THE GREAT SUMMER GAME.* THE readers of the " Badminton
Library " are boys, though many of them are of the grey-haired variety. The new volume on cricket has been written for the learning of the young, and the editor has proved to be peculiarly well-suited to his task. There are—alas !—many boys who simply have not a sufficiently co-ordinated control of hand and eye to play cricket well enough to derive pleasure from it ; there are a few who have such a genius for it that they can use methods pernicious to any but themselves. Between these extremes come the multitudes of boys whose success depends greatly on their training. Few boys study games, even among those athletic Philistines of the public school or the public school novel whose performances in the war have earned them a respite from obloquy. They think and talk much of the chances they or their friends have of getting their colours ; and they listen hopefully to the coach whose magic words are to convert them into sound players ; but they neglect the critical examination of style and the repeated practice of correct movements which can alone ensure the best employment of their powers.
In the mass of information which Mr. Warner and his col- laborators have set out will be found everything that is to be learned about cricket from books, and this is more than is generally supposed. Long experience, personal prowess, and above all devotion to the subject are testimonials that youth appreciates, and the authors are abundantly furnished with them. They approach the game in the spirit of artists, with an underlying sense of responsibility. In the case of every one of them you feel that cricket has given them something that nothing else could give ; and that they have learned in the field, perhaps more than anywhere else, the unwritten law which ever since the days of chivalry has been the Englishman's moral standard. The book is full of detailed instructions. The matter of making runs and of getting the other side out is treated in the most business-like manner ; but there is constantly a suggestion of some distinctly aesthetic pleasure, some striving after an ultimate good. A Providence greater than he cares to think of guides the Englishman when he " takes his pleasures sadly." The words chosen by Mr. D. J. Knight to express a cricketer's highest joy are those written for the old edition by Mr. R. H. Lyttelton: "He is conscious that his side is gaining a glorious victory by his efforts, and life can give him no prouder moments."
The style of first-class batting has changed since the 1888 edition was written. The swerver and the " googly " bowlers have called for special new devices on the part of batsmen. Mr. Knight has restated with admirable clearness most of the cardinal principles which are the foundation of a sound style in batting. A few years' experience as a coach would have led him to modify one or two statements, and to say more about the position of the head and the playing of balls on the leg stump. If the reader is still in doubt about any point after reading Mr. Knight he has only to turn to the chapter on "The Art of Training Young Cricketers," by Mr. E. R. Wilson. Both this chapter and the other which he contributes on bowling are crammed full of instruction, and all of it is good. To anyone beginning to teach cricket at a preparatory or a public school his advice is invaluable. No cricketer, however great his prowess, can estimate at the start the capacities and limitations of his pupils. Mr. Wilson himself would be the first to admit that each fresh year's experience adds to the knowledge of what it is essential for a boy to learn, and what he can most profitably eschew. The boy brought up on the principles he lays down will have nothing to unlearn, and he will have built up a style that can safely carry any elegances with which develop. ing genius can adorn it.
The photographs of great batsmen which have been secured are all interesting, but in many cases illustrate the truth that genius is a law unto itself rather than the observance of the principles laid down in the text. The photographer who secured the picture of the great Victor Trumper running out to drive deserves a public testimonial for achieving so complete a reconciliation between genius and orthodoxy. The importance of body swing in bowling, assisted by the leverage of the free
• Cricket. A new edition by P. F. Warner and Others. The Badminton Library. London: Longman and Co. i155.1
extended arm, is brought out with striking emphasis in all the portraits of great bowlers delivering the ball, and Mr. Jessop, in the act of picking up and returning the ball, is a perfect object lesson on the watchfulness, determination, and elasticity of movement which he insists upon in his chapter on Fielding.
Mr. P. F. Warner writes on captaincy and on Australian and South African cricket, and, in collaboration with Mr. R. H. Lyttelton, on Gentlemen v. Players. These chapters and that on the University Match by Mr. R. H. Lyttelton and Mr. E. R. Wilson will bear reading many times, especially by those whose memories they stir. They are full of interest and show a masterly understanding of the game.
There is not a word of discouragement in the book, even on the subject of training. " Cricket does not demand of its votaries the hollow face and attenuated form." The frontispiece of a' The Champion " is a sufficient corroboration of the statement. With this picture of " W. G." and the words of Mr. Warner in his mind a boy can enjoy the enhanced flavour that a long hot innings gives to ice-cream and continue to ignore Nemesis.
It is a pleasure to find a cricketer of an older generation, Mr. J. Shuter, writing so optimistically of the present prospects of the game. He specially commends the absolute fairness of modern bowling, and the harmonious blending of the amateur and professional elements, both of them anxious strictly to carry out the idea of "playing the game."
The book is almost entirely new. Of the old edition little remains save the glorious devotion to cricket which filled the authors. It is this unclouded enthusiasm, as much as the clear, simple style in which the accumulated wisdom of years is expressed, which gives the book a claim to a very high place among standard works on games.
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