bowler's action so as to know when his fast balls are coming, and drop back. He should also ponder on the pace of the ground, and never forget that wet on the top of a hard ground makes the fastest surface of any: in these circumstances, therefore, he should stand finer and deeper. When the rain soaks in, the balls pop, and catches come slower and higher. Short slip should back up when balls are thrown, not from shortnor from long-leg, but from mid-on and mid-ofF and coverpoint, and should run across, when there is a run to third man, between the wicket-keeper and short-leg. This last is a tiring and often unremunerative process, but if done through a long innings is in the highest degree commendable. Short-slip must also run up to the wicket and take the place of the wicket-keeper when the latter has usurped the functions of an ordinary fieldsman and left his post to pick up and throw in the ball to the wicket.
THIRD MAN.
This is another most scientific post, and one in which a bad fieldsman is very much out of place. First, there is the twist. It is worth knowing respecting a twist from a bat, that if the ground is hard and the cut clean, the ball will not twist till it has lost some of its impetus. Consequently stand straight in the line of a hard cut on a smooth ground, as the ball, though it is spinning all the time, will not curl till it is some way past third man. But if the turf is soft the ball bites and curls on the second or third bound, seldom on the first unless the stroke is a very slow one. The same holds good with regard to longleg. The batsman, if he were a genuine judge of a run, would always 'run' to third man when the spin is likely to act at once, since under those conditions the ball wants so much watching that third man cannot well return it in time. But many batsmen do not know these things.
With regard to the distance of third man from the wicket, it is important that he should judge it according as the batsmen
