Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/215

Rh best qualities come to the fore; and whenever the Australian bowlers were collared, the whole team seemed to go to pieces. Either the captain or the bowlers placed the fielders in the most extraordinary and unheard-of positions, where they had but little chance of saving runs or getting catches. Spofforth during one match at Lord's in that season bowled the greater part of the day to a batsman—the Hon. Edward Lyttelton—who was not dismissed till he had topped his hundred. Ball after ball was neatly cut on the hard true ground to the boundary, past the spot where third man ought to have been but was not. Fancy a fast bowler bowling on a hard ground, while a batsman made a hundred without a third man; then think that this batsman was one of the finest amateur cutters of his day, and you will wonder what had become of the management of the side! This was, however, the first year the Australians visited us; on many subsequent occasions we found out to our cost that they had made good use of their time and experience in England, and had improved, in every branch of the game, to what was to an Englishman's eye an alarming extent. Their captaincy, however, has never been good; Murdoch, of course, had a thoroughly sound knowledge of the game; but his better judgment was too frequently hampered by the ceaseless chattering and advice of one or two men who never could grasp the fact that in the cricket-field there can only be one captain.

The chief qualifications for a good captain are a sound knowledge of the game, a calm judgment, and the ability to inspire others with confidence.

Bad captains may be split up into three classes: —


 * 1) Nervous and excitable men.
 * 2) Dull apathetic men.
 * 3) Bowling captains, with an aversion to seeing anybody bowl but themselves.

1. The nervous and excitable class is perhaps the worst of all, and sides which have the misfortune to be led by one of this division are indeed heavily handicapped. The chief