Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/234

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212
CRICKET.

more practice and experience, keeping up to the mark rather than coaching. A captain's duty is consequently to see that his men engage in constant practice at all parts of the game, and by showing an example of keenness and energy to inspire his team with the same qualities. Some men at the University, and especially those fresh from the restraint of a public school, occasionally require a few words of advice about the mode of life which is necessary for undergoing with success the wear and tear of a University cricket season. A 'Varsity team has about six weeks' hard work, and no man can bear the strain of this if, at the same time, he is keeping late hours and distributing his attentions impartially amongst all the numerous delicacies that adorn the University dinner-tables during the May term. No strict training is required, thank goodness! Cricket does not demand of her votaries the hollow face and attenuated frame, and too often the undermined constitution, that a long term of arduous training occasionally results in, especially to a youth of unmatured strength; but a cricketer should live a regular life and abstain at table from all things likely to interfere with his digestion and wind. Above all else, smoky rooms should be avoided. A small room, filled with ten or a dozen men smoking as if their very existence depended on the amount of tobacco consumed, soon gets a trifle foggy, and the man who remains there for long will find next morning on waking that his head feels much heavier than usual, and his eyes are reddish and sore. A University captain should never hesitate to speak to any of his team on these matters, should he think warning or rebuke necessary.

The necessity of moderation in drink is happily a thing which few University cricketers require to be reminded of. There are many opinions as to what is the best drink for men when actually playing. By best we mean that which does least harm to the eye. In hot weather something must be drunk, and the question is. What? Our experience is that beer and stout are both too heady and heavy, gin and ginger beer is too sticky, sweet, &c., to the palate. In our opinion,