Page:A "Bawl" for American Cricket.djvu/53

 bowler delight in the man who plays a "cross bat?" The answer is simple. A "cross bat" must of necessity be an imperfect defense for a perpendicular wicket. The minds of many boys seem to be constructed upon the "cross bat" plan, but when they play the upright game of cricket with an upright bat, an upright boy is the likely father an upright man.

Every beginner aspires for the results of batting which are recorded by the scorer, conveniently ignoring the hard work of those who by many patient efforts have reached comparative perfection. But the repeated loss of his wicket will force him to reason out why a straight bat thwarts the bowler's efforts, and why when playing a "cross bat" he has been unconciouslyunconsciously [sic] reducing his defense in a ratio of four to one. To help this reasoning process let us demonstrate by stating that the batsman's wicket without the bails presents to the bowler a surface of 216 square inches. The batsman who wields a straight bat covers about 120 square inches of the wicket, hands and gloves increasing it to about 130 inches. The "cross bat" presents a defense of only 34 square inches, or one-fourth that of a "straight bat," the hands and gloves ceasing to the part of the defense for a "cross bat." When the legs and pads of the batter are added to the defense, the bowler would seem to have an almost impossible task to "out" the wielder of the "straight bat." Yet the "man out" seldom understands it, for he has not profited by the tremendous mathematical advantage of a "straight bat" over a "cross bat." When this difference is appreciated and acted upon, the lesson of "blocking" has been learned and the batsman may expect scores: for he is ready to hit intelligently.