichthe prophets told us wasnot to come for weeks andmonths ! As usual , the prophets prophesied falsely , the rain did come, and at first was universally welcomed; but the truth of the old adage, " Youcan have too muchof a good thing," was never more fully confirmed , for the rain went on and on, and it is but slight exaggeration to say that , after the beginning of June, school cricket of any satisfactory kind was at an end. Of course there were some few days of sunshine , just to cheer our drooping hearts , but those days were very very few, and the general impression which the past term has stamped on our minds is one of utter misery. Butw h yenlarge on this subject ? Every one knows about it, every one remembers, only too well, those dismal days, whenthey were compelled to look onat whatwas called cricket , but in reality was a mere parody of the dear old game. Grounds were swamps, sawdust reigned supreme, bowlers could not stand , fieldsmen were slipping about, with fingers almost too cold to hold a catch , and even the batsmen had very little fun, the ball played such funny tricks , andw h e nit washit refused to travel. A n dother days comebackto our recollection very vividly , whenthe ground was not quite a swamp, and bowlers wenton their wayrejoicing ; batsmen went on their w a ytoo, but their w a y wasnot ahappy one-it led chiefly from pavilion to wicket , and then again from wicket to pavilion . Andthere were manydays of this kind, as the statistics of first -class cricket prove only too clearly . For two months or more the bowlers held the upper hand, and even the giants of the cricket world found run-getting a matter of the greatest difficulty . Scores ruled absurdly small , and the croakers , who declare that the game has lost all its interest , owing to the immense superiority of bat over ball , were , for the time being at all events , completely silenced . Thenat last the fine weather came, but for us it came too late - school cricket was over, and any honours our boys obtained were wonon other fields , w h i t h e rw earenot able to followt h e m. O n eo f the worstfeatureso f a w e t season , speaking from a school coach's point of view, is that it tends to reduce all batsmen to a level , and that the dull level of mediocrity . The mentor strives to instil correct notions of batting into his boys , and then finds that some reckless hitter , whodisregards all rules , runs up a very fair score , while his care- fully taught painstaking neighbour is dismissed for next to nothing . Such a thing is mostvexing, but fortunately it does not happenvery often , or we fear that the mentor would become a mere byword, and sensible practice would cease . W ehave had a good grumble, but we must in justice confess that a wetseason is not an altogether unmixed evil . In the first place it is only fair that bowlers should have their turn of luck , they have not too manyadvantages nowadays, as we all know. Grounds are as perfect as science can makethem, boundaryhits are easy of accomplishment , and the batsman profits thereby : howlargely he profits no one can tell , unless he has played a long innings on some mammothfield where every hit is run out. I fthen their success in '88 has inspired boys with a keenness for bowling , all true lovers of the gamewill rejoice . Again, there are some lessons to be learnt on a tricky wicket which can never be taught whenthe ground is fast and true : for instance , the ball must be watchedfar more closely , and so wefind that the real cricketer comes to the front , the mere rule -of-thumb player retiring into the background to wait for morefavouring days. W ehave come to this conclusion , that to the quickness of eye and hand engendered by practice on a difficult (not bumpy) wicket during his schoolboy days, manya first -rate cricketer owes an excellence which