uprooted while trying a gigantic pull-stroke.

The melancholy youth put up the figures, 54, 5, 12, on the board.

Mike, as he walked out of the pavilion to join Bob, was not conscious
of any particular nervousness. It had been an ordeal having to wait
and look on while wickets fell, but now that the time of inaction was
at an end he felt curiously composed. When he had gone out to bat
against the M.C.C. on the occasion of his first appearance for the
school, he experienced a quaint sensation of unreality. He seemed to
be watching his body walking to the wickets, as if it were some one
else's. There was no sense of individuality.

But now his feelings were different. He was cool. He noticed small
things--mid-off chewing bits of grass, the bowler re-tying the scarf
round his waist, little patches of brown where the turf had been worn
away. He took guard with a clear picture of the positions of the
fieldsmen photographed on his brain.

Fitness, which in a batsman exhibits itself mainly in an increased
power of seeing the ball, is one of the most inexplicable things
connected with cricket. It has nothing, or very little, to do with
actual health. A man may come out of a sick-room with just that extra
quickness in sighting the ball that makes all the difference; or he
may be in perfect training and play inside straight half-volleys. Mike
would not have said that he felt more than ordinarily well that day.
Indeed, he was rather painfully conscious of having bolted his food at
lunch. But something seemed to whisper to him, as he settled himself
to face the bowler, that he was at the top of his batting form. A
difficult wicket always brought out his latent powers as a bat. It was
a standing mystery with the sporting Press how Joe Jackson managed to
collect fifties and sixties on wickets that completely upset men who
were, apparently, finer players. On days when the Olympians of the
cricket world were bringing their averages down with ducks and
singles, Joe would be in his element, watching the ball and pushing it
through the slips as if there were no such thing as a tricky wicket.
And Mike took after Joe.

A single off the fifth ball of the over opened his score and brought
him to the opposite end. Bob played ball number six back to the
bowler, and Mike took guard preparatory to facing de Freece.

The Ripton slow bowler took a long run, considering his pace. In the
early part of an innings he often trapped the batsmen in