straight, and it crept a bit, and the nervous batsman retired, having, however, before his departure credited himself with fifty or so on the sunburnt “tins.” Of W. M. Bradley, there is nothing to be said—a natural fast bowler with the mind of a man and the strength of a bull. I faced him two years ago at Canterbury. He was bowling against the pavilion and against the sun; the slope of the ground went with him, a new ball was in his hand, and it whizzed down the pitch as it left it. It was about the most uncomfortable ten minutes I ever spent. They came “down the vale” with a four-inch off break; they grazed one’s ribs, one’s chest, one’s nose; and at last I was caught in the slips protecting my eye with my hand. It was on this occasion that I was truly convinced of what a grand player Tom Hayward is against really fast bowling. Though we were easily beaten, he made 97 not out! Good boy! There are many more in this our third class that I should like to write about, but space and the clock forbid, and so perforce am I compelled to halt awhile and wait for the little cavalcade of “lobsters” that are so far behind, so very far behind, the pressing throng of modern bowlers. To quote from _Wisden_:— We, the solitary few who still strive to hold upright the tottering pillars in the ruined temple of lob bowling, unto whose shrine the bowlers of the olden time for ever flocked, to-day we are but of small account; there is scarcely a ground in England where derision is not our lot, or where laughter and jaunting jeers are not hurled broadcast at us. To-day perhaps to an all-powerful side we are of little use—to a side that is weak, to a side whose special weakness is its fielding, we are the strychnine of tonics. By himself stands Simpson-Hayward, for he “flicks” the ball as we have all seen many a wrathful billiard-player do when returning the white from a most unexpected pocket—it spins and spins and breaks sharply from the off, and it sometimes hits the wicket. There are two more, Wynyard and myself, and we both bowl in the old, old way, and we bowl with a persistence born of tentative success—occasionally we hook a fish, and great is our rejoicing. We are both fond of this bowling, I particularly so, and when on many a ground throughout the country there has arisen on every side the gentle sound of “Take him orf! Take him orf!” were it not that the side ever comes before oneself, I would bowl, and bowl, and bowl, until at eventide the cows come home.— D. L. A. J., _Wisden_, 1902. [Illustration: _From a Painting by_ _C. J. Basébe._ _KENNINGTON OVAL IN 1849._] [Illustration] CHAPTER V FIELDING By S. L. JESSOP It has become almost an axiom of the game that more matches are lost by bad fielding than through any superexcellence of batting or bowling, and that this is really the case few will deny.