CRICKET.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10710, 6 October 1928, Page 9

CRICKET.

GOOD FIELDING.

GREAT ASSET TO A TEAM

TIPS TO IMPROVE

(By “Willow”')

Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the value of good fielding to a side. At the Oval, time and again, tc see a catch missed which might have changed the fortunes of the game had it been taken. Few games go by, even.- when the High School team is in the field, when there were not several runs allowed which better fielding might have saved. And in the close match it is those, few extra runs that spell the difference between defeat and victory. The iour of England by the New Zealand team showed that our cricket out here had a great weakness in the fielding department. An alert and sure fieldsman is not only a pleasure to watch, but also a real asset to the side, even if he is skittled first ball—for his good fielding sends him out to take strike with a credit balance of 20 or 30 runs saved which a teammate, perhaps* a far better bat, might have allowed to the opponents through laxity in the all-important fielding. Good fielding strengthens the bowling and will convert a weakattack into a comparatively strong combination. Every catch missed, it should be remembered, means another batsman to the opposing side. 1 ‘Good fielding deserves more attention than many teams give to it,” declares Patsy Hendren. “In amateur cricket, at least, it is the easy catches that are missed that break hearts. No bowler expects marvellous feats from hi® ten companions. Put when the ball is put into the bands of a fieldsman he certainly does look to him to hold it. “Many a catch has been missed through trying to make an easy catch look difficult. Why, you ask, should anybody try to make catches more difficult than they are? There you have me. But the'fact remains that using one hand to the hall when two are so nmch safer is a fault to which many young, players are liable. Yc<u should certainly cultivate] the art of catching as well with your left hand as you do with vour right, but always use both hands to every possible catch. Footwork will help you here, for if the player moves quickly enough into position he can get into lino with many balls that would otherwise he travelling past him when he has to take them.”

The first tiling the young fieldsman must learn is to try hard for every hall. “Good fiqiding is very largely a matter of watching the batsmen, so that you can anticipate the direction of liis stroke,” says Hendren. “Then you must- start at once and never give up until the ball is dead. Given the keenness to do these things, any player with a good eye and normal strength can acquire skill at catching and throwing. “When awaiting catches behind the wicket, resist, the temptation to grab at the ball. If the catch is coming towards vou, there is time to take it, so watch it carefully, and do not snatch. In fielding to save runs, however—-and this is a very important part of the work—you will often need to be moving inwards as you pick up the ball. You can isave valuable time—and that means runs —by cultivating the ability to throw 1 in the ball with the same action as vou pick it up. “Much is heard of natural cricketers. but I venture to say that this knack of quick throwing in does not come naturally to anybody, though some may he quicker than others. “The whole secret of the. quick throw-in after the pick-up is in correct body balance. For a ball coining “straight along the carpet” towards you, get down to it with the weight on the right foot, and the left-foot slightly in front. As the left hand closes over the ball—which is held in the right hand—the right arm goes naturally hack. The act of straightening up the body again, for which purpose you use the right foot as a levei - , enables you to use that, same foot as a base off which to make your throw with the right arm. I prefer an under-arm throw where it is possible, but throwing under-arin from any distance is by no means easy. “The farther the distance from which you can throw in under-arm, however, the better you are likely to become at throwing in so I should recommend you to cultivate this method. It is quicker because it keeps the ball lower, and can be done in the same movement as the pick-up. Further, it is more accurate. Most players need the overarm throw from a position on the boundary. We are not all Austra - lians.” It was W. G-. Grace who once said that the man who never missed a catch was no cricketer. r lhe fact is that many mis-hit halls become catches only when there is a first-class fieldsman about to make them so. Few catches come straight to the hands. A brilliant cricketer might make a gallant effort to get a ball that another might leave. Tt may look as though a catch has been missed, when he jhist fails to hold the hall.

It is the man -who says, “I couldn’t have reached that one, anyway,” •who commits the unforgivable sin in cricket—although he may appear to miss -fewer chances than more enterprising players.

LAWS OF THE CAME. SOME EXPLANATORY NOTES. from a.o.a. handbook. (II) Further extracts from the notes on the laws of cricket as contained dn the Auckland ,-Cricket Association’s handbook for 1928,_ of which a large number were given m these columns last Saturday are as follows : A fair catch is made even though the hand holding the ball is touching the ground. „ When a fieldsman catches the ball and falls, the' ball . touching the around, it is a question of fact toi the umpire to decide whether or not the catch was completed before the ball touched the ground. When a batsman plays a ball on to the ground and. in order to prevent it hitting the wicket, after it touches the ground, he strikes it again and the ball ns caught the batsman is not out; but if the batsman hits the ball a second time before it touches the ground and the ball is then caught, the batsman is put.

A batsman would* he out if caught off a hall which, before ’touching Ins hat, struck his hand. If no boundaries have been arranged, a batsman may be caught out off a tree, hedge, building, etc. If the hall rebounds off the pads or person of the wicketkeeper, without first having touched the bat or hand of the striker, and the striker is out of his grornd, the decision should he “stumped,” not “run out.” A batsman may be out l.h.w. although the bowler is howling round the wicket. There are.three considerations which an umpire must bear in mind: (1) Did the hall pitch in a straight line, between .racket \and wicket P; (2) Was it part of the batsman’s person, other than the hand, which intercepted the ball'.; (3) Would the ball have hit the, .wicket? If these questions are answered in the affirmative, the batsman would be out. It is quite immaterial whether the hall breaks or not. It is sometimes only possible for a bowler, bowling round the, wicket, to obtain a l.h.w. decision with a breaking ball. (To “Willow’s” mind a. howler round the wicket can only obtain l.h.w. by a. swerve or a break-back.) If, in . making a second stnffi® to guard'this wicket, the. batsman hits his w*cket, he would he out. A batsman would not he out for breaking the wicket either with his bat or person, while in the act of running. If, while playing at the ball (but not otherwise) the striker’s hat or cap falls off and dislodges a hail, he would he out. , For infringements of law 26 (“Obstructing the field”) it is the striker who goes out and not, therefore, necessarily the- batsman who offends. When the batsman at the howler’s end is out of his ground and the striker hits the ball into the wicket at the. howler’s end, the striker’s partner is not out unless the hall has been touched; in its flight, by a fieldsman after i,t was hit and before it struck the stumps. Although the run which is being attempted is not scored when a run out occurs, it is not customary for the remaining batsman to resume his position at the wicket he has left, if he and his partner have crossed. A ball does not become “dead” when the hails are off or the wickets struck down or because an unsuccessful appeal has been made to the umpire. The hall does not become “dead” on hitting an umpire. The hall ceases to be “dead” when the bowler begins his run or howling action. A howler may inn a batsman out, without having delivered the hall, in any way authorised by the laws. He may have passed the howling crease in his run or may change the ball from one hand to the other before throwing at the wicket or knocking off the hails. There is no law which prohibits a player from bowling because he has had a substitute to run "for him. No act on the part of the fielding side can cause a batsman to be out after the umpire has called “over,” but an appeal may he made at any time before delivery of the next ball, but not after any' cessation of play. (The End.l • £3O A TEST. AUSTRALIAN FLAYERS’ PAY. BOARD’S DECISION. Australia’s Test cricketers are well treated. In the coming series of tests against, the Englishmen, eacn Australian player will receive £3O tur each, test, in addition to first-class railway and sleeping expenses, and a sum, of 30s a day while away from home. Umpires will get £io and similar expenses. This decision was arrived at by the Australian Board of Control which met in Sydney. Of interest to New Zealand is its decision to retain the eight-ball o’ver in Sheffield, Shield matches, although the six-Eall over will rule in the tests. It has been decided that th d Australian selection committee consists of four members. No member of the committee is to he allowed to write for the Press. It is believed that this rule will debar Warren Bardsley from selection, as it is rumored, that he has accepted '-a. contract from English papers.

RANDOM NOTCHES. NOTES FROM ALL CREASES'. A. W. Carr is surely an unlucky eaptaih (says an English cricket writer). J.t may he remembered how he put the Australians in at Leeds and how the move let him down rather badly. Worse happened from his decision iri a recent match with Surrey, when he declined to make the southern county follow-on. It is easy do be wise after the event, and he has, of course, been roundly blamed, but no doubt he thought that liig bowlers were tired and he could not reckon on the utter collapse of his batsmen. Carr may, with Lord Hawke, say “Never again!” The old Yorkshire captain made it a definite rule always to hat on winning the toss, no matter what the state of the pitch. The London “Evening News” says that Hammond, the test player, will marry on his return from Australia, Miss Dorothy Lister, a hunting girl and a keen sportswoman whom he met during a festival match at S'carborough in 1925. Hammond’s father, an officer in the Army, _ was killed shortly before the armistice. The bride’s father is a wealthy Bradford business man. It is understood that Hammond. will accept an appointment in Mr. Lister’s ( business and will revert to amateurism In 1929,Jfn which case he is likely 'to become captain of Gloucestershire. There are several precedents for first-class professionals becoming amateurs. Perhaps this is the reason why he was picked for the English cricket team to tour Australia. “Thei Cricketer” last month said of Philip. Mead, the great Hampshire lefthander : “Mead has never played better than he is playing at the present moment, and has never, we think, hit the hall-harder. The slowness of Mead is largely a matter of legend. His methods do not, as Fi-anlc Woolley’s do, take hold of the'imagina--fcion of the onlooker, but he is deceptively quick on his feet—quick enough to make the fieldsmen on the leg-sffie, at any rate-, painfully aware of the inadequacy of their reach. Many people think Mead’s, scoring strokes .easv to block—so they would, be with a ‘field of 16 meip”