Page:Cricket (Lyttelton, 1898).djvu/16

quick enough to come down on the ball before it is past the bat. To an ordinary player it is wise to say that the ball of which you must be careful when you first go in is a very fast and short ball that you must play back to, but which is very likely to bowl you before you have got accustomed to the pace of the ground. You must be careful of such a ball; you must concentrate your mind on stopping it; and the obvious truth must be pressed home again, that, for at any rate a quarter of an hour, defence, not attack, must be your one consideration; and to the fast bowler the best advice for most batsmen is to make forward play the backbone of your play. There are players like Jessop, of Cambridge University and Gloucestershire, whose play is all hit. Such players have a splendid eye, often only staying about fifteen minutes at the wicket, but during that time scoring about a run and a half a minute. An ideal side ought to have at least one such hitter in its ranks. A great deal of the success of the various Australian elevens was due to the