Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/67

Rh right foot rests is the vantage-point from which every batsman has to judge of the direction of the ball, and if he shifts away from this, all sorts of faults will crop up, chief of which will be an inability to play with a straight or perpendicular bat. He will also, if he moves his right foot towards short-leg—which is the commonest form this vice takes—find that he will drive balls with a crooked bat, when from a proper position he would have hit them to leg. He will also find himself further removed from the off side, and quite unable, therefore, to play with a straight bat on the off stump. These are a few of the faults that come from not keeping the right foot still. All coaches know that this habit of moving the right leg is the fault most commonly found in young players, and it is most difficult to remove. This arises from the fact that the ball is a hard substance; the beginner naturally dislikes being hit anywhere on the body, and his first and most powerful instinct is therefore to run away. But many instincts are base in their nature, and the young cricketer must realise in this, as in other cases, that the old Adam must be put away and the new man put on. He will find, as he improves, that in these days of true wickets he will not often get hit; the bat will, as a rule, protect him, and if he is hit anywhere on or below the knee the pads will perform a similar function. If he does get hit, well, he must grin and bear it, and try to emulate the heroism of some giants of old in ante-pad-and-glove days, of one of whom, the famous Tom Robinson, we read that he used to rub his bleeding fingers in the dust, after the Tarrant of those days had performed a tattoo on his fingers. (2) Never pull a straight fast ball to leg. If you miss it, you are either bowled out or else you run a great chance of being given out leg before wicket. This also is a common fault, and the fact that often on good, true wickets it comes off is no justification of the practice; for it is a bad hit, and even a ball that would not actually hit the wicket, but just miss the leg-stump, should be driven past the bowler and mid-on, not hit to leg. The bowling of the present day is so accurate that in a first-class match we