Mike

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 this way, by leading them to expect a faster ball than he actually sent down.  A queer little jump in the middle of the run increased the difficulty of watching him.

The smiting he had received from Burgess in the previous over had not had the effect of knocking de Freece off his length.  The ball was too short to reach with comfort, and not short enough to take liberties with.  It pitched slightly to leg, and whipped in quickly.  Mike had faced half-left, and stepped back.  The increased speed of the ball after it had touched the ground beat him.  The ball hit his right pad.

“’S that?” shouted mid-on.  Mid-on has a habit of appealing for l.-b.-w. in school matches.

De Freece said nothing.  The Ripton bowler was as conscientious in the matter of appeals as a good bowler should be.  He had seen that the ball had pitched off the leg-stump.

The umpire shook his head.  Mid-on tried to look as if he had not spoken.

Mike prepared himself for the next ball with a glow of confidence.  He felt that he knew where he was now.  Till then he had not thought the wicket was so fast.  The two balls he had played at the other end had told him nothing.  They had been well pitched up, and he had smothered them.  He knew what to do now.  He had played on wickets of this pace at home against Saunders’s bowling, and Saunders had shown him the right way to cope with them.

The next ball was of the same length, but this time off the off-stump.  Mike jumped out, and hit it before it had time to break.  It flew along the ground through the gap between cover and extra-cover, a comfortable three.

Bob played out the over with elaborate care.

Off the second ball of the other man’s over Mike scored his first boundary.  It was a long-hop on the off.  He banged it behind point to the terrace-bank.  The last ball of the over, a half-volley to leg, he lifted over the other boundary.

“Sixty up,” said Ellerby, in the pavilion, as the umpire signalled another no-ball.  “By George!  I believe these chaps are going to knock off the runs.  Young Jackson looks as if he was in for a century.”

“You ass,” said Berridge.  “Don’t say that, or he’s certain to get out.”

Berridge was one of those who are skilled in cricket superstitions.

But Mike did not get out.  He took seven off de Freece’s next over by means of two cuts and a drive.  And, with Bob still exhibiting a stolid and rock-like defence, the score mounted to eighty, thence to ninety, and so, mainly by singles, to a hundred.

At a hundred and four, when the wicket had put on exactly fifty, Bob fell to a combination of de Freece and extra-cover.  He had stuck like a limpet for an hour and a quarter, and made twenty-one.