good ball, and if you are not careful, especially if you are trying to bring off a favourite stroke, you will hit at it and very likely lose your wicket.
After you have made a boundary hit do not make up your mind to hit another off the next ball.
Keep your eye on the bowler, watch how he holds the ball and runs up to the wicket before delivering it; that will help you considerably to detect alteration in length and pace.
It is a mistake to hit at the pitch of slow, round, or underhand bowling. The twist is sure to beat you, and if you do not miss the ball altogether, you will most likely get caught at cover-point In my younger days I always ran out to underhand bowling and hit it before it bounded, or waited and got it long hop. When a first-class bowler tries to bowl a slow ball with an extra amount of break, look out for a bad ball, and when it comes, as it will sooner or later, punish it, and you will upset him a bit, and very likely prevent him from bowling good balls afterwards.
I think I have touched upon nearly everything that might help a young player to a long score, and with just a word about playing against odds I have done. Whether against eighteen or twenty-two in the field, play the same game that you would against an eleven. I have very often found that the fieldsmen in the outfield are placed too deep, and a second run can be stolen after the ball passes the men close in. Do not hit to leg, but rather place or snick the ball; you will get just as many runs without the risk of being caught. It was when playing against odds that fine placing to leg was first cultivated, and now it has to a great extent superseded leg hitting.
I need not say how delighted I am to watch the progress of every young and rising cricketer. My heart is in the game I love above all others, with a love that is as strong to-day as it was when I made my first large score, and when eye, hand, and foot were much quicker than they are now. I do not believe that there are no days like the good old days of cricket,
