A dodge well worth trying with this ball is to bowl a good length about
two feet to the leg of the batsman; he is nearly sure to have a hit,
and there is a great chance of the spin on the ball causing it to be a
miss-hit, which may go straight up in the air, for the wicket-keeper,
point, or bowler to secure; even if it is a clean hit to leg it is
nearly bound to be in the air, and long-leg may possibly have a chance.
If this scheme is to be practised it will be generally a good thing for
the bowler to have his long-leg perfectly square, and bring his long
field on round till he is almost in the position of a forward long-leg.
This should be done by quietly waving the hand in such a manner as
to attract the attention of the batsman as little as possible. It is
impossible to lay down any rule for the way in which the fieldsmen
should be placed for this style of bowling, as this depends so much
upon the play of each particular batsman. A long-leg is, however,
nearly always necessary, and very often an extra man out on the leg
side, as mentioned already. Two men out in the field for the average
batsman cannot be dispensed with. The bowler himself, as a rule, will
know how to place his field for each batsman, but on no occasion should
he ever omit to have a short-slip. This is such a very likely place
to get a batsman snapped up that it should never be dispensed with to
any style of bowling, except perhaps to slow under-arm, and not always
then. A slow bowler who intends to use the leg-break, let us say, once
an over, or even once in two overs, and who relies on this ball as most
likely to secure wickets, may on ordinary occasions place his men thus,
but, as we said before, they must be changed to suit the circumstances.
If the ground is hard and fast, as a rule a third man cannot be
dispensed with; but if inclined to be slow, he may be brought forward
to extra cover-point, between cover-point and mid-off, or else put
deep in the field on the on side. The bowler may, however, see that
the batsman is wide enough awake to restrain himself from hitting
blindly at the pitch of this ball when straight or on the off stump;
it will then be advisable to try him entirely on the leg side--a man
may refuse the bait on one side but take it on the other. In these
circumstances extra cover-point, and sometimes even cover-point as
well, may be brought across the wicket and placed for half-hits wide
on the on--i.e. about half the distance from the batsman that a deep
field would stand. If the batsman assumes a poky style of play, it is
often advantageous, both for saving runs and getting wickets, to have
a short-leg a little nearer the stumps than the umpire, and the mid-on
as near to the batsman as he can venture consistently with safety. In
this, as in every other style of bowling, it is a sovereign rule to
make the batsman play to the ball--i.e. to keep it well pitched up, and
compel him either to hit or play forward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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