Page:Cricket, by WG Grace.djvu/238

 at a wicket without a bowler, how far you can reach with safety without dragging the right foot.

Another very important thing to remember in playing forward is, never to place the bat further forward than the level of the left foot, and to be sure to have the handle of it slanting, so that the top of it is nearer than the blade to the bowler. Upon that will depend whether you meet the ball firmly and correctly. Try to have the bat as close to the left leg as you can with safety, so that if the ball should break slightly back, it will not pass between the bat and the pads.

Forward and back play are the two strokes you must rely on to protect your wicket, and you must practise them diligently. Occasionally you will get a ball which puts you in two minds, and, for want of decision to play one way or the other, it may either beat you altogether, or cause you to play it in a half-hearted way and be caught. I have invariably found that when that occurred with me I had either been careless in watching the bowler's arm, or that he had deceived me by altering his pace without a change of action. Spofforth and Lohmann are good at that, and have taken in many batsmen the first time they bowled against them.

When that experience comes, you will have to be quick to get out of the difficulty; there is only one way that I know of, and that is, to meet it with the half-cock stroke. You have made up your mind to play forward, and taken the initial step; but at the last moment you find that the ball is going to pitch shorter than you at first thought. You must rely on your arms to extricate you from the difficulty by drawing back the bat until it is just over the popping-crease, a few inches from the ground. Drawing back the left foot alone will not help you; therefore concentrate upon a rapid use of the arms.