Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/264

Rh for our present purpose, it is sufficient to say that a batting genius is a man who can adapt his play to circumstances and has the power of watching the ball. If the wicket is fast and easy, the man of genius can play forward and hit all round the ground, but his style is not stereotyped; if the wicket is slow and the ball inclined to hang, he can play back and place the ball for singles, and pull a short ball to leg for four. He will know when to leave his ground and drive a medium pace ball from the pitch; in short, he will prove himself to be a man of infinite resource, who will throw the dogmas of correct play and treatises to the winds, and obey no rule but simply his own genius.

I am tempted to make these remarks in this year of grace 1900, after about seven weeks of the cricket season have gone. During this time cricketers have seen the Haywards, the Abels, and several more score their hundreds when the wickets have been easy and fast and true, but there have been also difficult wickets, and if the truth be told, in the hearts of many of us there is a wish that we may live to see a year in which there will be enough rain mixed with sunshine, to