FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136  
137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   >>   >|  
His contentment increased when he got the next man leg-before-wicket with the total unaltered. At this rate Ripton would be out before lunch for under a hundred. But the rot stopped with the fall of that wicket. Dashing tactics were laid aside. The pitch had begun to play tricks, and the pair now in settled down to watch the ball. They plodded on, scoring slowly and jerkily till the hands of the clock stood at half-past one. Then Ellerby, who had gone on again instead of Grant, beat the less steady of the pair with a ball that pitched on the middle stump and shot into the base of the off. A hundred and twenty had gone up on the board at the beginning of the over. That period which is always so dangerous, when the wicket is bad, the ten minutes before lunch, proved fatal to two more of the enemy. The last man had just gone to the wickets, with the score at a hundred and thirty-one, when a quarter to two arrived, and with it the luncheon interval. So far it was anybody's game. CHAPTER XXVIII MIKE WINS HOME The Ripton last-wicket man was de Freece, the slow bowler. He was apparently a young gentleman wholly free from the curse of nervousness. He wore a cheerful smile as he took guard before receiving the first ball after lunch, and Wrykyn had plenty of opportunity of seeing that that was his normal expression when at the wickets. There is often a certain looseness about the attack after lunch, and the bowler of googlies took advantage of it now. He seemed to be a batsman with only one hit; but he had also a very accurate eye, and his one hit, a semicircular stroke, which suggested the golf links rather than the cricket field, came off with distressing frequency. He mowed Burgess's first ball to the square-leg boundary, missed his second, and snicked the third for three over long-slip's head. The other batsman played out the over, and de Freece proceeded to treat Ellerby's bowling with equal familiarity. The scoring-board showed an increase of twenty as the result of three overs. Every run was invaluable now, and the Ripton contingent made the pavilion re-echo as a fluky shot over mid-on's head sent up the hundred and fifty. There are few things more exasperating to the fielding side than a last-wicket stand. It resembles in its effect the dragging-out of a book or play after the _denouement_ has been reached. At the fall of the ninth wicket the fieldsmen nearly always look on their outing as finis
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136  
137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
wicket
 

hundred

 

Ripton

 

Ellerby

 

scoring

 
wickets
 
twenty
 

batsman

 
bowler
 

Freece


googlies

 

Burgess

 
expression
 

missed

 
attack
 

looseness

 
advantage
 
square
 

boundary

 

normal


stroke

 

suggested

 

semicircular

 

accurate

 

distressing

 

frequency

 

cricket

 

resembles

 

effect

 

dragging


things

 
exasperating
 

fielding

 

outing

 

fieldsmen

 
denouement
 

reached

 
bowling
 

familiarity

 
showed

proceeded
 

played

 
increase
 
result
 

pavilion

 

contingent

 
invaluable
 

snicked

 
CHAPTER
 

jerkily