By far the jority of hitters are what is termed fast-footed," that is to sty, they stay in their crease and hit, but this always seems to me such a difficult thing to do; I cannot see how one is to get full energy into the stroke: with one or two steps forward it appears to me that one is able to get the last on into the hit. one should be in an ressive mood and should run ata man and strike him, surely he would be considerably more damaged than if one were to strike him standing still in the same way; think one gets more momentum into one's stroke when on the move than when footed The great objection to this running out, uppermost in the mind of the coach the young player, is the fear of being stumped. With one eye on the bowler and the other on the wicket-keeper he cannot make certain of hitting the ball oper! owing to this hesitate that the risk of beiuy stumped mously increased. If a player out he must make up his mind to go the whole way, otherwise he gains no advantage and it would be better for him to play fast-footed. If one compares the number of times that one is stumped throug out, during the season, with the number of rues one has obtained through pursuing this method, it is very evident that it was worth the' risk. If may be forgiven for mentioning myself, 1 have often been accused of rashness in my
the bowling; but I fail to see where the od of running up the pitch to meet rashness comes in, for, from a scrutiny of last year's results, out of 41 innings T only fell a victim to the wicket three times; in fact, from slogging, the risk of being stumped is greatly over-rated. Unfortunately the young player does, not trouble to distinguish between the two, ranningout before the ball has left the howler's hands, and hit-tit at the pitch of the ball he misses it ther, and retires ingloriously to the is by exhibitions of this sort that hitting ion amid the execrations of his friends. is brought into disrepute and ranning out" is strongly discouraged.
Hitting is not slogging. To obtain proficiency in the former it is necessary to follow the ball in course from the moment it leaves the bowler's arms until itis right on to the bat; and it is only those who possess unusual quickness of eye as well as of foot that should be encouraged to adopt this style of play.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.