Page:Jubilee Book of Cricket (Second edition, 1897).djvu/166

144 form, of which no cricketer should be guilty, and also is likely to prejudice the umpire against right and proper appeals.

A bowler ought to take care not to cut up the wicket more than he can help in following through after delivering the ball. I have seen and heard of instances of such things being done with the intention of increasing the opposing batsman's difficulties. Needless to say, such practices are entirely foreign to the spirit in which the game should be played.

Nothing is more upsetting to an entire side than a bowler's loss of temper or tendency to sulk. The sulky bowler may be known by various signs. He takes a long time to get into his place in the field when not bowling; after fielding the ball, he throws it in needlessly hard, to the detriment of some one's hands, and at the risk of overthrows; if he misses the ball, he will be reluctant to run after it; often he bowls too fast and too short, and generally gives the impression that he does not care. Bowling misfortunes often test a man's temper; but he must remember that, as a mere matter of expediency, it is essential that he should keep a complete control over himself, and also that an even temper is an indispensable qualification of a good sportsman. He must show no open dissatisfaction when catches are missed off his bowling, or his analysis spoiled in other ways: first, because presumably the fieldsman has tried his best, and is still more annoyed than the bowler; secondly, because such misfortunes ought to be regarded by no individual on a side as affecting himself in particular, but as affecting the entire side. Indeed he must learn to regard himself as part of an organism for whose good as a whole he, in his sphere, is working. He is playing for his side, and not for himself. When every man in an eleven fosters this spirit of mutual cohesion between himself and his comrades, the side is bound to be a good one to meet and a bad one to beat—a joy to itself and all the world besides.