Two corollaries must be drawn from what has been already said. The
first is that the bowler should be just as prepared to receive a
throw-in as the wicket-keeper. When both wickets are menaced, the
danger of a short run is doubled, and an overthrow is oftener due to
the bowler and backer-up than to the field. But it is said ‘This is all
very fine, but the bowler cannot get behind his wicket in time.’ No
assertion could be wider of the mark. Take some genuine cricketer as an
example, and no better one could be chosen than Mr. A. W. Ridley, some
sixteen years ago. Lob-bowlers follow their own ball further down the
wicket than any other kind of bowler, and of all lob-bowlers Mr. Ridley
did this the most. But no one has ever seen a short run got off his
bowling, without, at least, at the same moment seeing him dart behind
the wicket, and be ready to put down the hardest throw anyone might
send to him. He is always there in time, and any bowler in the country
might do the same if he were cricketer enough to see what is wanted.
The second inference to be drawn is, that it is highly important to
pursue a medium hit with all possible speed, and to throw it in as if
it burnt the fingers to retain the ball a moment. We do not remember an
eleven who neglected this less, as a whole, than the Players eleven of
the year 1887, and the number of runs that can be saved by observance
of the rule is immense.
These are the two most important directions which can be given to any
young cricketer, and especially to any young captain of a side, in
order that he may select his men with a view to these requirements of
the game. The general fielding capacity of a whole team depends on the
attention devoted to such dull points by the eleven minds, not less
than on the suppleness of the eleven backbones. No directions, it has
already been said, will make a bad field into a good one. But it is
equally true that no advice should be offered which cannot be acted
upon. Consequently only some duties of a fieldsman have been described.
But it is not too much to say that a careful attention to these points
would ultimately turn eleven indifferent cricket players into a good
fielding team.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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