FUTURE CRICKET.

Evening Star, Issue 4015, 8 January 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

FUTURE CRICKET.

The following interesting article is extracted from ‘Bell’s Life’ of October 9th. We recommend it to the notice of our cricketers :

Will our great grandsons play cricket with the same zest as we do ? The question may resolve itself into whether they may reasonably be expected to play ci'icket better than we do. On the other hand, it may be said that cricket contains in itself such infinite varieties of pastime that cricketex-s will xxever—as in the case of the spot stroke —ari'ive at any monotonous degree of skill, and to this latter view we incline. Most spectators, especially if old frequenters of London grounds, will have felt that the cricket has been somewhat dull this year. There has been a want of verve and eagerness in the play, and a corresponding want of interest and excitexnent on the part of the spectators. The enthusiasm that made 1871 and 1872 such remai'kable cricketing years is now conspicuous by its absence. Still more noticeable has been a general loss of confidence in our leading batsmen. Are these symptoms of the decline of cricket, or only of temporary arrangements ? We believe that the reasons are not far to seek. Thex-e must always be cycles in the history of cricket—alternations of brilliant play with duller times ; the elder cricketers are too good to retire, and the younger not quite good enough to take their places. Cricketers run much into “ schools,” and come on and go off in batches. Moreover, for the greater part of the season the weather was wretchedly cold and dispiriting, and the cricketer is an animal that rejoices in sun. But beyond all this, we believe that there is a general cause that has affected this year’s cricket; 1871 and 1872 were phenomenal and sensational years, and a ■ change then began of which we are only now feeling the real effects. Then it was that modern amateur batting, which had for some time previousiy been asserting against the older school the freedom of its style and the grandeur of its hitting, definitely conquered and for the time being almost suppressed, swift roundarm bowling. There was in fact a crisis in the game. The crisis was not quite understood, because amateurs like Mr Butler and Mr Powys, and professionals like Hill, Freeman, and MTntyre, at times still sent in their swift deliveries with appalling success. Slow bowling, too, had long been regarded as a mere pis alh-r, as a means of tempting a batsman into indiscretions, and getting tickets at a heavy cost. That a slow bowler coiild keep a batsman more strictly on the defensive than Tarrant, Jackson, or Wodtton in their best days was never even imagined. But, well or ill understood, the change induced by the cricket of 1871 and 1872 has been a very great one. Fast round arm bowling has declined, and slow round-arm bowling—a style that was once thought almost an eccentricity—has for the time taken its place. Such an exti'aordinaxy feat as that of Alfred Shaw this year against the M.C.C. really explains the cricket of 1875, because it is about typical of what has been seen orattempted on all the principal cricket grounds. The only elevens in England that could now meet first-class teams with fast bowling alone are those of Notts and Yorkshire ; and even these counties have greatly —Notts, perhaps, chiefly—relied on their slow bowlex's. Elsewhere we see slow roundarm bowling almost exclusively. Middlesex, with Mr Hadow and Mr Snow ; Gloucester, with Mr Grace and Mx* Miles ; Sux’X'ey, with Southerton and Mr Strachan ; Sussex, with Lillywhite ; Lancashire, with Watson ; and Derbyshire, with Mycrow—all show the present tendencies of cricket. In the University match this year the fast bowling was hit all over the field, while the slow bowlers were bowling maiden after maiden. Never since Wisden was in his prime, and Mr Fellowes was smashing stumps, has there been such a dearth of fast bowlers. To say the truth, fast bowlers have been “found out, ” and, unless they arc eminently and exceptionally good, have little chance against the best batsmen. On the other hand, slow bowlers have for the time being completely succeeded in driving batsmen fx-onx their commanding style into a cautious and almost timid game. Bonding is almost infinite in its variety, and our belief is that this temporary clxeck to sensational scoring is a strong proof—not of the waning of cricket —but of its exuberant vitality. It has always been thus. When swift “grubs” had had their day, came David Harris with his swift underhands of good pitch; when the school of underhands had died out, came the elder Lillywhite, chiofest of mediumpaced, round-arm bowlers ; to him succeeded

the reign of terroi'; and now we have slow bowling again. As long as bowling immediately catches up batting whenever batting gets a little ahead, there need be no fear as to the future of cricket.

M e have some hopes that the cricketers of the future may find cricket capable of Indefinite expansion in the direction of good fielding. It is not too much to say that—taking one example only—in the long score made by the Gentlemen this year against the Players at Lord’s something like one quarter of the runs could possibly have been saved by extruordm rdy good fielding. We italicise the adverb, but really in a match like that the fielding ought to be extraordinary. How much our present fielding needs a general improvement,' was, by force of contrast, shown by the Oxford''Eleven of last year, and by the American Base Ball players. There is no doubt that bowlers could be assisted by the field far more than they are. If all outfielders fielded like Lord Harris or Mr Renny-Tailyour—deter-mining to save runs and run out batsmen whenever those ends could be attained by the utmost of human swiftness, strength, ane agility—how many hundred runs would be saved in even first-class matches !