Читать книгу The Cricket of Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury - E F Benson - Страница 18

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An obvious advantage in moving out is that, if your partner is backing up, you have every chance of making a safe run.

Quick starting and quick moving between the wickets are little cultivated. Yet a game of tip-and-run will show how many runs can be stolen. Too little account is taken of the pace at which the ball has been hit, the place to which it has been hit, the individual to whom it has been hit, the side of that individual, left or right, to which it has been hit, and so on.

The general rule is that the player in whose sight the struck ball appears most clearly (namely, the batsman for balls in front of him, his partner for balls behind him) shall call at once and call loudly. The non-caller shall either trust and obey, or else immediately call a loud “No.”

Both players should start at once from their right toes, and should run the first run as briskly as if a second were sure to follow. Giffen laments the small care paid to this art. He says:—

“One most important point connected with batting is running between the wickets. Really it is almost heartrending to see the immense number of runs, to say nothing of the wickets, which are lost through bad judgment. A batsman wants to study the pace at which a ball is travelling.”

The non-batsman should back up well; a few yards may be gained in this way, and also by the habit of running the bat along the ground just inside the crease.

A useful position for turning at the crease is to be seen in Photograph XIX., of Shrewsbury. By the rapid change while the bat is held at full stretch one may gain an appreciable amount of time and space.