Lives in Cricket No 37 - William Clarke

124 Practical Hints on Cricket In laying out your field, you should be careful in selecting good men for your principal places, such as wicket keeper, point, stop, short slip; those posts being well secured, you will be able to move the others at leisure; which you will have to do, if your bowling is pretty correct, which it must be if you are to have an efficient field. How can you lay out a field for an uncertain bowler? How can you tell where the men will hit him? I mean one of the any-how style, happy-go-lucky, yard on this side, yard on the other, all men alike, one straight in about two overs. How careful the Public Schools ought to be in selecting bowlers of a good delivery for their instructors, men who go up to the wicket as if they were going to put the ball somewhere about the mark. On them depends the future style of the learners, who ought not to be taught to throw away all their fine manly strength in empty air. Why, a person who recommends a wild scrambling bowler to teach cricket, ought to be took up under the Cruelty to Animals Act. A bowler should first try to get a steady style of delivery, easy not distressing, and should be sure not to bowl at the very top of his strength, for in that case he must become wild and reckless, losing that precision, which is so necessary to defeat a good batsman. It frequently happens that when a Bowler finds he is dropping the ball short, he will stoop forward and try to propel it with greater force, which will cause him to drop it still shorter and get him into greater difficulties; the very reverse should be the case, when he finds himself that way inclined, he should immediately rear himself as erect as possible, for the more upright a Bowler stands, the greater the ease with which he will deliver the ball, and the more difficult will it be to play: the ball is delivered higher and there is more circle, and the greater the circle the greater the deception to the Batsman. This applies to all sorts of Bowlers. For instance if a Bowler has been forcing a man on his wicket, till he won’t submit to it any longer, he may by tossing the ball a little higher and a little shorter so deceive the Batsman that he will play out, though he has been playing balls back that have been pitched a yard farther, and will very likely lose his wicket by this mistake: at the same time he must be careful to deliver with the same action or he will be detected by the Batsman, who will be put on his guard. The greatest proof that it is not speed alone that tells, but the length according to a man’s play, with as much deception as possible, is that you will see a good slow Bowler do as much or more execution on a fine even damp or dead ground than Bowlers of greater speed that have not equal precision. Why is this? But because many Bowlers never study the state of the ground but deliver at the same speed and at the same place, as near as they can, on a dry as on a wet ground. On a dry hard ground five yards would be a good length and difficult to play, but on soft and spongy ground such a ball would be hit away. Therefore it is necessary in such a case to put a little more speed on as well as pitch the ball a little further. This proves my argument that a man should not always bowl with all his strength, but have a little left for particular occasions. I said it was not speed alone that tells, but I don’t wish it to be supposed