The effect of a moving body meeting another body moving, and that same body quiescent, is very different. To prove this,
Fix a bat _immoveably_ perpendicular in the ground, and suppose a ball rises to it from the ground in an angle of 45° as the angle of incidence; then supposing the ball to have no rotatory motion, it will be reflected at an equal angle, and fall nearly under the bat.
But supposing the bat is not fixed, but brought forcibly forward to meet that ball, then, according to the weight and force of the bat, the natural direction of the ball will be annihilated, and the ball will be returned, perhaps nearly point blank, not in the line of reflection, but in some other line more nearly resembling the line in which the bat is moved.
If the bat were at rest, or only played very gently forward, the angles of reflection would not be materially disturbed, but the ball would return to the ground in proportion nearly as it rose from it; but by playing very hard forward, the batsman annihilates the natural downward tendency of the ball, and drives it forward, perhaps, into the bowler’s hands; and then, fancying the laws of gravitation have been suspended to spite him, he walks back disgusted to the pavilion, and says, “No man in England could help being out then. I was as clean over the ball as I could be, and yet it went away as a catch!”
Lastly, as to “being out by luck,” always consider whether, with the same adversaries, Pilch or Parr would have been so put out. Our opinion is, that could you combine the experience and science of Pilch with the hand and eye of Parr, luck would be reduced to an infinitesimal quantity.
_Fortuna fortes adjuvat_, men of the best nerve have the best luck; and _nullum numen habes si sit prudentia_, when a man knows as much of the game as we would teach him, he will find there is very little luck after all. Young players should not think about being out by chance: there is a certain intuitive adaptation of play to circumstances, which, however seemingly impossible, will result from observation and experience, unless the idea of chance closes the ears to all good instruction.
The essence of good fielding is, to start before the ball is hit, and to pick up and return straight to the top of the bails, by one continuous action. This was the old Wykehamist style--old, I hope not yet extinct, past revival--(thus had we written, March 1851, and three months after the Wykehamists won both their school matches at Lord’s);--for, some twenty years since, the Wykehamist fielding was unrivalled by any school in England. Fifteen years ago Mr. Ward and, severally and separately, Cobbett instanced a Winchester Eleven as the first fielding they had ever seen at Lord’s. And among this chosen number were the yet remembered names of B. Price, F. B. Wright, Knatchbull, and Meyrick. These hardy Trojans--for the ball never came too fast for them--commenced fagging out long, very long, before they were indulged in batting, and were forced to qualify, even for fagging, by practising till they could throw over a certain neighbouring barn, and were always in bodily fear of the pains and penalties of the middle stump if ever they missed a ball. But these days of the voluntary system are far less favourable for fielding. To become a good fieldsman requires persevering practice, with a “big fellow” to fag for who will expect a little more smartness than is always developed by pure love of the game.