bowler. He had a good slow ball and a splendid yorker; but he only lasted a very short time. Christopherson was a fairly good fast bowler at one time, but he took a great deal out of himself with his action, and soon lost the fire and life that are necessary to make a first-class bowler. This absence of fast bowlers (temporary it may be hoped) is one of the most remarkable facts connected with first-class cricket. It is only a few years ago that most of the best bowlers were fast: the list included Tarrant, Jackson, and Freeman, whose bowling used, it was said, to hum in the air; and, later, what a harvest of fast amateur bowlers there were—Butler, Francis, Powys, Evans, and names far too numerous to mention! Now we do not possess one really good fast bowler. We hope times will mend in this respect, and that the next few years will see some fresh talent developing, to wear worthily the mantle of bygone heroes.
As mentioned above, with reference to slow bowling, the higher the hand and arm are raised at the moment of delivering the ball, the higher the ball will bound after it leaves the pitch. A fast bowler should always bear this in mind, and keep his hand as high as possible. It is simply a matter of ordinary common sense that a ball which rises up high from the pitch is more difficult for a batsman to get over and smother than one that comes on low and skimming. A fast ball when it is anything like a good length, must be met with the bat, i.e. it must be played with the forward stroke; consequently a ball that rises quickly from the pitch, and is still rising when it meets the bat, is extremely likely to rise higher still after it leaves it, unless it is played with great care and caution.
The low skimming fast bowler is generally an easy man to play; the batsman, when the ground is true, can play hard forward to almost any length of ball; there is no abrupt rise to render an uppish stroke probable, even if he does slightly misjudge the pace and length of the ball. There is, of course, in fast bowling, a much greater difficulty in getting any appreciable twist on to the ball than in slow. The ball leaves the ground so quickly that it is hardly in contact with it long enough to
