"CRICKET FALLACIES."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 657, 6 November 1909, Page 5

"CRICKET FALLACIES."

Regarding "Cricket,fallacies," a writer i th-oj 'Field has something interesting to sa 1 about the fielding fallacy, which he says , persistent and misleading. "'The detcnon rion ot fielding* l'is quite a favourite subjeot, le writes, "on .which writers who ougnfc/t know better expatiate from time to tinn 'chiefly when there has been a spell of fine dr <r -weather, and consequently a succession o drawn matches At one time wo used to sc articles in the papers gravely calculating th nmriber of catenas dropped in the course c a Season, and the startling effect it would hav on the proportion of drawn games if even ha] of them had beon held* ' But few things ar more certain than that the general run a fielding has improved rather than deteriorate during the last 15 years. Certainly in_one irr portant point, that of wicket-keeping, it ha improvea out of all knowledge. When Mi Blackham. first came over with an Australia team it is not too much to say that hi methods'behind the' stumps were a reveiatior Hfl showed-us how it ought to be done, an wekarnod the lesson more quickly and thoi oughly than might hare been expected from e conservatiYe* a raoo. Tha 1 ; revelation horaldei a revolution.' At the present moment thcr are probably more wicket-ketpers of tho firs rank ia this country than there ever have beei before. AVe have, too, an array of men whi capvpick up catchos in the slips at least a . well as any heroes of antiquity. Yet one read daily in.the cricket reports of misses, of 'pal pablo chances in, the slips,' until it has becom a matter of received opinion that we have for gotten how >to hold catcher , This is merel; an6ther instance of perversion by the pic tare«in« reporter, who must, for the sake o his'living, find something to write about, Wha happens usually is 'thtfi the batsman snicks i rising ball from tho fast bowler, one of th' three or four ,men in tho .slips just fails ti vsach it; it goes to the bountlavy, and dowi in ' tho reporter's notebook as a 'palpable chance.' In tho good old days tho fast bowle did not have this array of men behind th< wickets, and did hot bowl primarilv anil al most exclusively for their benefit. The chano would.have gone unremarked then, beoau& ' there would have been no one near enough ti stretch out his hand. If'there bad been, i is vory doubtful whether ho would have got a near catching it as his successor of to-day SHp-catohing, no less than wioket-keeping, i. an'art'of itself, and one in whloh wo have im proved considerably of late."