A fast bowler must be straight to be good. This is not the art of one skilled in the dodges of slows; he has to bowl straight, and a good length too, or else the runs will come at an enormous rate. In the present day it is usual to do without a long-stop even to the fastest bowlers; this makes it imperatively necessary for the bowler not to bowl to leg, or, if missed by the batsman, the balls have a good chance of flying past the wicket-keeper to the boundary for four. Whether it is a good principle to do without long-stops, even when the best wicket-keepers are behind the sticks, is a doubtful point. A fast bowler should have such command over the ball as to be able to bowl a ‘yorker’ whenever he wishes, for the fact may be repeated that a fast ‘yorker’ is a most deadly ball. Spofforth and Palmer, the Australians, and Rotherham, the old Uppingham bowler, Woods, and Mold were about the best fast ‘yorker’ bowlers of modern times. The ball came from these bowlers as high as the arm would allow, and seemed to fly like an arrow, with lightning-like rapidity, straight to the block-hole, or a few inches inside it. A high-action ‘yorker’ is more likely to deceive a batsman than a low-action one, as in the former case the starting-point of the ball is above the line of vision, and in the latter on a line with or below it, which naturally makes the course and pace of the ball more easy for the eye to judge. A very common error into which good fast ‘yorker’ bowlers fall is not being content with trying the ball occasionally to a batsman, and when he first comes on or when they first go on, but persistently trying, over after over, to break down his guard with a ball with which he is evidently quite at home, and which presents no terrors to him. The result of this mistake is that the balls get considerably punished, either by being driven on the full-pitch or else on the half-volley, the latter ball being often the result of a tired-out ‘yorker’ bowler’s persistency. The writer remembers, when playing in a match some years ago, asking W. G. Grace, who was on the same side, what sort of a fast bowler a certain man was who was going on to bowl. ‘Oh, I’m never frightened of him; he is always trying to “york” you, and bowls any amount of half-volleys,’ was the reply, and this was soon proved to be, like most of the champion cricketer’s opinions, perfectly accurate.