IMPLEMENTS.-The bat. This is limited in Law 5 both as to length and width; but the thickness and weight are left to the fancy and capacity of the

player. In a general way, a tall man can use a heavier bat than a short one. About 2 lb. is a fair weight for a player of middle height and ordinary muscular development.

Although it is a great mistake to play with too heavy a bat-for nothing so cramps the style, and so entirely does away with that beautiful wrist-play which is the ne plus ultra of good batting, as attempting to play with a bat of a weight above one's powers; yet extreme lightness is still more to be deprecated: it is useless for hard hitting, and can therefore do little in the way of run-getting against a good field; "shooters," too, will be apt to force their way past its impotent defence.

The points most to be looked for in a bat are these:-First, weight suited to the player. The young player should play with a heavier bat every year, until he attains to his full stature. Don't let him think it "manly" to play with a full-sized bat before he is thoroughly up to the weight and size: it is much more manly to make a good score.

Secondly, good thickness of wood at the drive and lower end of the bat, i.e., at the last six inches or so.

Thirdly, balance. Badly balanced bats give a sensation as of a weight attached to them when they are wielded, while a well-balanced one plays easily in the hand. Experience alone can teach the right feel of a bat.

CRICKET.

many

The outward appearance of a bat must not always be taken as a certain indication of its inherent merits: varnish and careful getting up may a defect. There are many fancies, too, in favour of different grains: a good hide knot or two near the lower end is generally a good sign; but, after all, nothing but actual trial of each several "bit of willow" can decide its real merits or defects.

Last, but not least, the handle is a very important consideration. Cane handles, pure and simple, or in composition with ash or other materials, are the best some prefer oval handles, some round. The handle should, at least, be as thick as the player can well grasp: a thick handle greatly adds to the driving power of the bat; it is also naturally stronger, and therefore more lasting. A good youth's bat costs about eight shillings.

It should be remembered that a good bat, like good wine, improves with keeping.

In purchasing balls, wickets, and other needful "plant," it will be found better economy to pay a little more in the beginning, and thus get a good article. With reasonable care, such first-class goods will last out whole generations of the more cheaply got-up articles, and prove more satisfactory throughout into the bargain.

In choosing wickets, attention must be paid to two points: first, that each stump be perfectly straight; and, secondly, that it be free from flaws or knots. The least weakness is sure to be found out sooner or later.

Great attention should be paid to the bails, that they are exactly of the right size, especially that they are not too long. The least projection beyond the groove in the stump may make all the difference between "out" and "not out,"-between, perhaps, winning a match and losing it.

Stumps and bails, with ordinary care, ought to last a very long time. The chief thing to guard against is their lying about in the wet, or being put away damp: moisture is very apt to warp them.

So that the gloves and pads fit, the player may be left pretty much to his own discretion in selecting a pattern. Vulcanized India rubber is the best for gloves. Spiked or nailed shoes are a necessity. The player may please himself in the vexed question of spikes v. nails. Many players keep two pairs of shoes -with spikes for wet and slippery ground, with nails for dry ground.

It is hardly worth while for a boy in the rapid-growing stage to set up a regularly built pair of cricketing-shoes: an admirable substitute may be foun, though, in the ordinary canvas shoes, as used for rackets, &c., price half a crown; a few nails will make them answer all the purposes of the more legitimate article.

Parents and guardians may be informed that a proper costume of flannel and shoes is actually better economy than condemning a boy to play in his ordinary clothes; and for this reason-flannels are made to suit the exigences of the game, loose where they should be loose, and vice versâ, without regard to the exigences of fashion; they are cheaper, and are nevertheless more lasting, than ordinary cloth clothes; they never get shabby, will wash when dirty, and will carry a darn or patch without detriment to their dignity; they are not injured by perspiration or wet; and, above all, they are great preservatives against colds and other ailments.

Shoes may put in much the same claim. Cricket is marvellously destructive of the ordinary walking-boot; is it not then better to substitute a cheaper and more durable article?

If spikes be chosen, they should be arranged thus:

more usual, thus:

will show the "rea

A very short

not, as is

experience

son why." In choosing spikes, care should be taken to obtain good length and small diameter; a squat, clumsy spike is an awful nuisance. If nails be the choice, they should not be put much nearer than at intervals of an inch, otherwise they will be liable to clog.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.-Before entering upon the science of the game, I would especially impress upon the minds of my young readers the desirability of doing things in the right way.

If they play cricket, let that cricket be their very best; any little extra trouble at first will be more than repaid by the results. It is not given to every man to be a first-rate cricketer; but most men might play far better than they do, and many men, who now hardly deserve the name of players, might, with very little expenditure of trouble in their younger days, have been now men of mark in the cricketing world.

Be it remembered, then, that there is a right way to perform each function of cricket, and a wrong way, or perhaps I should rather have said, innumerable wrong ways.

Now, this right way will hardly come of itself: cricket, by the light of Nature only, would be a prodigy indeed. The beginner must, therefore, first ascertain what this right way is, and thenceforth strive continually to practise and perfect himself in it, whether it be in batting, bowling, or fielding, until habit has become a second nature.

And not only must the learner cultivate good habits, he must diligently eschew all bad ones; for bad habits are wonderfully easy of acquirement, but, once acquired, can hardly ever be completely shaken off.

It is all very well to say, “I know the right way, and that is enough,” and then, from sheer laziness or indifference, go the wrong; but when it comes to the point of practical experience, it will be found that the bad habit will have an uncomfortable knack of coming into play at critical moments, just when it is least desired.

For cricket, it should be remembered, is a series of surprises. Give a man time to think, and he can decide between the right way and the wrong; but time to think is just the very thing a man does not get at cricket: instant, unhesitating action is his only chance.

If he has habituated himself to one only method of action, he must, he can, only act in accordance with it; but if there be several conflicting habits, who shall say which shall be the one that comes first to hand in an emergency? Let the young cricketer then-and the old one, too, for the matter of that -make this his rule and study, to make every ball he bowls, he bats, or he fields, one link more in the chain of good habits, one step farther on the road to success.

SCIENCE OF THE GAME.

BATTING BOWLING-FIELDING, ETC.

BATTING.-Like boxing, fencing, &c., batting is quite as much an affair of the legs and of the body generally as of the hands and arms-at first sight, the parts almost solely concerned.

The beginner, therefore, must not think that, when he has learnt to hold his

bat correctly, and to wield it with tolerable facility, he has mastered the main principles of the art; he has, indeed, scarcely even acquired the most rudimentary knowledge of them.

Every kind of ball-it may almost be said every ball-demands for its proper treatment a distinctly specific attitude of the whole body, by which, and which only, the bat can be brought to bear with the fullest attainable effect, or, indeed, with any effect worth speaking of at all; and this attitude, to avail the batsman anything, must be assumed with unhesitating promptness and decision the instant a correct judgment of the ball can be formed, which should be almost as soon as it has left the bowler's hand. A really fine player "forms," as the phrase goes, at the very instant the ball is delivered.

Demosthenes, being asked the three chief essentials of good oratory, replied, "Firstly, action; secondly, action; and, thirdly, action." And so of batting: the first, second, and third essentials for a good "bat" are attitude, attitude, attitude; or, in more hackneyed and familiar phrase, "Attitude is everything."

It would be impossible, if, indeed, it were necessary, to describe and figure in the short space of a few pages, every conceivable attitude that can be assumed by the batsman; but the young beginner will find the succeeding cuts and accompanying explanations and instructions more than sufficient for all his wants.

A slight expenditure of time and trouble in mastering their leading principles and details, and a little well-directed zeal and perseverance in reducing them to practice-care being always taken not to form bad or conflicting habits-will, in a wonderfully short time, enable even a mere boy to acquire a style and precision to which very many players only attain after years of hard practice, and to which, sooth to say, the large majority never attain at all.

Let the young batsman only beware of two things-of falling in with the too common custom of mere desultory batting and bowling, than which nothing is more prolific in the formation of bad habits, fatal to all correct play; and, secondly, of aspiring to play with a bat of a weight and size in excess of his powers-an ambition only to be gratified at the expense of acquiring and confirming a heavy, ungainly, and, therefore, incorrect and inefficient style.

HOW TO HOLD THE BAT.—Grasp the handle firmly from behind, rear the shoulder, with the right hand, bringing the fingers well round in ficnt, the thumb meeting them from the other side, and passing beyond but on the lower side of the forefinger, and firmly pressed against it; then, placing the lower end of the blade on the ground, with the face towards the bowler, and the handle inclined a little forward, bring the left hand down to the front of the handle, and grasp it above the right hand, the knuckles to the front, and the thumb pointed downwards. The handle of the bat must lie along the inside of the left wrist, and only slightly out of the line of the fore-arm (see Fig. 2). This attitude of the hands appears at first to the unaccustomed novice cramped and ungraceful; but a little practice will render it not only perfectly easy, but, if he so please, perfectly graceful too.

But this is not the only way in which, in wielding the bat, the hands grasp the handle; if so, the bat would have little play, and its only possible movements would be those of a pendulum. By shifting the left hand round from the front to the rear of the handle, still retaining the grasp of the right, a wonderful addition of power is obtained over the bat: instead of the arms and bat forming one long rigid line, rotating only at the shoulder, there will

FIG. 2.

THE CHIEF POSITIONS:-The block, the cover, the leg hit, the cut, the drive and the draw. now be added motion of the elbow and perfectly unlimited capacity of action at the wrist.

This shifting the hand from front to rear of the handle and back again, to be done smoothly and with perfect facility, will require some trouble and attention before it is mastered; but, as it is the very sine quâ non of scientific and, therefore, of effective batting, it will well repay the trouble expended upon it.

The beginner will find it a useful plan to exercise himself in these and the following practices and positions at odd times, when he has a few minutes to spare, with a bat only; or a stick will do. A very fair mastery of the bat may be obtained without ever playing a ball, as a man may acquire some proficiency as a marksman without firing a shot.

The next point to which the learner must direct his attention is POSITION. In standing at the wickets, he must first ascertain-from the umpire at the bowler's wicket, if any umpire there be-the exact spot on the popping-crease at which his bat, when held upright, conceals the middle stump of his wicket from a person standing where the bowler will deliver his ball: this spot is called the "block."

Having found this "block" (by the way, he should carefully mark it by scratching the crease in some way, as most convenient), he must take up his position as follows. Holding the bat as in Fig. 2, he must ground the lower end of it at block; the right foot must be planted just inside, and parallel with, the popping-crease; the toe about two or three inches from, and slightly in advance of, the bat; the left foot must be advanced slightly, its toe pointing in the direction of the bowler, both feet planted firmly on the ground, the