First, however, one word to anxious parents and teachers of the art. It is quite hopeless to expect that every boy can be made into a cricketer. Countless are the excuses we hear to cover the feebleness and incapacity of would-be players, made sometimes by their parents, sometimes by themselves. They have never been coached, or they have been badly coached; they have been made to play too much, or they can’t play often enough; the ground they play on is so rough, or it is so easy that they can’t play on more difficult ground. They used to bowl very well; but they were overbowled, or they were never put on; or they are always put on at the wrong end, or the catches are always missed off their bowling. These and many other excuses are urged on their behalf; but those who have watched cricket for but a few years will soon learn to take such futile pleas for what they are worth. No boy can become a good cricketer who has not a natural capacity for the game. The batsman must have a good eye and is all the better for a good nerve; the fieldsman must be active; the bowler--ah! what must he have? _Nascitur non fit_; we will not commit ourselves at present to his requirements. In saying this do not let it be supposed that we wish those only to play cricket who are likely to become good cricketers--far from it; but we are concerned with the game as an art and not as an exercise, and do not wish to raise vain hopes of success where success is impossible. Now let us consider the three great departments of the game in detail; for, although they are necessarily and closely connected, we cannot treat of batting, bowling, and fielding in the same paragraph. The batsman then first demands our attention, not because he is more useful to his side than the bowler, but because it is here that more may be taught than in any other department of the game. Take a boy ten years old--we start with double figures, let it be an omen for his future!--what can we tell him? Very little, we think, but certainly this: never to move his right foot, but to plant it firmly just inside the crease, with the toe barely clear of the leg-stump.