When the team is chosen, the captain’s first duty is to win the toss; and assuming that by the aid of his lucky sixpence he has succeeded in so doing, he should at once decide whether he or his opponent is to begin the batting. It is a very old saying that the side that wins the toss should go in, and it is a very true one. No captain who wins the toss and puts the other side in deserves to win the match, unless there are some very exceptional circumstances to be taken into his consideration. There is, perhaps, only one reason to justify a captain putting the other side in first. _If the ground, previously hard, has been softened by a night’s rain, and if at the time of beginning it is drying under a hot baking sun, and if the captain is tolerably sure that it is going to be a fine day_, then he will do well to put the other side in. There must be present these three conditions of ground and weather before he _is_ justified in refusing to bat. The ground will then for the first hour and a half or two hours make a bowling wicket; the top soft in the early morning, and gradually getting caked under the hot sun, will in the afternoon, if the weather keeps fine and it has been _hard_ before the rain, assume its former hardness and become easy for batting for the last few hours of the day’s play. If the ground has been soft before the rain and has been made still softer by the rain, it is madness to put the other side in. The first two or three hours will then be easy for batting, as a very slow soft wicket is always against the bowlers, and it will not be till after several hours of hot sun have been on it that it will begin to get caked and difficult for the batsman. Suppose the weather looks uncertain and broken, and the glass has been gradually going down, a captain should never in any state of the ground risk putting his opponents in. Rain is always in favour of the in side; bowlers cannot stand and cannot hold the ball, which, wet and slippery, cannot be made to take any twist or screw that the bowler may try to give it. Sometimes in a one-day match it may be advisable to put the other side in under circumstances different from the above, circumstances which are for the captain alone to judge of, and which it is impossible to discuss. Suppose a very strong side is playing against a very much weaker one. It may be that the captain of the former is afraid that if his side once goes to the wickets, so many runs will be made as to preclude all probability of finishing the match; and he may be content after conference with the members of his team to take the undoubted risk of putting the other side in; it is, however, a very dangerous thing to do at any time, and his finesse may very possibly end disastrously to his side in the imperfect light of the evening.