Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/438

406 run out every hit, and these two batsmen for the moment constitute the whole of one side. But when a hit is made the whole eleven of the fielding side have not to run after the ball; only one of them does so; it follows, therefore, that the work to these two individual batsmen must be harder than that of any one field. No doubt the batsman feels pride and pleasure in the getting of runs; but if he is much of a hitter he must be in wondrous training if, after having had to run 80 runs in 45 minutes or thereabouts, he does not feel just a bit fagged; and everybody knows that a real fine ball is likely to get out a man in this condition. What we complain of now is that a batsman may be four hours at the wicket and never once feel even out of breath. What makes the rotund Quidnunc and the festive Zingaro feel a little queer is the chase after a ball to a Medway stroke at Chatham, where the ball runs in front of the perspiring fieldsman down a hill and with a wind behind it, as Mr. Pickwick's hat did in an historical scene.

The introduction of round-arm bowling has been described, and it may safely be said that no change which has ever taken place in cricket has caused so great a revolution. Immediately prior to the introduction of this style of bowling the scoring got so high that it became a nuisance, as is the case now, though no doubt it is far higher at present. The batsman had learnt the art of successfully dealing with underhand bowling even though the paces and twists were of a most varied character, and so the existing problem of how to keep down runs at that time also presented itself. There was this important difference in the circumstances, however, that the modern grounds have reached a perfection which has never been attained before, and it is probable that the old-fashioned underhand bowling was more difficult to play on the average wicket of sixty years ago than the modern round and over-hand bowling is on the wicket of to-day. If, then, there was sufficient reason in 1827 for permitting the introduction of some reform to stop the run-getting, there must be more reason now, for there is no doubt runs are