before the long-stop has got to his place. A bowler must have a high opinion of his own abilities, to think he can beat his opponents without his field.
In laying out your field, you should be careful in selecting good men for your principal places, such as wicket-keeper, point, stop, short-slip; those posts being well secured, you will be able to move the others at leisure; which you will have to do, if your bowling is pretty correct, which it must be if you are to have an efficient field. How can you lay out a field for an uncertain bowler? How can you tell where the men will hit him? I mean one of the any-how style, happy-golucky, yard on this side, yard on the other, all men alike, one straight in about two overs. How careful the Public Schools ought to be in selecting bowlers of a good delivery for their instructors, men who go up to the wicket as if they were going to put the ball somewhere about the mark. On them depends the future style of the learners, who ought not to be taught to throw away all their manly strength in empty air. Why, a person who recommends a wild scrambling bowler to teach cricket ought to be took up under the Cruelty to Animals Act.
A Bowler should first try to get a steady style of delivery, easy, not distressing, and should be sure not to bowl at the very top of his strength, for in that case he must become wild and reckless, losing that precision, which is so necessary to defeat a good batsman.
It frequently happens that when a Bowler finds he is dropping the ball short, he will stoop forward and try to propel it with greater force, which will cause him to drop it still shorter and get him into greater difficulties; the very reverse should be the case, when he finds himself that way inclined, he should immediately rear himself as erect as possible, for the more upright a Bowler stands the greater the ease with which he will deliver the ball, and the more difficult will it be to play; the ball is delivered higher and there is more circle, and the greater the circle the greater the deception to the Batsman. This applies to all sorts of Bowlers. For
