208 



KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



[July 1, 1887. 



the batsman can get across the twenty-two yards in time. 

 Such runs are called byes. But all luns are made at the 

 batsmen's proper peril. If a wicket is put down while the 

 batsman nearest to that wicket is outside his ground (a 

 small space close to the wicket) the batsman is out. So a 

 batsman is out if the ball is caught from his stroke before 

 touching the ground, or if in trying to defend his wicket he 

 .strikes it with the bat, even though he may but shake off 

 a bail. 



There is yet another way in which a batsman may be put 

 out, and some of the prettiest play at cricket arises in con- 

 nection with it. The process is called stumping out. In 

 playing at a ball the batsman may get outside his ground ; 

 should the wicket-keeper in such a case receive the ball and 

 with it knock off a liail before the batsman can put his foot 

 or ground his bat inside the line which marks his ground, 

 the batsman is out. A good wicket-keeper is as valuable at 

 cricket as a good catcher at base-ball. The feats occasionally 

 accomplished behind the wicket are little short of marvellous. 

 To give an evidence of the neatness with which stumping is 

 sometimes effected, take the following case : (it must be 

 understood that nothing but the sharpest action will do the 

 trick at all, because the moment the batsman finds the ball 

 has passed him he puts his bat down within his ground like 

 a shot). On one occasion. Box, a fiimous wicket-keeper of 

 the generation before last, took a ball which had passed the 

 bat, hit up a bail with it, caught the bail in the other hand, 

 replaced it, and left it, all so sharply that the first intimation 

 the batsman had of his fate was that conveyed by the 

 umpire's reply, " Out," to the customarj- query from Box, 

 " How's that, umpire? " All had been accomplished in the 

 mere instant of time following the batsman's failure to hit 

 the ball, and not only before he had time to put his bat 

 down within his ground, but before he could even look 

 round. 



What I have said is about all that is necessary to enable 

 one who has never seen a game at cricket to understand the 

 nature of the game. The bowlers attack the two wickets 

 alternately ; the batsmen defend and endeavour to make as 

 many runs as they can ; the wicket-keeper and long-stops 

 stand behind the attacked wicket, and the remaining players 

 on the attacking side are placed at various points to catch 

 the ball if possible,* or to intercept it, or (failing either) to 

 go after it, and return it quam celerrime. As batsman after 

 batsman succumbs, the place of the fallen is taken by 

 another, till at last ten of the eleven have been put out, 

 when, since it takes two players to defend the pair of 

 wickets, the eleven are all out, and their opponents in turn 

 take their innings. Two innings, neither more nor less, on 

 both sides constitute a game, though, of course, both innings 

 on one side may be beaten by a single innings on the other, 

 in which case only three are played. 



And here I take it is the weak point of cricket. A great 

 match is always arranged for three days' play : but on the 

 one hand three days may not suffice for the game to be 

 played out, in which case it ends in a draw, even though one 

 side has manifestly the worst of it, or, on the other hand, 



* There was a song about cricket, in which I often took part, in 

 the good old days of Hullah, wherein we all chorused lustily 

 (Hullahing, so to speak) — 



The-en run, boys, run I 



Sta-art ev'ry one, 



To-o catch the ball 



Befo-o-ore it fall ! 



He's out. The game is e-e-e-euded. 



And we the game have wo-o-o-o-on. 



And we tje game have won. 

 liut the captain of a team of fielders does not, as a general rule, 

 insist on every one running to catch the ball; even two would be 

 one too many. 



the game may be finished in two days, or even in one, in 

 which case the balance of the time assigned to the match is 

 lost. To give an idea of the annoyance often occasioned in 

 one or other of these ways, I note that of forty games 

 played by the Australian eleven in England last season, 

 seventeen only were played to a finish (several of these 

 lasting only two days), no less than twenty-three being 

 drawn. (Of the seventeen games, the Australians won 

 nine and lost eight, but as the two leading English counties 

 lost only three games and five games, respectivel)", of those 

 they played during the season, it will be understood that 

 the Australians were by no means so successful last season 

 as they have been aforetime.) I long since proposed a very 

 simple and eftective remedy for this serious fault, from 

 which base-ball is altogether free. I suggested that instead 

 of playing out a whole side at each innings, the sides should 

 go in alternately as man fell after man alternately on either 

 side. In this wa)' the contest could be continued through- 

 out the whole time appointed for the match, with the 

 certainty that neither would any game end in a draw 

 (except in the natural way of equal play) nor would any 

 time be cut to waste in any match. 



Cricket being thus different in its very essence from base- 

 ball, which is not a game of defence, all the details are 

 natiirally different in character. The very shape of the bats 

 used in the two games indicates the difference between them. 

 The cricket-bat is essentially a guarding bat ; the base-ball 

 bat, though most ludicrously pictured in Harper's edition of 

 Charles Bead's " Hard Cash " in the hands of a cricketer, 

 and held nearly as a cricketer holds his bat when waiting 

 for the attack, is altogether unsuited for defence. In like 

 manner the cricket-bat would be utterly unsuited for such 

 strokes as the base-ball player requires to make. One of 

 the funniest things to a cricketer's eye is to see a base-ball 

 player striking with a cricket-bat ; but, I imagine, it must 

 be at least as funny to a base-ball player to see a cricketer, 

 even one of the most expert, handling a base-ball club. 

 Ustim non Jiabeo, both one and the other might say with 

 David in the Vulgate (imagine Latin as the \'ulgar tongue) ; 

 but either might say more. The kind of stroke given in 

 base-ball would be the worst possible form at cricket ; so 

 much I know, and I can guess pretty well what a base- ball 

 player would think of the attitude in which a cricketer is 

 expected to await the attack. " Play with an upright bat," 

 says our rule, and " keep the left shoulder well forward " — 

 how would that look at base-ball ? 



I am often asked (generally by cricketers) in which of the 

 two games, cricket and base-ball, there is the most science. 

 Nothing, I apprehend, but practical and long-continued 

 experience in both games would enable any one to reply to 

 that question ; and very few have had that double expe- 

 rience. The cricketer who knows of the different forms of 

 stroke by which the various devices of the bowler can be 

 defeated and the fielders eluded, who recognises the beauty 

 of the " cut " and the " draw," the attractiveness of the 

 " forward drive " to " on " or to " ofl'," and of the swiping 

 " stroke to leg," the neatness of the " snick through the 

 slips," the quaintness of the " .stroke under the leg " (now 

 seldom seen, by the way), when, looking on at a game of 

 base-ball, he sees forward strokes within a limited angle to 

 right and left, alone effective for base making, naturally 

 imagines that there is much less science in base-ball hitting. 

 The base-ball player, on the other hand, noting what seems 

 to him the cramped position of the batsman at cincket, the 

 frequency of "blocking" (that is, merely stopping the ball, 

 or putting it away for safety), especially when the finest 

 players are at work, is equally apt to conclude that cricket 

 is a very inferior game. I remember watching the last 

 three-quarters of an hour of the second day's play between 



