Fourthly.--Always bowl in the same style and action. Bowl every day in practice, but not for more than half an hour. And take a rest of a minute or so after every six balls; remember in a match you have a rest after every four or five. Bowl carefully in practice. If you get tired leave off at once. If you find your bowling is getting worse instead of better, leave off for a few days and have a complete rest. Fifthly.--Take a good long run, whether you bowl slow or fast; and if you can, run on a little after delivering the ball. This gives extra ‘fire’ to the ball. Sixthly.--Be sure to practise bowling both sides of the wicket. Seventhly.--If you want to become a really good bowler accustom your fingers early to get as much twist as possible on the ball, both ways. CHAPTER IV. CAPTAINCY. (BY A. G. STEEL.) [Illustration: Going in.] It is a strange fact connected with cricket that a good captain is but seldom met with. The game has made such progress in popularity during the last thirty years, and the numbers of those who are proficient in its different branches have increased so enormously, that we should certainly expect to find in our county and other important matches captains who thoroughly understand the duties they are called upon to fulfil. But on looking round we are disappointed to find that the really good captains in first-class (including of course county) cricket are extremely few, and these few are amateurs. The cause of this may be that few men are able to take part in first-class cricket after they have served such an apprenticeship as would give them the experience, calmness, and judgment necessary for the difficult post of captain; or it may be that the qualifications for a good leader in the cricket-field are, from their very nature, seldom met with--in other words, that a captain is born not made, and very seldom born, too. Few professional cricketers (it is a well-known fact) make good captains; we have hardly ever seen a match played, where a professional cricketer was captain of either side, in which he was not guilty of some very palpable blunders. Take the Gentlemen _v._ Players matches, at Lord’s and the Oval, for the last twenty years; the Players have always been seriously handicapped by the want of a good captain, though Shrewsbury and Gunn may be exceptions. Bowlers are kept on maiden after maiden without the faintest chance of a wicket, no originality of attack is ever attempted, and altogether the captaincy is usually bad. It must, however, be admitted that ‘professional’ captains are in a more difficult position than amateurs, inasmuch as they are often exposed to the but thinly concealed murmurings of their fellows, who consider that they have not been treated with the amount of consideration they deserve. Amateurs always have made, and always will make, the best captains; and this is only natural. An educated mind, with a logical power of reasoning, will always treat every subject better than one