Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/73

54 others, very few in number, who want practically no teaching; they see the ball, judge its length, and play accordingly. My own belief is that if you were to ask but Mr. Mitchell of Eton—and the late I. D. Walker would have said the same—What did you teach Maclaren, Jackson, Forbes, Ottaway, and a few more? he would have replied: "Nothing; the right principles were born in them, all they required was practice, and not half as much of this as boys of less skill." A little advice on matters that experience alone can give, such as judging a run or the peculiarities of a sticky wicket, may be given with advantage. When a golfer or billiard player of mature years wonders why he is never able to play a certain club or a particular stroke, you may point out to him the fact that there are a great many boy cricketers with quite a fair talent for the game, who with the best coaching in the world cannot get rid of some particular fault, such as a fatal one of pulling a leg-stump ball. In practice the coach sometimes hugs himself with the belief that the fiend is banished, but in a match it may come