Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/277

Rh standing so far away as not to be able comfortably to put down the wicket without moving the legs. The postures generally assumed are, it must be confessed, the reverse of graceful; they are too well known to need description, but the two most common forms are shown in the figures given on pp. 254 and 256. In one figure we recognise the massive proportions of the famous Sherwin. Now comes a most important rule, and that is, never to move the feet till the ball is hit by the batsman or has passed your hands or is in your hands. Again, you may not be able to take many leg-balls, but every time you do put the wicket down, not regarding the fact that the batsman may not be out of his ground. If you wait to look, he certainly will not wait to get back, warned as he is by the sound of the ball impinging on the gloves that there is no time for loitering about. We do not say that an appeal ought to be made to the umpire every time that the wicket is put down; that ought only to be done when you think that the batsman was out of his ground; unless this is the case it is an unfair and unsportsmanlike proceeding.

We have before protested against pandering to the vicious tastes of the gallery, and we must protest against it again, and caution wicket-keepers in the following particular. It is supremely difficult to take leg-balls, and the populace applaud accordingly when one is taken. Now we have no objection to a wicket-keeper taking as many leg-balls as possible, but on one condition, and that is, that he does not lay himself out to take leg-balls at the expense of the off balls. It is easy to do this by a different position and a concentration of thought on the leg-balls. The vast majority of catches are given on the off side, and catches, as has been before remarked, out-number stumping chances in the proportion of 3 to 1. We would infinitely sooner have a wicket-keeper on our side who was safe on the off side and did not take one leg-ball in a hundred, limiting leg-balls to those outside the legs of the batsman. Let your first thoughts be concentrated mainly on straight and off-side balls, and pay no regard to the applause