Page:Cricket (Lyttelton, 1898).djvu/107

Rh tremendous leg-hitter. Slow bowling was not so common in his days, and if he had a weak spot, it was that when he first went in he was apt to get out to slows, often caught at deep square leg. The modern batsman, sooner than run the chance of being caught in this way, leaves leg-balls alone or pushes them along the ground. Mitchell used to say, and I agree with him, that if leg-balls were not to be hit, cricket was not worth playing.

Readers of cricket literature may think they have had enough put before them about W. G. Grace, but in a chapter about heroes of the game he must be written about again. Grace has played first-class cricket for thirty-two years, and amidst all the changes of styles of bowling, vicissitudes of wickets, for twenty-five years of that time he has stood alone: no rival could be reckoned in the same class with him. From 1866 to 1876 he scored hundreds as often as the next bats scored fifties; his presence made a weak eleven strong, and after half-an-hour of his