Page:A "Bawl" for American Cricket.djvu/48

 his field. A catch missed means a game lost which might have been won. Most fielders feel little of the great responsibility resting upon them, and even many good ones fail to appreciate it.

When our American gentlemen were winning the match against Surrey on the "Oval," the sympathy of the London crowd was with the Americans, who they thought fielded better than the English gentlemen. One of the crowd said to the writer our cricketers "worship the bat." They play forever in the nets, and forget the importance of fine fielding, this did not seem a just criticism, for although he has seen every foreign eleven that has ever played in America, he has never seen any American fielding compare in excellence with that of the English and Australians. Almost every American fielder fails to realize that there are two wickets. He picks up well, returns well, runs well, and the mechanical part is often better than that of his English brother, but when head work is needed the English fielder returns to the right wicket, and the batter little expecting it is run out. The American batter is expecting the same loose methods to prevail among English fielders, but disappointment awaits him, for much to his astonishment the English fielder recollects the other wicket. Nothing has impressed itself upon the writer's mind in commenting upon the play of foreign elevens, like the constant watchfulness of the fielder. If English cricketers worship the bat at home, they show no evidence of it upon American cricket grounds. They set an example to American cricketers which the sooner they follow, the sooner will they equal their alert foreign competitors.