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SCHOOL CRICKET '15
slip, who needs familiarizing with that most attractive
place ; also-though only for a short time-the wicketkeeper
should be given his daily _practice, not bruising his
hands nor tiring his back, but to grow thoroughly accustomed
to the problems.
(8) Every member of the team should have at least ten
minutes a day of practice with a colleague, one .throwing
the ball to one side of the other along the ground or
boundary, each ducking, stooping, jumping this way and
that. and learning how supple human limbs are intended
to be. Very few people, cricketers or not. know how
greatly freedom of movement may be developed, and it is
a sheer gain to secure scientific gymnastics in games,
rather than in gymnasium, though the latter is far better
than nothing. ·
School cricket, in short, should be made a training in
corporate effort, just as free from personal display as football
or rowing. Moreover, like those two sports, it needs
to be concentrated. Every effort should be made to save
the long dawdling spells of time when one player, " yorked
out " for 0, perhaps has to hang about watching another
making a century. In modern life time must be sa.;ed;
and cricket has always been open to the objection that
when things go wrong you may miss your bodily exercise.
To be given out wrongly by a country umpire and then
have to make pleasant small-talk with ladies, who only
know that you have got a " blob," is more than ought to
be demanded of anyone on his holiday. Meantime your
mates are having a fine time of it, compiling 400 runs as
they like. Your share in these proceedings is not recreation,
but bitterness in the inner man.
Again I say the remedy is to provide wickets which help
. the bowler and prevent inordinate scoring. The result
would be a true renovation of the game, a recovery of
that which gave it its immense charm in the past. Some
of us remember village cricket at its best. when the squire's
sons, the local curate, the village lob-bowler, the footman,
and the gardener's boy went to make up a delightfully