Lohmann can tell you. The batsman will find that he is bound to play more back and less forward, for it is little good to play forward unless the ball can be smothered, owing to the extraordinary pranks the ball will indulge in after it has pitched. He will therefore be found playing more on his right leg, and the runs will inevitably come much slower. It has been ascertained by experience that hitters are of more value on these difficult wickets than sticks; for the latter, though they may stay in for an hour, will perhaps not get a dozen runs during that period. The hitter, however, if he brings off four hits, does more execution in a quarter of an hour than the stick will do in thrice that time.
The value of three or four hitters in an eleven was never more distinctly shown than in the case of the Australian Elevens of 1882 and 1884. The 1882 eleven had four big hitters—McDonnell, Bonnor, Giffen, and Massie. In the great international match at the Oval in 1882, Massie got the fifty-five runs in Australia's second innings that practically won the match, and to say he hit at every ball is scarcely an exaggeration. There was also a match against Yorkshire at Holbeck, where McDonnell's scores of over thirty in one innings and over forty in the other certainly won for his side. In 1886 Surrey had to go in to get eighty-seven runs to win. Abel was playing for an hour and three-quarters, while Garrett and Evans were bowling, every ball dead on the wicket, and during that time laboriously compiled thirteen runs. The result of the match was really very doubtful after the fall of the seventh wicket, but Jones, a courageous cricketer, seeing what was the right game, went out and hit Palmer over the ropes for four, and the value of this hit cannot be exaggerated. As a rule it may be taken for granted that steady and slow play, useful and good as it is in its way, will not win matches on slow difficult wickets unless there is a sprinkling of three or four hitters in the eleven. By the doctrine of chances you will find that one of the number will come off, and one innings like Massie's may win the match. To the player who has any hit in him we therefore advise the playing of a freer game on slow difficult wickets than on easy
