it increases that calm confidence which is essential for keeping your eyes open and in a line to see clearly.
Sight of a ball also depends on a habit of undivided attention both before and after delivery, and very much on health. A yellow bilious eye bespeaks a short innings: so, be very careful what you eat and drink when engaged to play a match. At a match at Purton in 1836, five of the Lansdowne side, after supping on crab and champagne, could do nothing but lie on the grass. But your sight may be seriously affected when you do not feel actually ill. So Horace found at Capua:—
"Namque pilâ lippis inimicum et ludere crudis."
Straight and Upright Play.—To be a good judge of a horse, to have good common sense, and to hit straight and upright at Cricket, are qualifications never questioned without dire offence. Yet few, very few, ever play as upright as they might play, and that even to guard their three stumps. To be able, with a full and upright bat, to play well over and to command a ball a few inches to the Off, or a little to the leg, is a a very superior and rare order of ability.
The first exercise for learning upright play is to practise several times against an easy bowler, with both hands on the same side of the handle of the bat. Not that this is the way to hold a bat
