on the off side. He places most of his men on this side, and bowls the off break (or, as it would be to a left-handed batsman, the leg-break) with the object of getting the batsman to play inside the ball, and thus make an upstroke. In short, he places the men as a left-handed bowler places them when bowling to a right-handed batsman. Left-handed batsmen are notoriously strong and powerful in their off hitting, and consequently in this direction must the bait be laid. As a rule, left-handed batsmen are apt to be a trifle wild and unable to restrain their keenness to hit, and consequently they pay the usual penalty of attempting to hit widish off balls going away from them. But occasionally a bowler meets a left-hander who is too wide awake and too good a batsman thus to throw away bis chance of scoring, and then different tactics must be employed. There have been, and are, wonderfully few really good left-handed batsmen in England, and the chance of a bowler having to meet one of them is very slight In England now, in first-class cricket, there are Scotton of Notts and Peel of Yorkshire, and that is really about all. The best of this class was perhaps the late F. M. Lucas, whose recent death in India has caused such sorrow to his wide circle of friends. He was really an accomplished batsman, with good sound defence and great punishing powers. A slow bowler might bowl for hours on the off side to him, with the sole result of seeing four after four being despatched all along the ground to the boundary. Moses of Sydney, who has many times distinguished himself against our English teams, is another excellent left-handed batsman. In our opinion, when a really good left-hander comes in, one who is not likely to get himself out on the off side by careless hitting, an attack should be made on his leg-stump. Most left-handers are good leg hitters, but we have never yet seen one (not excepting the two above named) who was as good on the leg-stump as a first-class righthanded batsman. There is an awkwardness apparent in the left-hander's play to a ball pitching on the leg-stump, or just inside it, and there is always a great likelihood of a cross bat
