and they are never anything more than the best eleven known to the party who make the match. Besides, by the time an amateur is at his best, he has duties which bid him retire.
Having now traced the rise and progress of the game from the time of its general establishment to the time that Beldham had shown us the full powers of the bat, and Lord Frederick had (as Fennex always declared) formed his style upon Beldham’s; and since now we approach the era of a new school, and the forward play of Fennex,—which his father termed an innovation and presumption “contrary to all experience,”—till the same forward play was proved effectual by Lambert, and Hammond had shown that, in spite of wicket keepers, bowling, if uniformly slow, might be met and hit away at the pitch;—now, we will wait to characterise, in the words of eye-witnesses, the heroes of the contests already mentioned.
On “the Old Players” I may be brief; because, the few old gentlemen (with one of whom I am in daily communication) who have heard even the names of the Walkers, Frame, Small, and David Harris, are passing away, full of years, and almost all the written history of the Old Players consists in undiscriminating scores.
In point of style the Old Players did not play the steady game, with maiden overs, as at present. The defensive was comparatively unknown: both the bat and the wicket, and the style of bowling too, were all adapted to a short life and a merry one. The wooden substitute for a ball, as in Cat and Dog, before described, evidently implied a hitting, and not a stopping game.
The Wicket, as we collect from a MS. furnished by an old friend to the late William Ward, Esq., was, in the early days of the Hambledon Club, one foot high and two feet wide, consisting of two stumps only, with one stump laid across. Thus, straight balls passed between, and, what we now call, well pitched balls would of course rise over. Where, then, was the encouragement to block, when fortune would so often usurp the place of science? And, as to the bat, look at the picture of cricket as played in the old Artillery Ground; the bat is curved at the end like a hockey stick, or the handle of a spoon, and—as common implements usually are adapted to the work to be performed—you will readily believe that in olden time the freest hitter was the best batsman. The bowling was all along the ground, hand and eye being everything, and judgment nothing; because, the art originally was to bowl under the bat. The wicket was too low for rising balls; and the reason we hear sometimes of the Blockhole was, not that the blockhole originally denoted guard, but because between these two-feet-asunder stumps there was cut a hole big enough to contain the ball, and (as now with the school boy’s game of rounders) the hitter was made out in running a notch by the ball being popped into this hole (whence popping crease) before the point of the bat could reach it.
Did we say Running a Notch? unde Notch? What wonder ere the days of useful knowledge, and Sir William Curtis’s three R’s,—or, reading, writing, and arithmetic,—that natural science should be evolved in a truly natural way: what wonder that notches on a stick, like the notches in the milk-woman’s tally in Hogarth’s picture, should supply the place of those complicated papers of vertical columns, which subject the bowling, the batting, and the fielding to a process severely and scrupulously just, of analytical observation, or differential calculus! Where now there sit on kitchen chairs, with ink bottle tied to a stump the worse for wear, Messrs. Caldecourt and Bayley (’tis pity two such men should ever not be umpires), with an uncomfortable length of paper on their knees, and large tin telegraphic letters above their heads; and where now is Lillywhite’s printing press, to hand down every hit as soon as made on twopenny cards to future generations; there, or in a similar position, old Frame, or young Small (young once: he died in 1834, aged eighty) might have placed a trusty yeoman to cut notches with his bread-and-bacon knife on an ashen stick. Oh! ’tis enough to make the Hambledon heroes sit upright in their graves with astonishment to think, that in the Gentlemen and Players’ Match, in 1850, the cricketers of old Sparkes’ Ground, at Edinburgh, could actually know the score of the first innings in London, before the second had commenced!
But when we say that the old players had little or nothing of the defensive, we speak of the play before 1780, when David Harris flourished: for William Beldham distinctly assured us that the art of bowling over the bat by “length balls” originated with the famous David; an assertion, we will venture to say, which requires a little, and only a little, qualification. Length bowling, or three-quarter balls, to use a popular, though exploded, expression, was introduced in David’s time, and by him first brought to perfection. And what rather confirms this statement is, that the early bowlers were very swift bowlers,—such was not only David, but the famous Brett, of earlier date, and Frame of great renown: a more moderate pace resulted from the new discovery of a well pitched bail ball.
The old players well understood the art of twisting, or bias bowling. Lambert, “the little farmer,” says Nyren, “improved on the art, and puzzled the Kent men in a great match, by twisting the reverse of the usual way,—that is, from the off to leg stump.” Tom Walker tried what Nyren calls the throwing-bowling, and defied all the players of the day to withstand this novelty; but, by a council of the Hambledon Club, this was forbidden, and Willes, a Kent man, had all the praise of inventing it some twenty years later. In a match of the Hambledon Club in 1775, it was observed, at a critical point of the game, that the ball passed three times between Small’s two stumps without knocking off the bail; and then, first, a third stump was added; and, seeing that the new style of balls which rise over the bat rose also over the wickets, then but one foot high, the wicket was altered to the dimensions of 22 inches by 6, at which measure it remained till about 1814, when it was increased to 26 inches by 8, and again to its present dimensions of 27 inches by 8 in 1817; when, as one inch was added to the stumps, two inches were added to the width between the creases. The changes in the wicket are represented in the foregoing woodcut. In the year 1700, the runner was made out, not by striking off the transverse stump—we can hardly call it a bail—but by popping the ball in the hole therein represented.
David Harris’ bowling, Fennex used to say, introduced, or at least established and fixed, a steady and defensive style of batting. “I have seen,” said Sparkes, “seventy or eighty runs in an innings, though not more than eight or nine made at Harris’s end.” “Harris,” said an excellent judge, who well remembers him, “had nearly all the quickness of rise and the height of delivery, which characterises overhand bowling, with far greater straightness and precision. The ball appeared to be forced out from under his arm with some unaccountable jerk, so that it was delivered breast high. His precision exceeded anything I have ever seen, in so much that Tom Walker declared that, on one occasion, where turf was thin, and the colour of the soil readily appeared, one spot was positively uncovered by the repeated pitching of David’s balls in the same place.”
“This bowling,” said Sparkes, “compelled you to make the best of your reach forward; for if a man let the ball pitch too near and crowd upon him, he very rarely could prevent a mistake, from the height and rapidity with which the ball cut up from the ground.”—This account agrees with the well-known description of Nyren. “Harris’s mode of delivering the ball was very singular. He would bring it from under his arm by a twist, and nearly as high as his arm-pit, and with this action push it, as it were, from him. How it was that the balls acquired the velocity they did by this mode of delivery, I never could comprehend. His balls were very little beholden to the ground; it was but a touch and up again; and woe be to the man who did not get in to block them, for they had such a peculiar curl they would grind his fingers against the bat.”
And Nyren agrees with my informants in ascribing great improvement in batting, and he specifies, “particularly in stopping” (for the act of defence, we said, was not essential to the batsman in the ideas of one of the old players), to the bowling of David Harris, and bears testimony to an assertion, that forward play, that is meeting at the pitch balls considerably short of a half volley, was little known to the oldest players, and was called into requisition chiefly by the bowling of David Harris. Obviously, with the primitive fashion of ground bowling, called sneakers, forward play could have no place, and even well-pitched balls, like those of Peter Stevens, alias Lumpy, of moderate pace might be played with some effect, even behind the crease; but David Harris, with pace, pitch, and rapid rise combined, imperatively demanded a new invention, and such was forward play about 1800. Old Fennex, who died, alas! in a Middlesex workhouse, aged eighty, in 1839 (had his conduct been as straightforward and upright as his bat, he would have known a better end), always declared that he was the first, and remained long without followers; and no small praise is due to the boldness and originality that set at nought the received maxims of his forefathers before he was born or thought of; daring to try things that, had they been ordinarily reasonable, would not, of course, have been ignored by Frame, by Purchase, nor by Small. The world wants such men as Fennex; men, who will shake off the prejudices of birth, parentage, and education, and boldly declare that age has taught them wisdom, and that the policy of their predecessors, however expensively stereotyped, must be revised and corrected and adapted to the demands of a more inquiring generation. “My father,” said Fennex, “asked me how I came by that new play, reaching out as no one ever saw before.” The same style he lived to see practised, not elegantly, but with wonderful power and effect by Lambert, “a most severe and resolute hitter;” and Fennex also boasted that he had a most proficient disciple in Fuller Pilch: though I suspect that, as “poeta nascitur non fit,”—that is, that all great performers appear to have brought the secret of their excellence into the world along with them, and are not the mere puppets of which others pull the strings—Fuller Pilch may think he rather coincided with, than learnt from, William Fennex.
Now the David Harris aforesaid, who wrought quite a revolution in the game, changing cricket from a backward and a slashing to a forward and defensive game, and claiming higher stumps to do justice to his skill—this David, whose bowling was many years in advance of his generation, having all the excellence of Lillywhite’s high delivery, though free from all imputation of unfairness—this David rose early, and late took rest, and ate the bread of carefulness, before he attained such distinction as—in these days of railroads, Thames tunnels, and tubular gloves and bridges—to deserve the notice of our pen. “For,” said John Bennett, “you might have seen David practising at dinner time and after hours, all the winter through;” and “many a Hampshire barn,” said Beagley, “has been heard to resound with bats and balls as well as threshing.”
And now we must mention the men, who, at the end of the last century, represented the Pilch, the Parr, the Wenman, and the Wisden of the present day.
Lord Beauclerk was formed on the style of Beldham, whom, in brilliancy of hitting, he nearly resembled. The Hon. H. Bligh and Hon. H. Tufton were of the same school. Sir Peter Burrell was also a good hitter. And these were the most distinguished gentlemen players of the day. Earl Winchelsea was in every principal match, but rather for his patronage than his play: and the Hon. Col. Lennox for the same reason. Mr. R. Whitehead was a Kent player of great celebrity. But Lord F. Beauclerk was the only gentleman who had any claim in the last century to play in an All England eleven. He was also one of the fastest runners. Hammond was the great wicket-keeper; but then the bowling was slow: Sparkes said he saw him catch out Robinson by a draw between leg and wicket. Freemantle was the first long stop; but Ray the finest field in England; and in those days, when the scores were long, fielding was of even more consideration than at present. Of the professional players, Beldham, Hammond, Tom and Harry Walker, Freemantle, Robinson, Fennex, J. Wells, and J. Small were the first chosen after Harris had passed away; for, Nyren says that even Lord Beauclerk could hardly have seen David Harris in his prime. At this time there was a sufficient number of players to maintain the credit of the left hands. On the 10th of May, 1790, the Left-handed beat the Right by thirty-nine runs. This match reveals that Harris and Aylward, and the three best Kent players, Brazier, Crawe, and Clifford,—Sueter, the first distinguished wicket-keeper,—H. Walker, and Freemantle were all left-handed: so also was Noah Mann.
The above-mentioned players are quite sufficient to give some idea of the play of the last century. Sparkes is well known to the author of these pages as his quondam instructor. In batting he differed not widely from the usual style of good players, save that he never played forward to any very great extent. Playing under leg, according to the old fashion (we call it old-fashioned though Pilch adopts it), served instead of the far more elegant and efficient “draw.” Sparkes was also a fair bias bowler, but of no great pace, and not very difficult. I remember his saying that the old school of slow bowling was beaten by Hammond’s setting the example of running in. “Hammond,” he said, “on one occasion hit back a slow ball to Lord F. Beauclerk with such frightful force that it just skimmed his Lordship’s unguarded head, and he had scarcely nerve to bowl after.” Of Fennex we can also speak from our friend the Rev. John Mitford. Fennex was a fair straightforward hitter, and once as good a single-wicket player as any in England. His attitude was easy, and he played elegantly, and hit well from the wrist. If his bowling was any specimen of that of his contemporaries, they were by no means to be despised. His bowling was very swift and of high delivery, the ball cut and ground up with great quickness and precision. Fennex used to say that the men of the present day had little idea of what the old underhand bowling really could effect; and, from the specimen which Fennex himself gave at sixty-five years of age, there appeared to be much reason in his assertion. Of all the players Fennex had ever seen (for some partiality for bygone days we must of course allow) none elicited his notes of admiration like Beldham. We cannot compare a man who played underhand, with those who are formed on overhand, bowling. Still, there is reason to believe what Mr. Ward and others have told us, that Beldham had that genius for cricket, that wonderful eye (although it failed him very early), and that quickness of hand, which would have made him a great player in any age.
Beldham related to us in 1838, and that with no little nimbleness of hand and vivacity of eye, while he suited the action to the word with a bat of his own manufacture, how he had drawn forth the plaudits of Lords’ as he hit round and helped on the bowling of Browne of Brighton, even faster than before, though the good men of Brighton thought that no one could stand against him, and Browne had thought to bowl Beldham off his legs. This match of Hants against England in 1819 Fennex was fond of describing, and certainly it gives some idea of what Beldham could do. “Osbaldeston,” said Mr. Ward, “with his tremendously fast bowling, was defying every one at single wicket, and he and Lambert challenged Mr. E. H. Budd with three others. Just then I had seen Browne’s swift bowling, and a hint from me settled the match. Browne was engaged, and Osbaldeston was beaten with his own weapons.” A match was now made to give Browne a fair trial, and “we were having a social glass,” said Fennex, “and talking over with Beldham the match of the morrow at the ‘Green Man,’ when Browne came in, and told Beldham, with as much sincerity as good-humour, that he should soon send his stumps a-flying.” “Hold there,” said Beldham, fingering his bat, “you will be good enough to allow me this bit of wood, won’t you?” “Certainly,” said Browne. “Quite satisfied,” answered Beldham, “so to-morrow you shall see.” “Seventy-two runs,” said Fennex,—and the score-book attests his accuracy,—“was Beldham’s first and only innings;” and, Beagley also joined with Fennex, and assured us, that he never saw a more complete triumph of a batsman over a bowler. Nearly every ball was cut or slipped away till Browne hardly dared to bowl within Beldham’s reach.
We desire not to qualify the praises of Beldham, but when we hear that he was unrivalled in elegant and brilliant hitting, and in that wonderful versatility which cut indifferently, quick as lightning, all round him, we cannot help remarking, that such bowling as that of Redgate or of Wisden renders imperatively necessary a severe style of defence, and an attitude of cautious watchfulness, which must render the batsman not quite such a picture for the artist as might be seen in the days of Beldham and Lord F. Beauclerk.
So far we have traced the diffusion of the game, and the degrees of proficiency attained, to the beginning of the present century. To sum up the evidence, by the year 1800, cricket had become the common pastime of the common people in Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, and had been introduced into the adjoining counties; and though we cannot trace its continuity beyond Rutlandshire and Burley Park, certainly it had been long familiar to the men of Leicester and Nottingham as well as Sheffield;—that, in point of Fielding generally, this was already as good, and quite as much valued in a match, as it has been since; while Wicket-keeping in particular had been ably executed by Sueter, for he could stump off Brett, whose pace Nyren, acquainted as he was with all the bowlers to the days of Lillywhite, called quite of the steam-engine power, albeit no wicket-keeper could shine like Wenman or Box, except with the regularity of overhand bowling; and already Bowlers had attained by bias and quick delivery all the excellence which underhand bowling admits. Still, as regards Batting, the very fact that the stumps remained six inches wide, by twenty-two inches in height, undeniably proves that the secret of success was limited to comparatively a small number of players.
Before this century was one year old, David Harris, Harry Walker, Purchase, Aylward, and Lumpy had left the stage, and John Small, instead of hitting bad balls whose stitches would not last a match, had learnt to make commodities so good that Clout’s and Duke’s were mere toy-shop in comparison. Noah Mann was the Caldecourt, or umpire, of the day, and Harry Bentley also, when he did not play. Five years more saw nearly the last of Earl Winchelsea, Sir Horace Mann, Earl Darnley, and Lord Yarmouth; still Surrey had a generous friend in Mr. Laurell, Hants in Mr. T. Smith, and Kent in the Honourables H. and J. Tufton. The Pavilion at Lord’s, then and since 1787 on the site of Dorset Square, was attended by Lord Frederick Beauclerk, then a young man of four-and-twenty, the Honourables Colonel Bligh, Colonel Lennox, H. and J. Tufton, and A. Upton. Also, there were usually Messrs. R. Whitehead, G. Leycester, S. Vigne, and F. Ladbroke. These were the great promoters of the matches, and the first of the amateurs. Cricket was one of Lord Byron’s favourite sports, and that in spite of his lame foot: witness the lines,—
Byron mentions in his letters that he played in the eleven of Harrow against Eton in 1805. The score is given in Lillywhite’s Public-School Matches.
The excellent William Wilberforce was fond of cricket, and was laid up by a severe blow on the leg at Rothley while playing with his sons: he says the doctor told him a little more would have broken the bone.
Cricket, we have shown, was originally classed among the games of the lower orders; so we find the yeomen infinitely superior to the gentlemen even before cricket had become by any means so much of a profession as it is now. Tom Walker, Beldham, John Wells, Fennex, Hammond, Robinson, Lambert, Sparkes, H. Bentley, Bennett, Freemantle, were the best professionals of the day. For it was seven or eight years later that Mr. E. H. Budd, and his unequal rival, Mr. Brand, and his sporting friend, Osbaldeston, as also that fine player, E. Parry, Esq., severally appeared; and later still, that Mr. Ward, Howard, Beagley, Thumwood, Caldecourt, Slater, Flavel, Ashby, Searle, and Saunders, successively showed every resource of bias bowling to shorten the scores, and of fine hitting to lengthen them. By the end of these twenty years, all these distinguished players had taught a game in which the batting beat the bowling. “Cricket,” said Mr. Ward, “unlike hunting, shooting, fishing, or even yachting, was a sport that lasted three days;” the wicket had been twice enlarged, once about 1814, and again in 1817; old Lord had tried his third, the present, ground; the Legs had taught the wisdom of playing rather for love than money; slow coaches had given way to fast, long whist to short; and ultimately Lambert, John Wells, Howard, and Powell, handed over the ball to Broadbridge and Lillywhite.
Such is the scene, the characters, and the performance. “Matches in those days were more numerously attended than now,” said Mr. Ward: the old game was more attractive to spectators, because more busy, than the new. Tom Lord’s flag was the well known telegraph that brought him in from three to four thousand sixpences at a match. John Goldham, the octogenarian inspector of Billingsgate, has seen the Duke of York and his adversary, the Honourable Colonel Lennox, in the same game, and had the honour of playing with both, and the Prince Regent, too, in the White Conduit Fields, on which spot Mr. Goldham built his present house. For the Prince was a great lover of the game, and caused the “Prince’s Cricket Ground” to be formed at Brighton. The late Lord Barrymore, killed by the accidental discharge of a blunderbuss in his phaeton, was an enthusiastic cricketer. The Duke of Richmond, when Colonel Lennox, a nobleman whose life and spirits and genial generous nature made him beloved by all, exulted in this as in all athletic sports: the bite of a fox killed him. Then, as you drive through Russell Square, behold the statue of another patron, the noble-born and noble-minded Duke of Bedford; and in Dorset Square, the site of old Lord’s Ground, you may muse and fancy you see, where now is some “modest mansion,” the identical mark called the “Duke’s strike,” which long recorded a hit, 132 yards in the air, from the once famous bat of Alexander, late Duke of Hamilton. Great matches in those days, as in these, cost money. Six guineas if they won and four if they lost, was the player’s fee; or, five and three if they lived in town. So, as every match cost some seventy pounds, over the fire-place at Lord’s you would see a Subscription List for Surrey against England, or for England against Kent, as the case might be, and find notices of each interesting match at Brookes’s and other clubs.
This custom of advertising cricket matches is of very ancient date. For, in the “British Champion” of Sep. 8. 1743, a writer complains that though “noblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen may divert themselves as they think fit,” and though he “cannot dispute their privilege to make butchers, cobblers, or tinkers their companions,” he very much doubts “whether they have any right to invite thousands of people to be spectators of their agility.” For, “it draws numbers of people from their employment to the ruin of their families. It is a most notorious breach of the laws—the advertisements most impudently reciting that great sums are laid.” And, in the year following (1744), as we read in the “London Magazine,” Kent beat all England in the Artillery Ground, in the presence of “their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Richmond, Admiral Vernon, and many other persons of distinction.” How pleasing to reflect that those sunny holidays we enjoy at Lord’s have been enjoyed by the people for more than a century past!
But what were the famous cricket Counties in these twenty years? The glory of Kent had for a while departed. Time was when Kent could challenge England man for man; but now, only with such odds as twenty-three to twelve! As to the wide extension of cricket, it advanced but slowly then compared with recent times. A small circle round London would still comprise all the finest players. It was not till 1820 that Norfolk, forgetting its three Elevens beaten by Lord Frederick, again played Marylebone; and, though three gentlemen were given and Fuller Pilch played—then a lad of seventeen years—Norfolk lost by 417 runs, including Mr. Ward’s longest score on record,—278. “But he was missed,” said Mr. Budd, “the easiest possible catch before he had scored thirty.” Still it was a great achievement; and Mr. Morse preserves, as a relic, the identical ball, and the bat which hit that ball about, a trusty friend that served its owner fifty years! Kennington Oval, perhaps, was then all docks and thistles. Surrey still stood first of cricket counties, and Mr. Laurell—Robinson was his keeper; an awful man for poachers, 6 feet 1 inch, and 16 stone, and strong in proportion—most generous of supporters, was not slow to give orders on old Thomas Lord for golden guineas, when a Surrey man, by catch or innings, had elicited applause. Of the same high order were Sir J. Cope of Bramshill Park, and Mr. Barnett, the banker, promoter of the B. matches; the Hon. D. Kinnaird, and, last not least, Mr. W. Ward, who by purchase of a lease saved Lord’s from building ground; an act of generosity in which he imitated the good old Duke of Dorset, who, said Mr. Budd, “gave the ground called the Vine, at Sevenoaks, by a deed of trust, for the use of cricketers for ever.”
The good men of Surrey, in 1800, monopolised nearly all the play of England. Lord Frederick Beauclerk and Hammond were the only All England players who were not Surrey men.
Kent had then some civil contests—petty wars of single clans—but no county match; and their great friend R. Whitehead, Esq., depended on the M.C.C. for his finest games. The game had become a profession: a science to the gentlemen, and an art or handicraft to the players; and Farnham found in London the best market for its cricket, as for its hops. The best Kent play was displayed at Rochester, and yet more at Woolwich; but chiefly among our officers, whose bats were bought in London, not at Sevenoaks. These games reflected none such honour to the county as when the Earls of Thanet and of Darnley brought their own tenantry to Lord’s or Dartford Brent, armed with the native willow wood of Kent. So, the Honourables H. and A. Tufton were obliged to yield to the altered times, and play two-and-twenty men where their noble father, the Earl of Thanet, had won with his eleven. “Thirteen to twenty-three was the number we enjoyed,” said Sparkes, “for with thirteen good men well placed, and the bowling good, we did not want their twenty-three. A third man On, and a forward point, or kind of middle wicket, with slow bowling, or an extra slip with fast, made a very strong field: the Kent men were sometimes regularly pounded by our fielding.”
In 1805 we find a curious match: the “twelve best against twenty-three next best.” Lord Frederick was the only amateur among the “best”; but Barton, one of the “next best” among the latter, scored 87; not out. Mr. Budd first appeared at Lord’s in 1802 as a boy: he reappeared in 1808, and was at once among the longest scorers.
The Homerton Club also furnished an annual match: still all within the sound of Bow bells. “To forget Homerton,” said Mr. Ward, “were to ignore Mr. Vigne, our wicket-keeper, but one of very moderate powers. Hammond was the best we ever had. Hammond played till his sixtieth year; but Browne and Osbaldeston put all wicket-keeping to the rout. Hammond’s great success was in the days of slow bowling. John Wells and Howard were our two best fast bowlers, though Powell was very true. Osbaldeston beat his side with byes and slips—thirty-two byes in the B. match.” Few men could hit him before wicket; whence the many single-wicket matches he played; but Mr. Ward put an end to his reign by finding out Browne of Brighton. Beagley said of Browne, as the players now say of Mr. Fellows, they had no objection to him when the ground was smooth.
The Homerton Club also boasted of Mr. Ladbroke, one of the great promoters of matches, as well as the late Mr. Aislabie, always fond of the game, but all his life “too big to play,”—the remark by Lord Frederick of Mr. Ward, which, being repeated, did no little to develop the latent powers of that most efficient player.
The Montpelier Club, also, with men given, annually played Marylebone.
Lord Frederick, in 1803, gave a little variety to the matches by leading against Marylebone ten men of Leicester and Nottingham, including the two Warsops. “T. Warsop,” said Clarke, “was one of the best bowlers I ever knew.” Clarke has also a high opinion of Lambert, from whom, he says, he learnt more of the game than from any other man.
Lambert’s bowling was like Mr. Budd’s, against which I have often played: a high underhand delivery, slow, but rising very high, very accurately pitched, and turning in from leg stump. “About the year 1818, Lambert and I,” said Mr. Budd, “attained to a kind of round-armed delivery (described as Clarke’s), by which we rose decidedly superior to all the batsmen of the day. Mr. Ward could not play it, but he headed a party against us, and our new bowling was ignored.” Tom Walker and Lord Frederick were of the tediously slow school; Lambert and Budd were several degrees faster. Howard and John Wells were the fast underhand bowlers.
Lord Frederick was a very successful bowler, and inspired great confidence as a general: his bowling was at last beaten by men running into him. Sparkes mentioned another player who brought very slow bowling to perfection, and was beaten in the same way. Beldham thought Mr. Budd’s bowling better than Lord Frederick’s; Beagley said the same.
His Lordship is generally supposed to have been the best amateur of his day; so said Caldecourt; also Beagley, who observed his Lordship had the best head and was most valuable as a general. Otherwise, this is an assertion hard to reconcile with acknowledged facts; for, first, Mr. Budd made the best average, though usually placed against Lambert’s bowling, and playing almost exclusively in the great matches. Mr. Budd was a much more powerful hitter. Lord Frederick said, “Budd always wanted to win the game off a single ball:” Beldham observed, “if Mr. Budd would not hit so eagerly, he would be the finest player in all England.” When I knew him his hitting was quite safe play. Still Lord Frederick’s was the prettier style of batting, and he had the character of being the most scientific player. But since Mr. Budd had the largest average in spite of his hitting, Beldham becomes a witness in his favour. Mr. Budd measured five feet ten inches, and weighed twelve stone, very clean made and powerful, with an eye singularly keen, and great natural quickness, being one of the fastest runners of his day. Secondly, Mr. Budd was the better fieldsman. He stood usually at middle wicket. I never saw safer hands at a catch; and I have seen him very quick at stumping out. But, Lord Frederick could not take every part of the field; but was always short slip, and not one of the very best. And, thirdly, Mr. Budd was the better bowler. Mr. Budd hit well from the wrist. At Woolwich he hit a volley to long field for nine, though Mr. Parry threw it in. He also hit out of Lord’s old ground. “Lord had said he would forfeit twenty guineas if any one thus proved his ground too small: so we all crowded around Mr. Budd,” said Beldham, “and told him what he might claim. ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘I claim it, and give it among the players.’ But Lord was shabby and would not pay.” Mr. Budd is now (1854) in his sixty-ninth year: it is only lately that any country Eleven could well spare him.
Lambert was also good at every point. In batting, he was a bold forward player. He stood with left foot a yard in advance, swaying his bat and body as if to attain momentum, and reaching forward almost to where the ball must pitch.
Lambert’s chief point was to take the ball at the pitch and drive it powerfully away, and, said Mr. Budd, “to a slow bowler his return was so quick and forcible, that his whole manner was really intimidating to a bowler.” Every one remarked how completely Lambert seemed master of the ball. Usually the bowler appears to attack and the batsman to defend; but Lambert seemed always on the attack, and the bowler at his mercy, and “hit,” said Beldham, “what no one else could meddle with.”
Lord Frederick was formed on Beldham’s style. Mr. Budd’s position at the wicket was much the same: the right foot placed as usual, but the left rather behind and nearly a yard apart, so that instead of the upright bat and figure of Pilch the bat was drawn across, and the figure hung away from the wicket. This was a mistake. Before the ball could be played Mr. Budd was too good a player not to be up, like Pilch, and play well over his off stump. Still Mr. Budd explained to me that this position of the left foot was just where one naturally shifts it to have room for a cut: so this strange attitude was supposed to favour their fine off hits. I say Off hit because the Cut did not properly belong to either of these players: Robinson and Saunders were the men to cut,—cutting balls clean away from the bails, though Robinson had a maimed hand, burnt when a child: the handle of his bat was grooved to fit his stunted fingers. Talking of his bat, the players once discovered by measurement it was beyond the statute width, and would not pass through the standard. So, unceremoniously, a knife was produced, and the bat reduced to its just, rather than its fair, proportions. “Well,” said Robinson, “I’ll pay you off for spoiling my bat:” and sure enough he did, hitting tremendously, and making one of his largest innings, which were often near a hundred runs.
In the first twenty years of this century, Hampshire, like Kent, had lost its renown, but only because Hambledon was now no more; nor did Surrey and Hampshire any longer count as one. To confirm our assertion that Farnham produced the players,—for in 1808, Surrey had played and beaten England three times in one season, and from 1820 to 1825 Godalming is mentioned as the most powerful antagonist; but whether called Godalming or Surrey, we must not forget that the locality is the same—we observe, that in 1821, M.C.C. plays “The Three Parishes,” namely, Godalming, Farnham, and Hartley Row; which parishes, after rearing the finest contemporaries of Beldham, could then boast a later race of players in Flavel, Searle, Howard, Thumwood, Mathews.
“About this time (July 23. 1821),” said Beldham, “we played the Coronation Match; ‘M.C.C. against the Players of England.’ We scored 278 and only six wickets down, when the game was given up. I was hurt and could not run my notches; still James Bland, and the other Legs, begged of me to take pains, for it was no sporting match, ‘any odds and no takers;’ and they wanted to shame the gentlemen against wasting their (the Legs’) time in the same way another time.”
But the day for Hampshire, as for Kent, was doomed to shine again. Fennex, Small, the Walkers, J. Wells, and Hammond, in time drop off from Surrey,—and about the same time (1815), Caldecourt, Holloway, Beagley, Thumwood, Shearman, Howard, Mr. Ward, and Mr. Knight, restore the balance of power for Hants, as afterwards, Broadbridge and Lillywhite for Sussex.
“In 1817, we went,” said Mr. Budd, “with Osbaldeston to play twenty-two of Nottingham. In that match Clarke played. In common with others I lost my money, and was greatly disappointed at the termination. One paid player was accused of selling, and never employed after. The concourse of people was very great: these were the days of the Luddites (rioters), and the magistrates warned us, that unless we would stop our game at seven o’clock, they could not answer for keeping the peace. At seven o’clock we stopped; and, simultaneously, the thousands who lined the ground began to close in upon us. Lord Frederick lost nerve and was very much alarmed; but I said they didn’t want to hurt us. No; they simply came to have a look at the eleven men who ventured to play two for one.”—His Lordship broke his finger, and, batting with one hand, scored only eleven runs. Nine men, the largest number perhaps on record, Bentley marks as “caught by Budd.”
Just before the establishment of Mr. Will’s roundhand bowling, and as if to prepare the way, Ashby came forth with an unusual bias, but no great pace. Sparkes bowled in the same style; as also, Matthews and Mr. Jenner somewhat later. Still the batsmen were full as powerful as ever, reckoning Saunders, Searle, Beagley, Messrs. Ward, Kingscote, Knight. Suffolk became very strong with Pilch, the Messrs. Blake, and others, of the famous Bury Club; while Slater, Lillywhite, King, and the Broadbridges, raised the name of Midhurst and of Sussex.
Against such batsmen every variety of underhand delivery failed to maintain the balance of the game, till J. Broadbridge and Lillywhite, after many protests and discussions, succeeded in establishing what long was called “the Sussex bowling.”
“About 1820,” said Mr. Budd, “at our anniversary dinner (three-guinea tickets) at the Clarendon, Mr. Ward asked me if I had not said I would play any man in England at single wicket, without fieldsmen. An affirmative produced a match p.p. for fifty guineas. On the day appointed Mr. Brand proved my opponent. He was a fast bowler. I went in first, and scoring seventy runs with some severe blows on the legs,—nankeen knees and silk stockings, and no pads in those days,—I consulted a friend and knocked down my own wicket, lest the match should last to the morrow, and I be unable to play. Mr. Brand was out without a run! I went in again, and making the 70 up to 100, I once more knocked down my own wicket, and once more my opponent failed to score!!”
The flag was flying—the signal of a great match—and a large concourse were assembled; and, considering Mr. Ward, a good judge, made the match, this is probably the most hollow victory on record.
But Osbaldeston’s victory was far more satisfactory. Lord Frederick with Beldham made a p.p. match with Osbaldeston and Lambert. “On the day named,” said Budd, “I went to Lord Frederick, representing my friend was too ill to stand, and asked him to put off the match. “No; play or pay,” said his Lordship, quite inexorable. “Never mind,” said Osbaldeston, “I won’t forfeit: Lambert may beat them both; and, if he does, the fifty guineas shall be his.”—I asked Lambert how he felt. “Why,” said he, “they are anything but safe.”—His Lordship wouldn’t hear of it. “Nonsense,” he said, “you can’t mean it.” “Yes; play or pay, my Lord, we are in earnest, and shall claim the stakes!” and in fact Lambert did beat them both.” For, to play such a man as Lambert, when on his mettle, was rather discouraging; and “he did make desperate exertion,” said Beldham: “once he rushed up after his ball, and Lord Frederick was caught so near the bat that he lost his temper, and said it was not fair play. Of course, all hearts were with Lambert.”
“Osbaldeston’s mother sat by in her carriage, and enjoyed the match; and then,” said Beldham, “Lambert was called to the carriage and bore away a paper parcel: some said it was a gold watch,—some, bank notes. Trust Lambert to keep his own secrets. We were all curious, but no one ever knew:”—nor ever will know. In March, 1851, I addressed a letter to him at Reigate. Soon, a brief paragraph announced the death of “the once celebrated cricket player William Lambert.”
The lovers of cricket may congratulate themselves that matches, at the present day, are made at cricket, as at chess, rather for love and the honour of victory than for money.
It is now many years since Lord’s was frequented by men with book and pencil, betting as openly and professionally as in the ring at Epsom, and ready to deal in the odds with any and every person of speculative propensities. Far less satisfactory was the state of things with which Lord F. Beauclerk and Mr. Ward had to contend, to say nothing of the earlier days of the Earl of Winchelsea and Sir Horace Mann. As to the latter period, “Old Nyren” bewails its evil doings. He speaks of one who had “the trouble of proving himself a rogue,” and also of “the legs of Marylebone,” who tried, for once in vain, to corrupt some primitive specimens of Hambledon innocence. He says, also, that the grand matches of his day were always made for 500l. a side. Add to this the fact that bets were in proportion; and that Jim and Joe Bland, of turf notoriety, with Dick Whitlom of Covent Garden, Simpson, a gaming-house keeper, and Toll of Esher, as regularly attended at a match as Crockford and Gully at Epsom and Ascot; and the idea that all the Surrey and Hampshire rustics should either want or resist strong temptations to sell, is not to be entertained for a moment. The constant habit of betting will take the honesty out of any man. A half-crown sweepstakes, or betting such odds as lady’s long kids to gentleman’s short ditto, is all very fair sport; but, if a man, after years of high betting, can still preserve the fine edge and tone of honest feeling he is indeed a wonder. To bet on a certainty all admit is swindling. If so, to bet where you feel it is a certainty, must be very bad moral practice.
“If gentlemen wanted to bet,” said Beldham, “just under the pavilion sat men ready, with money down, to give and take the current odds: these were by far the best men to bet with; because, if they lost, it was all in the way of business: they paid their money and did not grumble.” Still, they had all sorts of tricks to make their betting safe. “One artifice,” said Mr. Ward, “was to keep a player out of the way by a false report that his wife was dead.” Then these men would come down to the Green Man and Still, and drink with us, and always said, that those who backed us, or “the nobs,” as they called them, sold the matches; and so, sir, as you are going the round beating up the quarters of the old players, you will find some to persuade you this is true. But don’t believe it. That any gentleman in my day ever put himself into the power of these blacklegs, by selling matches, I can’t credit. Still, one day, I thought I would try how far these tales were true. So, going down into Kent, with “one of high degree,” he said to me, “Will, if this match is won, I lose a hundred pounds!” “Well,” said I, “my Lord, you and I could order that.” He smiled as if nothing were meant, and talked of something else; and, as luck would have it, he and I were in together, and brought up the score between us, though every run seemed to me like “a guinea out of his Lordship’s pocket.”
In those days, foot races were very common. Lord Frederick and Mr. Budd were first-rate runners, and bets were freely laid. So, one day, old Fennex laid a trap for the gentlemen: he brought up, to act the part of some silly conceited youngster with his pockets full of money, a first-rate runner out of Hertfordshire. This soft young gentleman ran a match or two with some known third-rate men, and seemed to win by a neck, and no pace to spare. Then he calls out, “I’ll run any man on the ground for 25l., money down.” A match was quickly made, and money laid on pretty thick on Fennex’s account. Some said, “Too bad to win of such a green young fellow!” others said, “He’s old enough—serve him right.” So the laugh was finely against those who were taken in; “the green one” ran away like a hare!
“You see, sir,” said one fine old man, with brilliant eye and quickness of movement, that showed his right hand had not yet forgot its cunning, “matches were bought, and matches were sold, and gentlemen who meant honestly lost large sums of money, till the rogues beat themselves at last. They overdid it; they spoilt their own trade; and, as I said to one of them, ‘a knave and a fool makes a bad partnership; so, you and yourself will never prosper.’ Well, surely there was robbery enough: and, not a few of the great players earned money to their own disgrace; but, if you’ll believe me, there was not half the selling there was said to be. Yes, I can guess, sir, much as you have been talking to all the old players over this good stuff (pointing to the brandy and water I had provided), no doubt you have heard that B—— sold as bad as the rest. I’ll tell the truth: one match up the country I did sell,—a match made by Mr. Osbaldeston at Nottingham. I had been sold out of a match just before, and lost 10l., and happening to hear it I joined two others of our eleven to sell, and get back my money. I won 10l. exactly, and of this roguery no one ever suspected me; but many was the time I have been blamed for selling when as innocent as a babe. In those days, when so much money was on the matches, every man who lost his money would blame some one. Then, if A missed a catch, or B made no runs,—and where’s the player whose hand is always in?—that man was called a rogue directly. So, when a man was doomed to lose his character and to bear all the smart, there was the more temptation to do like others, and after ‘the kicks’ to come in for ‘the halfpence.’ But I am an old man now, and heartily sorry I have been ever since: because, but for that Nottingham match, I could have said with a clear conscience to a gentleman like you, that all that was said was false, and I never sold a match in my life; but now I can’t. But, if I had fifty sons, I would never put one of them, for all the games in the world, in the way of the roguery that I have witnessed. The temptation really was very great,—too great by far for any poor man to be exposed to,—no richer than ten shillings a week, let alone harvest time.—I never told you, sir, the way I first was brought to London. I was a lad of eighteen at this Hampshire village, and Lord Winchelsea had seen us play among ourselves, and watched the match with the Hambledon Club on Broadhalfpenny, when I scored forty-three against David Harris, and ever so many of the runs against David’s bowling, and no one ever could manage David before. So, next year, in the month of March, I was down in the meadows, when a gentleman came across the field with Farmer Hilton: and, thought I, all in a minute, now this is something about cricket. Well, at last it was settled I was to play Hampshire against England, at London, in White-Conduit-Fields ground, in the month of June. For three months I did nothing but think about that match. Tom Walker was to travel up from this country, and I agreed to go with him, and found myself at last with a merry company of cricketers—all the men, whose names I had ever heard as foremost in the game—met together, drinking, card-playing, betting, and singing at the Green Man (that was the great cricketer’s house), in Oxford Street,—no man without his wine, I assure you, and such suppers as three guineas a game to lose, and five to win (that was then the sum for players) could never pay for long. To go to London by the waggon, earn five guineas three or four times told, and come back with half the money in your pocket to the plough again, was all very well talking. You know what young folk are, sir, when they get together: mischief brews stronger in large quantities: so, many spent all their earnings, and were soon glad to make more money some other way. Hundreds of pounds were bet upon all the great matches, and other wagers laid on the scores of the finest players, and that too by men who had a book for every race and every match in the sporting world; men who lived by gambling; and, as to honesty, gambling and honesty don’t often go together. What was easier, then, than for such sharp gentlemen to mix with the players, take advantage of their difficulties, and say, ‘your backers, my Lord this, and the Duke of that, sell matches and overrule all your good play, so why shouldn’t you have a share of the plunder?’—That was their constant argument. ‘Serve them as they serve you.’—You have heard of Jim Bland, the turfsman, and his brother Joe—two nice boys. When Jemmy Dawson was hanged for poisoning the horse, the Blands never felt safe till the rope was round Dawson’s neck: to keep him quiet, they persuaded him to the last hour that no one dared hang him; and a certain nobleman had a reprieve in his pocket. Well, one day in April, Joe Bland traced me out in this parish, and tried his game on with me. ‘You may make a fortune,’ he said, ‘if you will listen to me: so much for the match with Surrey, and so much more for the Kent match—’ ‘Stop,’ said I: ‘Mr. Bland, you talk too fast; I am rather too old for this trick; you never buy the same man but once: if their lordships ever sold at all, you would peach upon them if ever after they dared to win. You’ll try me once, and then you’ll have me in a line like him of the mill last year.’ No, sir, a man was a slave when once he sold to these folk: ‘fool and knave aye go together.’ Still, they found fools enough for their purpose; but rogues can never trust each other. One day, a sad quarrel arose between two of them, which opened the gentlemen’s eyes too wide to close again to those practices. Two very big rogues at Lord’s fell a quarrelling, and blows were given; a crowd drew round, and the gentlemen ordered them both into the pavilion. When the one began, ‘You had 20l. to lose the Kent match, bowling leg long hops and missing catches.’ ‘And you were paid to lose at Swaffham.’—‘Why did that game with Surrey turn about—three runs to get, and you didn’t make them?’ Angry words come out fast; and, when they are circumstantial and square with previous suspicions, they are proofs as strong as holy writ. In one single-wicket match,” he continued,—“and those were always great matches for the sporting men, because usually you had first-rate men on each side, and their merits known,—dishonesty was as plain as this: just as a player was coming in, (John B. will confess this if you talk of the match,) he said to me, ‘You’ll let me score five or six, for appearances, won’t you, for I am not going to make many if I can?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you rogue, you shall if I can not help it.’—But, when a game was all but won, and the odds heavy, and all one way, it was cruel to see how the fortune of the day then would change about. In that Kent match,—you can turn to it in your book (Bentley’s scores), played 28th July, 1807, on Penenden Heath,—I and Lord Frederick had scored sixty-one, and thirty remained to win, and six of the best men in England went out for eleven runs. Well, sir, I lost some money by that match, and as seven of us were walking homewards to meet a coach, a gentleman who had backed the match drove by and said, ‘Jump up, my boys, we have all lost together. I need not mind if I hire a pair of horses extra next town, for I have lost money enough to pay for twenty pair or more.’ Well, thought I, as I rode along, you have rogues enough in your carriage now, sir, if the truth were told, I’ll answer for it; and, one of them let out the secret, some ten years after. But, sir, I can’t help laughing when I tell you: once, there was a single-wicket match played at Lord’s, and a man on each side was paid to lose. One was bowler, and the other batsman, when the game came to a near point. I knew their politics, the rascals, and saw in a minute how things stood; and how I did laugh to be sure. For seven balls together, one would not bowl straight, and the other would not hit; but at last a straight ball must come, and down went the wicket.”
From other information received, I could tell this veteran that, even in his much-repented Nottingham match, his was not the only side that had men resolved to lose. The match was sold for Nottingham too, and that with less success, for Nottingham won: an event the less difficult to accomplish, as Lord Frederick Beauclerk broke a finger in an attempt to stop an angry and furious throw from Shearman, whom he had scolded for slack play. His Lordship batted with one hand. Afterwards lock-jaw threatened; and Lord Frederick was, well nigh, a victim to Cricket!
It is true, Clarke, who played in the match, thought all was fair: still, he admits, he heard one Nottingham man accused, on the field, by his own side of foul play. This confirms the evidence of the Rev. C. W., no slight authority in Nottingham matches, who said he was cautioned before the match that all would not be fair.
“This practice of selling matches,” said Beldham, “produced strange things sometimes. Once, I remember, England was playing Surrey, and, in my judgment, Surrey had the best side; still I found the Legs were betting seven to four against Surrey! This time, they were done; for they betted on the belief that some Surrey men had sold the match: but, Surrey then played to win.”
“Crockford used to be seen about Lord’s, and Mr. Gully also occasionally; but, only for the society of sporting men: they did not understand the game, and I never saw them bet. Mr. Gully was often talking to me about the game for one season; but,” said the old man, as he smoothed down his smockfrock, with all the confidence in the world, “I could never put any sense into him! He knew plenty about fighting, and afterwards of horse-racing; but a man cannot learn the odds of cricket unless he is something of a player.”
A writer in “Blackwood” once attributed the success of his magazine to the careful exclusion of every bit of science, or reasoning, above half an inch long. The Cambridge Professors do not exclusively represent the mind of Parker’s Piece; so, away with the stiffness of analysis and the mysteries of science: the laws of dynamics might puzzle, and the very name of physics alarm, many an able-bodied cricketer; so, invoking the genius of our mother tongue, let us exhibit science in its more palatable form.
All the balls that can be bowled may, for all practical purposes, be reduced to a few simple classes, and plain rules given for all and each. There are what are called good balls, and bad balls. The former, good lengths, and straight, while puzzling to the eye; the latter, bad lengths and wide, while easy to see and to hit.
But, is not a good hand and eye quite enough, with a little practice, without all this theory? Do you ignore the Pilches and the Parrs, who have proved famous hitters from their own sense alone?—The question is, not how many have succeeded, but how many more have failed. Cricket by nature is like learning from a village dame; it leaves a great deal to be untaught before the pupil makes a good scholar. If you have Caldecourt’s, Wisden’s, or Lillywhite’s instructions, vivâ voce, why not on paper also? What, though many excellent musicians do not know a note, every good musician will bear witness that the consequence of Nature’s teaching is, that men form a vicious habit almost impossible to correct, a lasting bar to brilliant execution. And why?—because the piano or the violin leaves no dexterity or rapidity to spare. The muscles act freely in one way only, in every other way with loss of power. So with batting. A good ball requires all the power and energy of the man! And, as with riding, driving, rowing, or every other exercise, it depends on a certain form, attitude, or position, whether this power be forthcoming or not.
The scope for useful instructions for forming good habits of hitting before their place is preoccupied with bad—for, “there’s the rub”—is very great indeed. If Pilch, and Clarke, and Lillywhite, averaging fifty years each, are still indifferent to pace in bowling,—and if Mr. Ward, as late as 1844, scored forty against Mr. Kirwan’s swiftest bowling, while some of the most active young men, of long experience in cricket, are wholly unequal to the task; then, it is undeniable that a batsman may form a certain invaluable habit, which youth and strength cannot always give, nor age and inactivity entirely take away.
The following are simple rules for forming correct habits of play; for adding the judgment of the veteran to the activity of youth, or putting an old head on young shoulders, and teaching the said young shoulders not to get into each other’s way.
All balls that can be bowled are reducible to “length balls” and “not lengths.”
Not lengths, are the toss, the tice, the half volley, the long hop, and ground balls.
These are not length balls, not pitched at that critical length which puzzles the judgment as to whether to play forward or back, as will presently be explained. These are all “bad balls;” and among good players considered certain hits; though, from the delusive confidence they inspire, sometimes they are bowled with success against even the best of players.
These not lengths, therefore, being the easiest to play, as requiring only hand and eye, but little judgment, are the best for a beginner to practise; so, we will set the tyro in a proper position to play them with certainty and effect.
Position.—Look at any professional player,—observe how he stands and holds his bat. Much, very much, depends on position,—so look at the figure of Pilch. This is substantially the attitude of every good batsman. Some think he should bend the right knee a little; but an anatomist reminds me that it is when the limb is straight that the muscles are relaxed, and most ready for sudden action. Various as attitudes appear to the casual observer, all coincide in the main points marked in the figure of Pilch in our frontispiece. For, all good players,—
1st. Stand with the right foot just within the line. Further in, would limit the reach and endanger the wicket: further out, would endanger stumping.
2dly. All divide their weight between their two feet, though making the right leg more the pillar and support, the left being rather lightly placed, and more ready to move on, off, or forward, and this we will call the Balance-foot.
3rdly. All stand as close as they can without being before the wicket; otherwise, the bat cannot be upright, nor can the eye command a line from the bowler’s hand.
4thly. All stand at guard as upright as is easy to them. We say easy, not to forbid a slight stoop,—the attitude of extreme caution. Height is a great advantage, “and a big man,” says Dakin, “is foolish to make himself into a little man.” If the eye is low, you cannot have the commanding sight, nor, as players say, “see as much of the game,” as if you hold up your head, and look well at the bowler.
5thly. All stand easy, and hold the bat lightly, yet firmly, in their hands. However rigid your muscles, you must relax them, as already observed, before you can start into action. Rossi, the sculptor, made a beautiful marble statue of a batsman at guard, for the late Mr. William Ward, who said, “You are no cricketer, Mr. Sculptor; the wrists are too rigid, and hands too much clenched.”
After standing at guard in the attitude of Pilch, fig. 1. shows the bat taken up ready for action. But, at what moment are you to raise your bat? Caldecourt teaches, and some very good players observe, the habit of not raising the bat till they have seen the pitch of the ball. This is said to tend both to safety and system in play; but a first-rate player, who has already attained to a right system, should aspire to more power and freedom, and rise into the attitude of fig. 1. as soon as the ball is out of the bowler’s hand. Good players often begin an innings with their bat down, and raise it as they gain confidence.