about under-hands refer to first-class cricket; against schools and against second-class batsmen lobs have been and always will be particularly deadly. There is something so tempting to an inexperienced player in seeing a ball chucked up in the air slowly and simply, it looks so very easy to hit, so peculiarly guileless, that a wild slog is frequently the result, too often followed by disastrous consequences.
For this reason the captain of every school eleven should insist on one of his team devoting himself to lob bowling; a little practice will enable any one to get a fairly accurate pitch, and twist from the leg side any boy can manage. Lob bowling thus acquired at school will often be useful in after days as a change, even in first-class cricket. There are one or two simple rules connected with lob bowling which ever}'one who attempts this style should master.
First—Do not bowl too slow; if the ball is thrown high and slow in the air, a good batsman, quick on his legs, will have time to reach and hit it before it pitches. Old Clarke used to say, 'It wants a certain amount of pace to make a good-length ball with proper rise and twist.' The ball should be sent at such speed as will oblige the batsman to play forward to it.
Secondly.—A good long run should be taken, as this gets way and 'fire' on to the ball, and is always more likely than a short run to deceive the batsman as to the pitch.
Thirdly.—Generally bowl round the wicket.
Most of the remarks that we have made on slow roundarm leg-break bowling apply to slow lobs.
Having devoted a number of pages to the subject of slow bowling, let us now turn to the consideration of what is almost equally important: fast bowling; indeed, it may be said that the co-operation of a good fast bowler is absolutely essential if a team wants to rank amongst the best, particularly as, if there be one of each sort bowling at either end, the change in pace is more likely to embarrass the batsman than if he had to play two bowlers of the same pace. There has been for several years a great dearth of good fast bowlers, a fact which is greatly
