Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/302

280 Walker, who was intimately acquainted with cricket of that period as well as with that of a later date, once told the writer that in his opinion none of the modern points ever came quite up to Mr. King's level. Since 1860 Carpenter, R. C. Tinley, E. M. Grace, and F. W. Wright, have earned high reputations in this position, but a great many excel at point, and in the University Match alone there has been some admirable fielding here; the Hon. J. W. Mansfield for Cambridge, and Mr. Hildyard for Oxford, both being very good. The place where good fielding is most conspicuous is midway between cover-point and mid-off, and with this post the name of Mr. G. B. Studd is for ever identified. Mr. Royle at cover-point has never been excelled, and the same may be said of Gunn at third man. The celebrated fieldsmen of old were Mr. W. Pickering at cover-point; John Bickley and Mr. R. Lang at short-slip; Mr. E. S. E. Hartopp, Mr. H. M. Marshall, W. Pilch, A. Diver, W. Mortlock, and J. Thewlis at long-stop; while F. Bell, W. Bury, John Smith, and A. Lubbock were excellent at a distance from the wicket. There have been also, and are, many fields who were and are good at any place; for instance, the renowned Mr. V. E. Walker, and the still more famous Mr. W. G. Grace. We have said before, and we say it again, that the fielding, though probably as good as ever it was, is not so good as it ought to be. The nuisance of the day is the long scoring; we wonder how many innings of 100 are played where you do not read the well-known remark, 'the batsman gave a chance at 24, another at 62, and a third just before he was out, but none the less he played a fine innings.' The following brief epigram is undoubtedly true—'Good fielding makes weak bowling strong and strong batsmen weak.' An eleven that is really A1 in fielding very rarely has to field out for 300 runs. When we say this we feel inclined to go farther and add that if no feasible catches are dropped this total of 300 runs would not be of anything but the rarest occurrence. This fact ought of itself to be sufficient to make every true cricketer try and become, if not a brilliant field, at any