The Cricket Field: Or, the History and Science of the Game of CricketPycroft, James
History
The Cricket Field: Or, the History and Science of the Game of Cricket
Pycroft, James
Cricket
has not enjoyed his merriment in the Common Room or his play on
Bullingdon and Cowley Marsh? His were the safest hands and most
effective fielding ever seen. To attempt the one run from a cover hit
when Price was there, or to give the sight of one stump to shy at,
was a wicket lost. When his friend, F. B. Wright, or any one he could
trust, was at the wicket, well backed up, the ball, by the fine old
Wykehamist action, was up and in with such speed and precision as I
have hardly seen equalled and never exceeded. When he came to Lord’s,
in 1825, with that Wykehamist Eleven which Mr. Ward so long remembered
with delight, their play was unknown and the bets on their opponents;
but when once Price was seen practising at a single stump, his Eleven
became the favourites immediately; for he was one of the straightest of
all fast bowlers; and I have heard experienced batsmen say, “We don’t
care for his underhand bowling, only it is so straight we could take
no liberties, and the first we missed was Out.” I never envied any man
his sight and nerve like Price--the coolest practitioner you ever saw:
he always looked bright, though others blue; and you had only to glance
at his sharp grey eyes, and you could at once account for the fact that
one stump to shy at, a rook for a single bullet, or the ripple of a
trout in a bushy stream, was so much fun for R. Price.
Some of the most painful accidents have been of the same kind--from
collision; therefore I never blame a man who, as the ball soars high
in air, and the captain of his side does not (as he ought if he can)
call out “Johnson has it!” stops short, for fear of three spikes in his
instep, or the buttons of his neighbour’s jacket forcibly coinciding
with his own. Still, these are not distinctively the dangers of
cricket: men may run their heads together in the street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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