In club and county matches a captain whose side is batting may often have little duties to perform, such as hurrying his men in after the fall of a wicket and allowing no time to be wasted, &c. There is nothing so annoying to a keen cricketer as to see the field waiting three or four minutes whilst some ‘local swell’ calmly buckles his pads and saunters sleepily to the wicket. A captain should see that the next batsman is always ready to go in directly the preceding one reaches the pavilion; and a good experienced captain can also give many valuable hints to the younger members of his team as they sit waiting for their innings. ‘Play your own game, of course;’ he is the first one to know and realise the truth of the old saying; but (and there are often many _buts_) ‘for goodness sake don’t try and hit that curly bowler unless you are on the pitch of him;’ ‘if you play back to that fast chap you are done; he is out and away faster than he looks;’ ‘watch that man at cover: he’s as quick as lightning with his return.’ All these little odds and ends from an old hand are well worth the attention of a young player; they all help to give him more confidence and more knowledge and experience, and consequently make him a better cricketer. And then a captain’s eyes must be sharp to detect any slovenliness in the dress of a batsman. What a sorry sight it is to see a man going to the wickets with his pad-straps hanging two or three inches down his legs, his trousers unfolded and sticking out from behind his pads, his shirtsleeves hanging loose, and altogether having a general air of being a slovenly fellow! A captain must note this; he knows that there are a good many better ways of getting out than being caught from one’s pad-straps or loose trousers that flap gaily in the breeze, or from one’s shirtsleeves that float round the forearm with so great an expanse of canvas, looking for all the world like a bishop’s sleeve. All these little things are worth knowing; cricket is a game with a great deal of luck in it and full of a great many odd chances, and the sooner a young player realises that he must do all he can to minimise the chances against himself, the better cricketer he will become and the more runs he will make.