or hour and a half of the day's play. If there are any trees round the ground, the shadows, beginning to lengthen, will often lie right across the pitch, and if there is one anywhere near where a good-length ball should pitch, it is advisable to try pitching one occasionally on it. If the sun is behind the bowler's wicket and getting a little low, the bowler should try by bowling high slow ones to get it in the line of the batsman's vision. Every possible advantage within the limits and spirit of fair play may be considered legitimate for a bowler. Local advantages of ground and weather are certainly within these limits, but any peculiarity of dress or tricks of manner, which are in themselves calculated to baulk or annoy a batsman, is not.
For example, bowling with a long loose and flapping sleeve in order to distract the batsman's attention from the ball, a habit which of late has been seen on our English grounds, is in itself intrinsically unfair and unworthy of any true cricketer. And again, waving the arms behind the ball after it has been delivered, or any other trick adopted in order to worry or harass the batsman, is manifestly unfair. Some batsmen are extremely fastidious, and are distracted by the merest trifle. The writer remembers on one occasion taking part in a match when a batsman objected to a bowler on the ground that he was wearing a stud made of some bright material or stone, which glistened so in the sun that it diverted his attention from the ball. This, of course, sounded absurd, but the bowler at once removed the glittering nuisance, and rightly too.
A slow bowler must bear in mind what has before been mentioned, viz. that it is often almost as good as a change of bowling to change from over to round the wicket, or vice versd, quite apart from the advantage he may gain from any local obstruction to good light. Supposing a slow bowler has been 'on' for some time over the wicket, as a rule the great majority of his balls have been pitched a few inches outside the off stump and breaking in to the middle or middle and leg. The batsman has got thoroughly into the way of playing this particular ball
