Similarly in Tennis I have been frequently told to keep the head of my racket above the level of my wrist for ordinary strokes. Latham does not; Fennell does not; Fairs does not; Lambert did not; Pettitt of course does not; Charles Saunders, Alfred Tompkins, and Mr. Alfred Lyttelton do. I will not deny the beauty and grace and power of the so called “correct” stroke; but what I maintain is that most of us cannot afford the risk. We want to meet the ball as long as possible in its own line. We prefer safety and efficiency to risk and theory: as to grace, well, Latham and Fennell are quite good enough for me.
Similarly in Tennis I have been frequently told to keep the head of my racket above the level of my wrist for ordinary strokes. Latham does not; Fennell does not; Fairs does not; Lambert did not; Pettitt of course does not; Charles Saunders, Alfred Tompkins, and Mr. Alfred Lyttelton do. I will not deny the beauty and grace and power of the so called “correct” stroke; but what I maintain is that most of us cannot afford the risk. We want to meet the ball as long as possible in its own line. We prefer safety and efficiency to risk and theory: as to grace, well, Latham and Fennell are quite good enough for me.
It is often said that the secret of successful batting is the straight bat. There is a fallacy here; the straight bat is important for many strokes, but the straight moving line of the bat, the direct line in which it meets the approaching ball, this is important also; and scarcely less important, for forward play, is the straight lunge of the left foot near the bottom of the bat. I would set this as a foundation of good forward play, since with the left foot goes much of the body’s weight, and since otherwise there is a gap between bat and leg.
A third and very grievous fallacy about batting is that the right foot must be keptstill. Some have urged that it should be pegged down. Here also is a germ of truth. The right foot is the ἀφορμή, the pivot, for most strokes, the late cut excepted. And the line of the right foot, a line just outside the leg-stump, is usually to be kept to; that foot must not be drawn away cowardly towards short leg. But as a universal law “the unmoved right foot” is a mistake. Even in forward play it often tends to drag slightly (it must not drag over the crease), and the heel may rise from the ground. More obvious exceptions are when a batsman runs out (as Abel is doing in one illustration), or jumps out (as Shrewsbury is doing in another). Why should we fetter active-footed boys or men by restrictions that apply well enough to staid men with a long reach. “Play with the feet,” says Abel to all who have feet to play with. If I can take the sting off a Racquet service by four or five steps forward, which will make it a volley or half-volley, why not? This is not rash: it is frequently defensive. I dare not wait! For the late cut, again, I believe every player moves his right foot across. For the glide I believe every player moves his right foot back, not a few move their right foot across also.For the pull of a short ball, the right leg, as in the illustration of Hirst, may go well across. For playing back I observe that nearly every good player, including W. G. Grace (see the photograph of him in Ranjitsinhji’s book), does move his right foot more or less towards his own wicket; this gives an extra fraction of time in which to watch the short ball and its break or rise. Moreover, the retiring of the right foot does actually prepare for the back play.
A fourth batting fallacy is that the late cut is with the wristonly. One writer after another repeats this in the face of the practice of nine late-cutters out of every ten whom I have ever seen. Here once more is a germ of truth, that the wrist is often asine quâ non. But few could get much power with the wrist alone. As a proof, keep your whole body stiff except your wrist, and then try to cut. Is that how most experts play? Or imitate their exact stroke for half an hour, and see if you do not ache in your forearm and perhaps your shoulder too. Or strip, and watch your muscles in a mirror. We do really want nude photographs for these strokes. Even Shrewsbury uses much besides his wrist. Some wrist there is, though there need notbe here any more than when one shakes out a clotted stylographic pen. In the average late cut the body moves a bit to put in some weight; the back muscles under the arm-pits (latissimus dorsi) do some work; the shoulder jerks a little or a lot; the forearm jerks powerfully; some players add force by the stepping of the right foot and the straightening of the left leg; some—these are probably few—keep an almost or quite rigid wrist. Plenty of strength and pace will come from the other muscle-groups. In fact, for the ordinary beginner I should urge a reliance upon the large muscles in particular, lest the big bat shall nearly wield the boy as the big tail nearly waggled the dog.
A similar fallacy exists in Racquets. It is supposed that Pettitt relies almost entirely on his wrist-flick; and this certainly has an astounding force. But with it there almost invariably go a forearm-jerk and a shoulder-jerk. Latham’s Racquet-stroke largely depends on these two factors as well as on the wrist-flick.
A similar fallacy exists in Racquets. It is supposed that Pettitt relies almost entirely on his wrist-flick; and this certainly has an astounding force. But with it there almost invariably go a forearm-jerk and a shoulder-jerk. Latham’s Racquet-stroke largely depends on these two factors as well as on the wrist-flick.
That the pull is a bad stroke is a dying fallacy. It is not a bad stroke so long as it is a safe stroke. At times it appears to me to be the safest stroke, if only because itmeets the ball nearly in its own line and, as Shrewsbury says, need not send the ball near any fielder; the bottom of the bat may rise, and thus an extra foot or so may be given to the reach. The pull is chiefly bad if tried with the wrong ball, especially a fast and straight ball, or if tried in the wrong way—for example, without the lunge forward of the left foot as in the photograph of Abel (that one may get near the pitch of the ball), or the backward step of the right foot, as in the photographs of Hirst and Shrewsbury (that one may see more of the way of the ball); or if tried by the wrong man—a man with no eye.
Another dying fallacy is that to run out is a mark of rashness. I have already compared the steps forward in order to take a heavily-cut Racquet service; in Tennis also we have a similar safety or killing stroke; and in Lawn Tennis the player who comes up to the net to volley is not necessarily rash. The safest stroke in the whole game is the ordinary full-pitch; next to it comes the ordinary long-hop; next to it the ball that allows one to get well to the pitch of it. The safety-player can often secure either the first or the third by an apparently mad jumpout of his ground. As a foreigner once said, “When you’ve got a good boxer against you, it’s wisest to hit him before he’s ready.”
Leaving the time-honoured but misguided advice about batting, let us turn to the mistakes about bowling. Here we have the fatal opinion that, unless the bowler who has found an easy swing bowls well, he is not likely ever to become a good bowler at all. I should rather forbid any player to despair until he has mastered first the mechanism of bowling by fast full movements and extensions; till then perhaps he has failed because he has not fairly used the back-muscles under the arm-pits (how they ache after a day of bowling), the shoulder-jerk, the wrist-movements, the finger-movements—especially those of the first finger. It is great folly not to be controller of these parts of the bowling-apparatus before one has decided either on one’s individual action or on one’s incapacity to bowl.
Similarly, in fielding, Cricket suffers from many ignorances and negligences. Not only is there the general idea that fielding is unimportant compared with batting and bowling, but it is assumed that it can be gotthrough somehow without practice or apprenticeship. The mere art of patient yet expectant waiting for an opportunity is in itself almost as difficult to acquire as it is worth acquiring. Mere safety in stopping balls, or even in catching balls, is often considered the acme of excellence, whereas the anticipation is not less essential. Here also, as in bowling, a boy or man is wont to adopt a (?) style without having first learnt and, as it were, infibred within him the A B C of success and enjoyment; to start hither or thither in a moment, to make a full stretch hither or thither, to keep the balance, to throw in at once and accurately—not one player in a hundred has gone through his apprenticeship.
Or, if a boy or man does field reasonably well in one place, he is contented. He does not aim at being able to field passably in other places. As to wicket-keeping, that he never dreams of. And yet how else is he likely to learn to field at short slip, or to take balls he has bowled?
Then there is the watching—how dull it appears to the members of the batting side who are out or not yet in! Many would rather be fielding—and what moreneed be said? Yet here is another misconception. Watch the play, as Shrewsbury does, or watch it part by part, with a view of getting hints as to what to avoid and what to practise, and you henceforth find the inalienable interest.
This failure to watch the play part by part—say the batsman’s feet first, then his bat, and so on—finds its parallel in practice, which is seldom part by part. People play in matches, in practice-games, at the nets; but it is always with full implements. Is it not great stupidity to imagine that the game itself is the best practice for strokes? The very variety militates against the mastery ofany onethingpar excellence. Were it not better sometimes to play stump-cricket or “snob-cricket”—an india-rubber ball can be used; to practise jumping with preservation of balance (see Shrewsbury); sideway running (see Abel); straight-forward lunges with balance and rapid recovery, with right foot scarcely moving, with right leg unbent; or left foot lunges alone, then the bat lunges as well; to throw a Lawn Tennis ball up against a wall and on its recoil play it with a straight bat and prominent left elbow; to go through the action of cutting, and cut-driving; to do wrist-movements; to imitate the whipping of a peg-top; to start quickly in every direction in turn; to shift the weight; to extend the arms up, down, to the sides; to pick up and throw a real ball (or an imaginary ball, in a bedroom); to hold one’s hands for a catch here or there, whether of an imaginary ball or of one thrown or hit off a wall; to develop the left side; and so on? Is it not the most grievous and fatal fallacy to rely on and to urge others to rely on nothing but practice at the nets or the game itself, even if these are indispensable?
I have already exposed the fallacy[9]that to practise part by part is necessarily to produce a jerky and disjointed stroke; at first it may do so, but eventually the parts will easily combine into a unity, if we do them rightly. My own Tennis and Racquet strokes are no longer jerky and disjointed, but once they were so. Use has fused the parts into a whole.
Quite apart from success and enjoyment in Cricket, the game demands these and many other exercises, not only as apprenticeship,and as corrective of faults, but also as supplementary. For the last fallacy which we expose is that Cricket as played at present is at all a complete exercise for the body. A few reforms will be suggested in a subsequent chapter.
Cricketas she is played does not bear one tithe of her possible fruits; the soil is not properly prepared for her; she is left to grow anyhow. This is a sad error, if only because she is not a natural game—a game of natural movements. What more unnatural is there for most of us than to play forward correctly? The same applies to most games, for example to Lawn Tennis. Here we must consider the advantages of Cricket not as the practice and play now are, but as they easilymight be, if all-round Cricket were well prepared for and taught, well practised and played; learnt and cultivated with science, not haphazardly; in moderation, not too little, not too much; with conscious care at the start, until conscious correct care has begotten sub-consciously correct ease.
The first advantage of the game, as it should be, is economy. If it only saves doctors’ and druggists’ bills, it is worth its cost in time and money. Professionals earn a healthy living by Cricket. Many schoolmasters, many clerks and partners, owe their position largely to their Cricket. This is but common sense. To play Cricket well is at least as good a qualification as to know well the names and dates of many prophets, kings, battles, and other dull trivialities.
For Cricket should develop the intellect. Quite apart from the effect of bodily health and activity upon brain-work, quite apart from the tonic of recreation and change of employment, Cricket should give lessons for life: it should teach co-operation, division of labour, encouragement of individuality; it should teach the art of mastering the mechanisms, the A B C, so indispensable to success; it should foster observation, rapid decision, then rapid action, judgment by results, memory, foresight. Itshould—though it seldomdoes. This intellectual aspect of Cricket is of national importance. We need intelligent leaders and workers:Cricket might easily be made to produce them. We need such in war as in peace: as Ranjitsinhji insists, “after all, Cricket is warfare in miniature. It is man against man, general against general,” and, we may add, team against team.
To pass from the intellectual to the physical advantages which are so closely connected with them, Mr. Edward Lyttelton says:
“It is impossible to make twenty runs in decent style without giving evidence of bodily pluck, readiness of resource, patience, health, strength and training.” But here again we must distinguish whatisfrom what might and should be. Cricket should encourage general health and training, general fitness (most excellent word), the power to preserve life, not only by its exercise and physical virtues, but also by the movements of muscles, by the air, light, scenery, subsequent washing, which can all improve the well-being, not completely yet conspicuously.
The enjoyment—if only we were better trained to enjoy the game—must affect the blood in the most favourable way, as the chemical experiments of Professor Gates, of Washington, have demonstrated, in the American “Medical Times” for December,1897. We thank God better by genuine enjoyment than by mere word of mouth.
The word “aesthetic” is used in two senses—in reference to enjoyment, and in reference to artistic beauty and gracefulness. Cricket should be an “aesthetic” game in both senses. When properly prepared for and played and supplemented, it should produce a body pleasant to behold whether in motion or at rest—a “kinetic” and “dynamic” and “static” pleasantness to the eye. The senses also should have their interesting growth by Cricket; the sight by the timing and by the use of the imagination; the hearing; the touch; the muscular sense.
Of the moral and spiritual effects we need not say much. It seems to me to be here that Cricketdoesdo much that itshoulddo. Honour, sympathy and courtesy, pluck, patience, good temper, these are a few of the qualities that do often result.
Clearest of all, however, is the social value as a tie and connecting link between individuals and groups both small and great. Rudyard Kipling, with all his genius for seeing and describing things imperial, scarcely realised the function of Cricket as a common ground for meeting and forming friendships,quite aside from its advantages in opening the mind by journeys among near or distant people. What Ranjitsinhji so aptly remarks in reference to the classes within England herself can be applied also to the relation between any sets of people anywhere. He says:
“It is a grand thing for people who have to work most of their time to have an interest in something or other outside their particular groove. Cricket is a first-rate interest. The game has developed to such a pitch that it is worth taking interest in. Go to Lord’s and analyse the crowd. There are all sorts and conditions of men there around the ropes—bricklayers, bank-clerks, soldiers, postmen, and stockbrokers. And in the pavilion are K.C.’s, artists, archdeacons, and leader-writers. Bad men, good men, workers and idlers are all there, and all at one in their keenness over the game. It is a commonplace that cricket brings the most opposite characters and the most diverse lives together. Anything that puts many very different kinds of people on a common ground must promote sympathy and kindly feelings. The workman does not come away from seeingMiddlesex beating Lancashire orvice versâwith evil in his heart against the Upper Ten; nor the Mayfairhomme de plaisirwith a feeling of contempt for the street-bred masses. Both alike are thinking how well Mold bowled, and how cleanly Stoddart despatched Briggs’ high-tossed slow ball over the awning.”
“It is a grand thing for people who have to work most of their time to have an interest in something or other outside their particular groove. Cricket is a first-rate interest. The game has developed to such a pitch that it is worth taking interest in. Go to Lord’s and analyse the crowd. There are all sorts and conditions of men there around the ropes—bricklayers, bank-clerks, soldiers, postmen, and stockbrokers. And in the pavilion are K.C.’s, artists, archdeacons, and leader-writers. Bad men, good men, workers and idlers are all there, and all at one in their keenness over the game. It is a commonplace that cricket brings the most opposite characters and the most diverse lives together. Anything that puts many very different kinds of people on a common ground must promote sympathy and kindly feelings. The workman does not come away from seeingMiddlesex beating Lancashire orvice versâwith evil in his heart against the Upper Ten; nor the Mayfairhomme de plaisirwith a feeling of contempt for the street-bred masses. Both alike are thinking how well Mold bowled, and how cleanly Stoddart despatched Briggs’ high-tossed slow ball over the awning.”
This is pre-eminently true. Cricket already is, and can be to an even greater extent, a healthy interest that is a grand bond of union for the nation, and yet not (like so many religious, commercial, educational, and other bonds) a frequent cause of separation from other nations.
What is Cricket to you? That is a very different question from “What might, can, should Cricket be to you?” We have answered part of the latter question. Before answering the former let us take some contrasts. What already exists that can be compared to Cricket in regard to effects? Gymnastics, strength-and-strain-exercises; card-games, other games (Lawn Tennis, Ping-Pong, Golf, etc.); “economical” education—where is any teaching about such lessons as co-operation to be found in England? It is to be found in America, but with it is alsoto be found the terrible money-grubbing and grabbing spirit; “intellectual” education—sum up the useful results of what one has learnt in school: nine-tenths of it I pray that I may forget; physical and hygienic education—where is it? Not at home, not at school, not in business, not in society; in Cricket there is quite a supply of such education, mainly of an unconscious kind; enjoyment, gracefulness, pure and wholesome cultivation of the senses—where are they? Education about pure and wholesome and kindly social and national relations—where is it? Even moral and spiritual education by preaching and teaching. Compare and contrast these and other means of education for physique, for character, for life, with Cricket as she is, and then with Cricket as she might and should be. Judge the advantages of Cricket for yourself as an individual and as a member of many groups.
The present advantages of Cricket would be increased ten-fold if more care were taken by those in authority. Cricket needs greater interest and attractiveness for the majority of players; it needs better basic preparation for all departments of play; it needs supplementation by other exercises and othermeans to health. By itself it is not, never will be, never can be, a complete education. Of course not. But properly cultivated, with other things, in its proper place, it seems to me splendid. If it seems so to the reader, then let him give it a care, let him cultivate it,in proportion to its all-round value in his eyes.
Aswith other games like Tennis and Racquets, so with Cricket, we may assume thatthe game as now played is excellent for experts who either have wealth and leisure or else are professionals. For those, and for others at intervals, let the play be nearly as it now is. Let the best go on. Let there be test-matches, county and ‘varsity matches, college and school matches, house and dormitory matches, and so on. Here we deal chiefly with reforms outside these decisive games which are likely to remain as they are.
With those who are not experts of the classes mentioned above, the play cries for adaptation. First of all, there is need for snob-cricket, stump-cricket, room-cricket (not mere bedroom practice, but an actual game), as a more regular and more enjoyable substitute. Secondly, there is need for preparation; Cricket has been described as a trinity of games, and the stump-practice suggested in a previous chapter can serve as a preparation for fielding. The exercises offered in other chapters would serve as substitutes and also as preparation for play when play itself was out of the question. Cricket is a river that needs a good source and many good tributary-streams; it needs preparatory exercises and games. Such practice would soon make the play itself far more pleasant and interesting. Thirdly, there is need of supplementation—for example, left-handed play, the use of the left side being important, not merely in fielding (what crocks most people are with their left hands!), but in change-bowling also. Why should not more players be able to bowl an over or two left-handed for a change?
Besides this, there is need of cheapness—of economy of money and of time as well, so that each player may get more work to do and less dull waiting.
Above all, there is need of some “fun for the duffers,” if the game is to spread or even to hold its own. We are rapidly becoming Americanised. No longer do the majoritycare to serve merely as watchers, or at the best as ninepins to a Hirst or a Rhodes, as feeders and throwers-in for an Abel, a Shrewsbury, a Fry, or a Ranji. They want to be up and doing and enjoying themselves, or else they will give up the so-called play in disgust; itisn’tplay. That is their true complaint.
And so we say, let the best players and the other players at intervals have their matches and games and net-practice as before, with any changes that may be accepted (such as those which will be touched on directly). But let there besomethingto give pleasure to the average person, whether it be an occasional game of tip-and-run, or an occasional game with some sort of a handicap.
What the handicap shall be, whether more men in the field, or both sides fielding, or fewer men on the stronger side, or smaller bats, or larger wickets, or a time-limit, must be left to the players themselves to decide. Only, one could wish for a more democratic and representative vote instead of the whole management being left to the few experts or “aristocrats,” who, of course, will legislate from their own point of view.
The reforms suggested by so many writers do not really deal with the masses of cricketers at all. The time-limit for the innings (it might be annulled in case of a difficult wicket), the running out of boundary hits, the declaring of the innings closed at any moment, the innings of sections of sides at a time—these things do not tend to make Dick, Tom, and Harry really enjoy themselves or improve their play appreciably more than at present.
As contrasted with short games of stump-cricket (to encourage accuracy of batting and to develop new bowlers), and with the building of clubs having plain rooms for evening games, such reforms are trifling except for the very few who play well. It would be far better to tell people how to field, or even how to watch with a view to interest and improvement. Reforms must aim at giving amusement, interest, attractiveness to the play of the average cricketer.
Let us consider a common experience in a one-day College match at Cambridge, putting aside the wet or rather the difficult wicket on which every player gets a knock; we want to think of Cricket at its best—on afine day and a good wicket. The side that wins the toss sends in its first two or three bats; they pile up some hundreds of runs; the other members sit and do nothing; the captain eventually declares; the opposing side, after its hours of “country life,” has no chance of winning, so the players either stick and try to play out time, or else make a desperate attempt and slog at everything like a set of Jessops, but unskilled. No wonder there is apathy.
We begin by pointing out what appears at first to be the most ridiculous change; yet it is certain that when the tail of a teamdoesgo in, then it wants to enjoy itself for more than a few brief seconds. If the captain will not every now and then absolutely reverse the order of going in (at least at the end of a day’s scouting), then let the tail improve its own batting. The improvement rests with the members themselves. Let them begin practice on any level piece of ground, with a soft ball and a stick (to emphasise the importance of the straight bat); or let them in private (if not in a new form of drill) lunge with the left foot, stretch straight forward with the head and left-wrist and elbow, move the right foot across and cutwith shoulder, forearm, and wrist, repeat the body-swing, and so on. The drill could be made less dull if one individual “set” the exercises to the rest, at first simple movements, then more complex movements with varied pace. Let the players give themselves the best possible chance of a reasonably long innings when theydogo in. Let them make runs somehow,[10]not neglecting the safest kind of pull, for example, merely because it is called “bad style.”
More important than attention to batting is attention to bowling. We need not allow a “free margin” to bowlers of doubtful action; there are other remedies. Why should not people learn to make the ball curl in the air, starting their experiments with a Lawn Tennis ball, which gives more marked effects. That which is done habitually by Baseball throwers, and occasionally if unintentionally by a few bowlers, can surely be done frequently and intentionallyby many bowlers, if only there be careful and thorough research. But anyhow let the breaks be learnt; let the first finger and the wrist be trained to strong movements of various kinds. Let the young players be given small bats and balls to play with. Let them and older players be given an over now and then for a change in less important games. Certainly let the various mechanisms of bowling be mastered before a player decides that he has not the gift of bowling; let him do arm-and-shoulder extensions (see the photographs of Hirst), wrist-turns, and so on; and then (as suggested above), practise with a stump, a wicket-keeper, and another bowler on the other side of the stump; let each have his little paper-marks on the ground, and let him pitch the ball as near as he can to these. Let every would-be bowler, that is to say every cricketer, try to bowl round the wicket, if only in the old style with the low delivery (like W. G.’s, as described by Mr. A. G. Steel). Or let him try his luck with lobs, if only that he may learn how to make the ball break both ways. Let him see if he cannot bowl a little with his left-hand—who knows? Wemustraise thenumber of bowlers as well as the standard of bowling. On that point all are agreed.[11]
Perhaps at the same time the power of the batsman might be lessened,[12]either by a number-limit or a time-limit to the innings, or by a smaller bat (narrower and thicker), or by a larger wicket (higher or broader, or both—at the moment when I write this, the suggested change has not been accepted by all—), or, better still, by the following plan. On a caking wicket we do not need to shorten the batsman’s innings, except to put a stop to excessive poking. The ground takes whatever break is put on (and perhaps adds some of its own). Why should there not be an artificial material which would take a good deal of break and not be dangerous. The M.C.C. out of its abundance might offer a reward (say of £100) to the inventor of some material, which need not extend over more than a small area. We want a floorthat will show just what twist or spin has been given to the ball, so that inferior batsmen shall not now make their centuries merely because the ball will not “bite.” In Racquets, Tennis, covered-court Lawn Tennis, and Ping-Pong, the ball performs practically whatever antics it ought to perform. We want a pitch that will carry out the bowler’s work without adding or subtractingmuch. Neither a plumb wicket nor a caking wicket does that. We need some such material as Mr. W. J. Ford suggests, perhaps a kind akin to cokernut matting.
The proposed leg-before-wicket reform by which the batsman is given out if, in the opinion of the umpire, the ball would have struck his wicket (rather than if the ball pitches in a line between the wickets, which militates against the old round-arm bowling round the wicket), may or may not prove advisable. It is not a really radical reform.
But far the best change, the most potent, and in every way most profitable to all, to the bowler, the wicket-keep, the fielder, the spectator, and even ultimately to the batsman, would be an improvement in fielding. Some time ago one of the greatest of all cover-points past or present remarked to afriend of his, “If you and I were there, that side would have been out by now.” With this man at cover, the batsman was never let off at cover. With a team of such fielders, the game would be quite altered. A century would then mean something. As it is, a player is said to have given no chances when with a field full of Vernon Royles[13]he would have given several chances of being caught, and many chances of being run out. But how can fielding be improved?
Why are there so few prizes for fielding? Why in athletic sports is there a prize only for distance-throwing, and not for regulated direction or regulated pitch? Here is a great opening for schools, and especially to-day when, as Abel said, stone-throwing in cities is sadly discouraged! The beach of the sea-side is not always accessible. Besides this, it is good to practise catching and fielding with a soft ball against a wall; various games of catching and fielding can be made exciting enough; the stump-game (suggested in another chapter) can be adapted to throwing as well as to bowling; points may be counted. Excellent exercise can thus be had at odd moments. Or Fives andleft-handed Squash will develop the left side, and prizes for left-hand throwing may be offered by schools. Boxing is capital in its effects on alertness and “eye.” There should be boxing by all means.
And let there be training in general—for how can one field well unless he be fresh and untired? Let there be full control of arms and legs and body without loss of balance, full quick stretchings, full and quick stoopings, in all directions; let there be—we repeat—plenty of Fives for the left side and for stooping; diving and swimming for endurance; and the fast extension-movements, at the end of which the extensions should be held for a moment or two.
This implies careful analysis of the mechanisms of fielding—of starting, of catching, of picking up, of throwing in. It implies asystem or systemsbased on this analysis. It implies careful study. But if Cricket be a desirable game, above all if it be compulsory, then it must be taught well, especially at the outset. As Murdoch says: “A good ground-work must be laid down, and the young beginner cannot be too painstaking and careful.” The drill must not be in all the refinements of Cricket, such as the Ranjiglide; it must be in that A B C of fielding, etc., which no really great fielder has lacked. That which is not by nature must come by art. Some drill there must be, even if it only be self-drill. But drill itself will do a boy no harm to-day. A veteran cricketer, in his time an excellent field and now a superintendent of a boys’ institution, tells me on the one hand of the inferiority of fielding to-day, and on the other hand of the lack of persistent concentration among boys to-day. Boys, he says, lack that power, and drill can give it to them so that it lasts through life.
Reform in Cricket must not be merely reform for a few match-players. Apart from increased power of sustained self-control, of immediate self-direction, apart from confidence and readiness, it must be for the greater enjoyment and greater skill of the majority of British boys and men. With this end in view, we may have to adapt Cricket to indoor play in well-lighted and well-ventilated rooms in cities and suburbs (in America the city-clubs, built storey upon storey upwards, allow of other games by electric light). Any old room would do. We do not wantonlythis adapted game, any more than we wantonlydrill and practice; we want net-play also; practice-games also; matches also. But we want the game itself, the grand old game, when itisplayed, to be played better and to be played better all round, in all its branches, by all its players.
When we come to look at the matter impartially, and to ask what Cricket might and should do for us physically, aesthetically, mentally, morally, as individuals, as groups, as a nation; when we come to compare its effects—even as they now are—with those of our school-lessons in Latin grammar, geography, history, arithmetic, and so on, we do not hesitate to say that Government support is needed, not only in establishing such clubs, for evening and wet-day play within cities, but also for allowing Cricket—the trinity of Cricket, batting and bowling and fielding, and perhaps the theory of Cricket also—to count something in certain Government examinations, especially in those for the Indian Civil Service. For is it not of more value than many crammings?
Let Cricket be given its proper place—no higher, no lower. It is an amusement; true. But it is also an education for character and life. It might be ten times the educationthat it is, for almost the whole of character and life. Sensible reforms would make it so—reforms which would in no way interfere with Cricket as it is now played in important matches, and as it is now practised in practice-games and at nets. The reforms would prepare for these excellent occasions, and would also serve as substitutes for them and as supplements to them, and would thus bring in many converts to the game, bring back many renegades, and enable Cricket to hold her own against all her rivals, especially against excessive Cycling, Golf, Croquet, Ping-Pong, idleness, the public-house, and that evil for which at present there exists no other name but smuggishness.
“Thetruth must be insisted on; many a Cricket match has been won in the bedroom. And even with the ball a good deal may be done. I could name two eminent batsmen who used, as boys, to wait after the day’s play was over, and the careless crowd had departed, and in the pavilion give ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to practising a particular style of defence, about which more anon; the one bowled fast sneaks along the floor to the other, at about ten paces distance. This, too, yielded fruit in its time. Like all other great achievements, the getting a score against good bowling is the result of drudgery, patiently, faithfully borne. But the drudgery of Cricket is itself a pleasure, and let no young cricketer suppose that he can dispense with it, though some few gifted performers have done great things with apparently little effort.”Edward Lyttelton.
“Thetruth must be insisted on; many a Cricket match has been won in the bedroom. And even with the ball a good deal may be done. I could name two eminent batsmen who used, as boys, to wait after the day’s play was over, and the careless crowd had departed, and in the pavilion give ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to practising a particular style of defence, about which more anon; the one bowled fast sneaks along the floor to the other, at about ten paces distance. This, too, yielded fruit in its time. Like all other great achievements, the getting a score against good bowling is the result of drudgery, patiently, faithfully borne. But the drudgery of Cricket is itself a pleasure, and let no young cricketer suppose that he can dispense with it, though some few gifted performers have done great things with apparently little effort.”
Edward Lyttelton.
I have reserved for an appendix, which I introduce by repeating the above words ofsound common sense, a defence of a system of practice based on what the best players actually do. The system will be condemned unless it is understood—and tried.
In games, as in health, it is the commonest acts and parts of acts that most easily escape our notice—that are done least adequately. He who is far beyond and above the alphabet can seldom realise its difficulties for the beginner. The unconscious skill of the expert availeth little, except for analysis and imitation by others. The genius is not likely to be a good teacher. That is no less true of Cricket than of mathematics. The natural player does the thing well, but—he knoweth not how.
A story is told of one of the most famous of Cambridge coaches (alas! now dead), to the effect that a pupil once asked him for lessons in Hebrew. The coach knew no Hebrew, but, thanks to his excellent teaching, he managed to secure his pupil a Second Class in the examination, after which the pupil heard to his surprise that the coach himself had only been one lesson ahead all the time. So here the veriest beginner may feel that I am not far ahead of him—that perhaps in some respects I am behind him, since I haveto undo many old and habitual faults. Let him imagine me, at the age of thirty-four, in the midst of a busy life, playing forward vigorously in the privacy of my small bedroom, first with my left foot (with the body-weight) direct along a line again and again, till it moves along that line rapidly almost of its own accord, with only an occasional supervision as of a well-regulated servant; then this together with the quick reaching out of a straight bat in dangerous proximity to my left foot (which now lunges safely, surely, rapidly on its line), while my left elbow comes well to the front at full stretch. In fact, let him picture me practising for a few minutes morning after morning, with ever-decreasing difficulty, all that the best exponents seem to do so naturally and easily. He would see me ready to start and starting at hundred yards’ pace here there or anywhere, as Mr. Vernon Royle used to stand and start at cover; or extending now this arm, and now that, up, down, out to imaginary balls, and then throwing these in at once just above imaginary bails (which will be spots on the wall-paper).
“It is not thus thatCricketis learnt,” I hear the genius say. Yet it was thus—partly thus—that my Racquets and Tennis were learnt, and I for my part shall try to learn Cricket thus also; and I shall advise others who are as backward as I am to try thus. If the plan be wrong, yet at least I am putting it into action in my own case, so as to make as much a part of me as I can those movements that seem always to have been a part of the born experts, who are my models, and whose expertness has hitherto been regarded as beyond hope. I do not mean fancy strokes, such as the risky glide, but the ordinary and common strokes, the “nine out of ten,” for which the many mechanical workings are buried so securely deep in the sub-conscious minds of the skilful, that there is needed a thorough probing and cutting up by the anatomist if ever the secrets are to be laid bare.
There must be no reliance on mere theories; actual models and photographs of models have been and are to be the basis of my advice and of my own steady practice. Photographs are less likely to err than the opinions of those whose chief merit is to do well rather than to teach well or even to know well.
But, though the most careful analysis has been made, and though I myself shall do whatever I urge the beginner to try, yet the advice will all be put forward as worth a fair trial—no more, at least for purposes of Cricket. For purposes of physical development, health, control of the body and of the will, and so on, I think that every such exercise can safely be recommended to most people. I cannot believe that a few minutes each day would do any Anglo-Saxon boy or man any appreciable harm, if only the rapidity and extension be increased gently and sensibly.
My point of view is entirely new. I come to the reader not as a good batsman, bowler, or fielder. I was what may be called a Public School and College cricketer, and poor at that! In my last season of College Cricket I made one or two centuries and got well over my hundred wickets; but all this I did in the most atrocious style. And I gave up the game many years ago. Why then do I dare to offer hints?
Let me repeat that, as a player of Racquets and Tennis, in spite of much play, I still used to exhibit practically every serious fault except a bad eye, weakness, and indifferenceto success. As I have confessed or boasted elsewhere, and as anyone who saw me would confirm, the positions and movements of my feet, legs, trunk, shoulder, arm, wrist, and fingers were incorrect; and I used to let my eye wander from the ball. These faults I found out; and I afterwards found out that my faults in Cricket were closely akin to these. Now comes the interesting argument. I taught myself and am teaching myself what is less incorrect. I practised and am practising sedulously, to a great extent outside the court, and especially in my bedroom. I chose good models in Racquets and Tennis—for example, Latham and Fairs; I analysed their strokes, watching part by part, asking questions, accepting kind advice, listening to sane or mad theory. I tried to master each part of the mechanism, at first by itself, then with other parts, at times repeating with concentration, at times exaggerating the opposite fault. There cannot be the slightest doubt that Iammastering the mechanism of these racket-games.
Incidentally I may mention that these two games taught me many useful principles for Cricket-practice: the right positions of the legs; the art of running side-ways with the eyes looking forwards; the formation and preservation of that correct pose and poise which may be called “the ready”; the use of the straight right leg and firm right foot as a pivot; the body-swing from the hips; the shoulder-jerk; the forearm snap in contrast to the mere wrist-flick, which of course is also extremely useful, as in peg-top whipping; the wrist-flick itself, especially at the last moment; the habit of not taking the ball too far in front of one except when one wishes to hit high; the follow through; the fast full extension with power but without loss of balance or else followed by rapid recovery of balance.
Incidentally I may mention that these two games taught me many useful principles for Cricket-practice: the right positions of the legs; the art of running side-ways with the eyes looking forwards; the formation and preservation of that correct pose and poise which may be called “the ready”; the use of the straight right leg and firm right foot as a pivot; the body-swing from the hips; the shoulder-jerk; the forearm snap in contrast to the mere wrist-flick, which of course is also extremely useful, as in peg-top whipping; the wrist-flick itself, especially at the last moment; the habit of not taking the ball too far in front of one except when one wishes to hit high; the follow through; the fast full extension with power but without loss of balance or else followed by rapid recovery of balance.
As a player of Cricket I used to suffer from similar and equally fundamental hindrances to success; most of these I believe that I have now found out. I shall give myself nearly two years in which to correct these faults and to embody and infibre the best positions and movements that I can learn from the actual play of the best models (Abel, Hirst, Shrewsbury, and many others besides), as shown in practice and in their photographs. Much of this apprenticeship will take place in my bedroom. All the time I shall continue to watch, to ask questions, to study theories; I shall try to keep up to date both in my learning and in my advicein this volume if future editions should be needed.
In a word, I write and shall write not for genius-players so much as for players like myself. For genius-players, the Lytteltons, Steel, Ranjitsinhji, Grace, and others have already written infinitely better than I ever could. I have no ambition to supersede these great authorities except in so far as I must set the evidence of the camera and of the muscles themselves above theoretical opinion. Even here I wish to show the foundation of fact underlying the superstructure of dogma.