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Updated: June 2, 2025
The last man begins ominously, for he makes two off his first ball. Willoughby presses round, breathless, to watch the next. It whizzes over the wicket, but does no harm. The next ball one of Forbes's shooters strikes on the batsman's pad. "How's that, umpire?" yells every one. "Not out!" says old Wyndham.
The second ball landed full-pitch on the batsman's right thigh. The third was another full pitch, this time on the top of the middle stump, which it smashed. With profound satisfaction the batsman hobbled to the trees, and sat down. "Let somebody else have a shot," he said kindly. Appleby's made twenty-eight that innings.
When remonstrated with, he would consider a little, hanging out a pink tongue and looking rather too eagerly at the ball, then canter slowly out to a sort of forward short leg. Why he always chose that particular position it is difficult to say; possibly he could lurk there better than anywhere else, the batsman's eye not being on him, and the bowler's not too much.
It rests them, but it puts the batsman's eye out." "Seeing how short of practice you are this year, you were jolly steady, Ray," declared Neddy Motyer, who sat on the other side of Ironsyde. "You stopped some very hot ones." Neddy preserved his old interest in sport, but was now a responsible member of society. He had married and joined his father, a harness-maker, in a prosperous business.
And then, add to this the danger of a swift, wild pitch carrying away an arm or burying itself in the batsman's stomach, and the difficulty is greatly increased. Just think of it for a moment.
While I was inwardly speculating on the result of this change of position, Steel appeared to become aware of the same necessity, for I saw him behind the batsman's back silently motioning "mid-wicket on" to stand farther back, and "mid on" to come round to a "square" position.
"Good Lord, he nearly had him first ball." Fluff's brother bowled slows of a good length, with an awkward break from the off to the leg. "Teasers," said the Caterpillar, critically. "Hullo! No, my young friend, that may do well enough in Shropshire, not here." A ball breaking sharply from the off had struck the batsman's pad; he had stepped in front of his wicket to cut it.
The bowler, stepping briskly up to his crease, delivers the ball, and, whether it be a "fast round-arm" or a "slow under-hand," his endeavor is so to bowl it that the ball shall elude the batsman's defence and strike the wicket. The batsman endeavors, first and foremost, to protect his wicket, and, secondly, if possible, to hit the ball away, so that he may make a run or runs.
Then a hush fell. The umpire had called for play. Dick let drive with his most tantalizing spitball. The leather fell down gracefully under the Wayland's batsman's guess, and Purcell mitted the ball. "Strike one!" A hopeful cheer went up from Gridley seats, to be met with one word from Wayland fans: "Wait!" Dick served the second ball. Swat! There it went, arching up in the air, a fair hit.
Murmurs of remonstrance from both boys. "I only meant that he could pitch the ball on anything a half-crown or anything else." "Daddy," with the energy of one who has a happy idea, "could he have pitched it on the batsman's toe?" "Yes, boy, I think so." "Well, then, suppose he always pitched it on the batsman's toe!" Daddy laughed.
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