When a field begins to be uncertain, he should keep wicket to fast bowling for a quarter of an hour a day, and field somewhere close in for a week or so. The wicket-keeping will
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Fig. 2.—The wrong way to catch.
practise his eye, and the fielding close in will spare his nerves during this educational process. Practice is, of course, useful for long catches, but only up to a certain point. A player may alter from a bad style of catching to a good one by practice, but a very safe catch in practice is frequently a bad performer in a match, simply on account of nervousness. For sharp catches, wicket-keeping is, perhaps, the only thing that will help. The peculiar faculty they demand is, like the spin in bowling, something that cannot be taught, the possession of which is a guarantee of genius.
And now for those who occupy the separate places, first among whom we are surely right in dealing with the
WICKET-KEEPER.
A little thought makes it clear that there are given at least three chances of catching to one of stumping a man out. And so the wicket-keeper must first feel the ball safe and warm in his hands before he attempts to put the wicket down. This advice sounds obvious, but it is so often disregarded that it must be insisted on. The first rule accordingly is, that the
