“Now from these principles, which some might call truisms, a very important practical maxim proceeds. All sound rules of batting should be practised by a young cricketer without the ball as well as with it. The grammar of the science can be partly learnt in the bedroom; the application of the rules must be made on the green sward. Many a finished batsman has tried this plan. Five minutes devoted every night by an aspiring cricketer to a leg hit, or cut, or forward play at a phantom ball, will gradually discipline his sinews to the required posture, besides sending him to bed in a right frame of mind.
“I think it was Harry Jupp who used to ascribe his astonishingly good defence to a habit of this kind. He used to place a large-sized mirror on the floor—not for purposes of personal vanity—but to see if the bat moved in a straight line. To make the test better, a line was drawn along the floor from the centre of the mirror, along which line the bat was to move. The least deviation was then manifested, not only at the end of the stroke, but while it was being made.”
It is not part of the alphabet of safe batting to meet and attack the ball always. Both W. G. and C. B. Fry began their careers with safety, with the stopping of balls; afterwards they proceeded to splendid execution. The A B C of safe batting is not quite identical with the A B C of effective batting, which will be considered in subsequent sections of this chapter.
One of the first rules of safety is said to be to “keep the eye on the ball.” This rule needs alteration.[2] Before the delivery the eye should watch the bowler’s arm, wrist, and fingers; Shrewsbury owed to this observation of something besides the ball a long innings against the Australians many years ago. To foretell a change in direction, length, pace, break, etc., is not easy by the sight of the ball alone. It is after the ball has left the bowler’s hand that it must be sedulously watched. Nor can it always be watched right on to the bat; exactly how far it can be watched is a much disputed point. Certainly few batsmen can carry out the golden rule of Golf. I believe that most of them—I speak from my own Tennis and Racquet experience—take their eyes off the cricket-ball too soon. Few err by looking at it too long. In my games, almost without exception, the longer I look at the ball the better my stroke is.
The second law is correct timing. There are several kinds of good sight; I doubt if any one of them by itself brings with it that desirable faculty, “the good eye.” Ranjitsinhji and others rightly include, under the timing, the judgment as to the flight (direction, pace, etc.), the decision as to what is or is not to be done, the command that the best things shall be done, the correct combination and co-operation of the requisite parts at just the very moment.[3] I believe that the good eye, where it is not already a natural or acquired habit, means a splendidly accurate and therefore healthy working of a vast number of more or less separate nerve centres and nerves; but that what is often called “a good eye” is nothing of the sort—it is a mastery of certain correct mechanisms, which, if a man possesses them for his own, can produce an even better effect than the most superb eyesight without such mechanism. I may have a far better sight and eye for games than a fairly well-taught golfer who knows what muscles to use, and has these as half-automatic habits; but put me against him, and ask any spectators which of us has the better eye, and they will very likely point to my opponent.
If this be so, then the third rule will be to have already secured the best possible mechanisms, and to have made them easy and sub-conscious; at first perhaps they may be conquered one by one; in the end, however, they must be not independent units, but co-operating parts of a unit—members combining and working together in harmony, as in some businesses, adding power each to each, relieving one another. These mechanisms include, for many strokes, and especially the forward strokes, the “straight bat,” i.e., the bat held straight and not sideways as it meets the ball; with its handle nearer to the bowler than its blade is; with the end of its blade just to the side of the left foot; the bat moving as straight as may be towards the approaching ball from start to finish (the finish being a follow-through after the ball has been struck); quickness of foot and leg to start and to move, the right leg being the base and pivot; the power to get right to the pitch of the ball or else to wait for it as far back as possible; straight and fast and full extensions of various limbs in various directions; a control of many different strokes, and especially, in these days of fast plumb-wickets, a control of the forward stroke. The reader will best realise the number of these mechanisms if we mention (and if he meanwhile realises by trial) some of those which are parts of the ordinary forward stroke:—the right leg straight and unbent, the right foot firm, the left foot and leg sent out towards the ball (a little to the left of the line of flight), the left elbow and wrist shot well forward at full stretch (in order to keep the ball down), the right shoulder forward and down, the bat moved straight down and towards the approaching ball and beyond it (not necessarily straight along the line between the wickets), the weight brought forward with the head of the bat, the recovery of balance and position, and the readiness to run directly after the ball has been struck or missed. If one has run out first, then the right foot will still have to serve as a firm pivot for the whole stroke, which must be a single movement. This will give some idea of what the correct mechanisms are, quite apart from individual peculiarities in the use of them. Such correct mechanisms may be acquired separately as I acquired my Tennis mechanisms, and as fencers acquire their fencing—mechanisms of lunge, wrist-play, etc.; but it is part of the A B C of correct play to have already acquired them as correct members of a correct whole before the game begins. Add to these the mechanisms and the combination of mechanisms for other strokes, such as back-play, cut, pull, etc., and the reader will agree that the A B C of batting is no light work for anyone, except the born player who apparently has not had to learn it letter by letter.
Out of the list of useful mechanisms a few will now be suggested. It is for the reader to judge how far they actually are used in the strokes of leading experts. Each example must be compared with the positions and movements of the best models, as shown in photographs like these, or in actual games or practice.
Before attempting these exercises, the reader should find out the principles of correct practice, some of which are suggested in Chapter VIII. One or two of the most vital may be selected here.
(1.) Decide whether it is worth while to play Cricket at all; if so, whether it is worth while to improve your standard of skill; if so, whether these and your own exercises are likely to be of appreciable help. (The exercises are not meant to take the place of net-practice and games, which are indispensable, but to make them more pleasant and useful.)
(2.) During the exercises, concentrate your whole attention either upon the muscles at work, or upon their reflection in a looking-glass.
(3.) Aim at correctness, and therefore begin slowly and carefully before you repeat any given movement. Freedom, pace, endurance, strength will then increase almost of their own accord. Freedom and pace may best be acquired by movements done at first without implements, afterwards with light implements. I found these two preliminary stages invaluable in the preparation for my games, perhaps especially for the sharp movements of Racquets. The worst possible beginning is any “exerciser” that requires a tense grip.
(4.) In case of a fault (discovered by yourself or pointed out by others), seek to exaggerate the opposite fault.
Among the most useful exercises for batting, as for bowling and fielding, are the fast and full and straight extensions of various muscles and muscle-combinations, with economy of the unused parts, and without loss of, or with immediate recovery of, the body’s balance, and readiness to be directed elsewhither. It is likely that these pages contain errors, but I think that if one were to ask a good player where he ached most of all after his first practice or game in the season, one would find that the aches were mainly due to these extension movements (of the latissimus dorsi, below and behind the arm-pit, etc.).
For the feet and legs, (i.) Lunge far forward (but not so far as to strain yourself) with the left foot and leg in a direct line (not a curve) in various directions (perhaps along various chalk lines upon the floor) with full weight—the head should come almost over the left foot—but with rapid recovery of balance.
(ii.) Start to run in the forward direction afterwards.
(iii.) Practise the position and movement for backing up and a quick start to run.
(iv.) Practise the movement for turning at the crease, as shown in the photograph of Shrewsbury.
For the neck. Move the head round, at first slowly and carefully, from side to side, then up and down, and so on; but do not strain.
For the trunk: the body’s force is great, as—to use an old illustration—one can see when one bumps against a wall in the dark. (i.) The body-swing from the hips is a most useful movement. Keeping the legs as stiff as possible, and the head as still as possible, twist round the shoulders, first to the right, then to the left. (ii.) Bend the trunk forwards, and then sideways, from the hips.
For the shoulders, arm, and forearm. (i.) To the lunge of the left foot add an equally full and direct and fast lunge of the left shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Your head should come forward also, above your left foot. Imagine yourself to be aiming at a ball, and see that your left wrist is in a line between your eyes and some object, say a chair’s leg in the bedroom. (ii.) Jerk the forearm (and wrist) as if you were whipping a peg-top or shaking out a clogged stylographic pen.
For the wrist and fingers. Flex and twist the wrist and each finger far and fast in various directions. After freedom and pace have been acquired, but not before, some strength can be added by resistance—as by holding a dumb-bell during the movements, or by using some grip machine.
Let us apply these—a few out of many mechanisms for all-round batting—to forward-play. The excellent words of Mr. Edward Lyttelton must be quoted first. He says:—
“You will see from these directions that it is a very complex action, far from easy to do all at once, so that by careful practice if not by the light of nature you must first learn to do it properly without the ball, then with it. Establish the motion as a habit before the stress of the crisis begins.... It is thought that just as great players of yore reached eminence without being subject to coaching in early youth, or indeed in some cases after being completely self-taught, so boys of the present day would stand a better chance if they were less drilled than they sometimes are, and were left to find the use of their limbs by a vigorous, if unkempt style of hitting. The Englishman’s instinct, said a Frenchman, is to go out of doors and hit or kick something as hard as he can. This being so, why not let boys learn to hit as they please till they are sixteen or seventeen, and then perhaps a few rules might be taught them? But if taught beforehand, they only cramp the style, and take away the enjoyment of the game. Nature must be the best teacher; etc., etc.... But it is not at all easy to secure this habit, and therefore you should remember it carefully in your bedroom....”
Pretend that you are going to play forward, and hold a stick in your hands. Now, moving your fingers as you come forward (see below), lunge with your left foot along a straight line, and send your head over your left foot. (If you tend to deviate from the line, probably towards the left, then exaggerate towards the right.) Keep your eye on the foot till the foot can take care of itself. Regard it as a servant that you must first watch carefully till the correct work shall have become half-automatic; then only an occasional glance of supervision will be required. Add to this lunge the extended lunge of the left wrist, elbow, and shoulder straight along a line parallel to and slightly to the right of the left foot.
The stick should be lifted straight back and up before the stroke (though the blade of a bat, as in Racquets, will face outwards at the top of the lift), and should then come forward in a direct line close to the left foot, and afterwards follow through beyond the left foot. Do not forget to keep both that foot along its line and the left wrist along its line by aiming say at some spot on the wall. After the lunge with the whole weight, recover balance, look up, and prepare to run forward. Later on, do this and actually start forwards a few steps. That is part of the physical apparatus which a good average forward-stroke demands. There is no space to describe the requirements of the other strokes—the cut, etc. They can easily be seen from the photographs and from the play of experts. And some additional exercises will be offered under the special headings below.
In addition to these and other movements, which may be tried at first either before a large mirror or else with a teacher behind to correct and perform correctly by way of instruction, Mr. Edward Lyttelton mentions the practice of certain strokes with a ball in the pavilion. Any old room will do. And the narrower the implement of batting the more easily it will show the errors of batting; the lighter the implement, the better it will develop pace and freedom. A stump or stick or broomstick will do; a light indiarubber ball will do.
If you cannot get a bowler, then you can throw the ball—a Lawn Tennis ball will do—up against a wall, and play forward or back to it with a stick. I know a player who did this with very good results.
Games of “Snob-cricket,” and of Cricket with smaller ball and narrower bat, should be far more frequently tried for the sake of practice.
Imaginary strokes may be made during idle moments. Fancy yourself playing straight forward with full weight, or fancy yourself stepping across and back with the right foot and then cutting with a jerk of shoulder and forearm and some wrist-flick. I do a great deal of Racquet and Tennis practice in this way; needless to say, I play infinitely better in imagination than in reality! But I know that thus I help to make my ideal real. After such an imagination-practice I often reproduce improved strokes with a light racket-handle in my bedroom.
If too many bowlers are bowling at one net, the variety is bad; in actual play one has no such variety in a single over. I would rather see three bowlers each bowl an over in turn, while the two others field. If you cannot reform this, then make the best of it by trying to remember the previous balls of each bowler, as if you were playing several games of chess at the same time.
Begin on good wickets, so as to habituate confidence and pluck. Don’t practise correct Cricket (you can, however, practise the bold running-out game for a caking wicket) if the ground be fiery. Loss of nerve is fatal.
Play safely and gently till you get set; defend against the difficult balls; then, when you are set, meet and hit every ball, except for the rare “half-cock” strokes to which you may have to resort.
The next stage is to place the ball. While on the one hand you must count every chance you give, and every ball an inch or two from the bails, as a wicket down, you may, on the other hand, venture on experiments; you may determine to hit a ball pitched too short or too far up to one of two or three places.
Notice the sort of ball which beats you most frequently, and find out why it does so, and how you can best play it—perhaps this may be by stepping back or forwards and turning it into some other ball.
Aim at developing your individual strong points, but—
(1.) Do not do this until you have mastered the fundamental elements of various strokes; and
(2.) Do not be content with this. Gradually bring up your weak points to the level of your strong points. Indeed, practise them far more than your strong points.
While many hints must be reserved for the last section of this chapter, we may here say a few words about games as distinct from training, exercises, and net-practice; though it will be necessary to touch on the importance of training, for success in the games. What better help is there against the nervousness so fatal to success than the habit of full and deep breathing? Can you be nervous at all so long as you breathe fully and deeply? What better help, towards the steadiness and confidence so important to success, than the clear eye that comes from clean living, the feeling that the fingers “nip” the bat, the feeling that the correct mechanisms are under control, the self-reliance gained by net-practice on good pitches?
This steadiness is most necessary at the beginning of an innings. As we mentioned above, two of the great players tell us that at first they were content to defend, often merely to stop balls without attacking them. Historians and natural historians and other scientists show us that each individual human being in itself reproduces quickly the past evolutions of the human race, being, for example, a seed, fish-like, reptile-like, ape-like, then man-like. So each individual innings may quickly reproduce the past stages of practice and progress, safety and defence coming before severity and attack, except where—as on some caking wickets—safety and defence consist in an apparently rash rushing out to smite. As a rule, however, no liberties should be taken until the bowling has been mastered and the eye is “in.” Time may be saved if one watches the previous batsmen and finds out how they get out. Moreover, just as Spofforth first tested the pitch and its pace and peculiarities on any given day, before he bowled his best, so a batsman may also test the pitch.
For different pitches demand different plays—different mechanisms, different tactics. Few, like Shrewsbury, have a style adapted alike to the billiard-table ground and the drying-ground. Ranjitsinhji’s book gives most useful remarks on these differences.
While you are batting, count a chance as a blessed indication of error; treat it as I treat a premonitory pain—do not wait for the illness itself, but find out and correct the mistake at once. You may have to exaggerate in the opposite direction—perhaps to play forward further out to the right than seems natural to you on that day.
Guard is taken not only to give one a sense of the direction of any ball, but also to give one the correct place for the right foot: the toe of the right foot should be quite near to the block. Therefore one should not have a block either to the off (in which case the right toes might be in front of the wicket), or short and too near the wicket.
Before and after taking guard one should look round to see how the field is placed.
As to the waiting-position, one may try several and choose that which is the best basis and starting-pose for most ordinary strokes. But first one should develop the various muscles, especially those needed for the quick movements; otherwise one might adopt an attitude suited for safe play when a more Jessop-like or at least a more Stoddart-like or Abel-like attitude might be better for one. A good attitude for many will be Shrewsbury’s as seen in the Photograph (I.). The body should be nearly sideways,
I.—Waiting for the ball, with the weight balanced almost evenly upon the two feet (which are near together), but rather on the right foot.
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with the legs (or only the left leg) very slightly bent, and ready to move backwards or forwards. One should not be stiff, but should be inclined to looseness, until one knows which ball is coming; till then one should be ready to run or jump out if it should be desirable. The feet should probably be quite near to one another, the right being near the crease and parallel to the wicket, the left outside the crease and pointing more towards the bowler. Probably both should be resting on their balls, and rather—so Mr. Fry advises—on the insides of their balls.
The weight of most batsmen should be upon the right foot, the batsman’s basis. Abel stands on the ball of his right foot; that is good if one be quick-footed. Ranjitsinhji explains some of the reasons why the weight should rest on the right foot—he instances several forms of exercise, such as boxing; for Tennis and Racquets I have spent hours in practising quick movements in all directions with the stiff right leg as my pivot. The left foot may be slightly up and prepared to move out along some forward line. In case of a late cut one has time to shift the weight on to it and make it the pivot.
The bat is usually held with one hand near the top of the handle and the other hand near the middle of the handle; if one holds the right hand lower down one gets more control, but may lose some pace; one is more apt to stoop, and to lift the ball. But for some strokes, as for certain late cuts, the shifted grip is often preferable; one should be able to slip the right hand down the handle towards the blade, near to which so many of the stone-wallers love to keep it. As the right foot and leg hold the ground more firmly, so does the right hand and wrist hold the bat more firmly, though there should be no tight and tense grip till the stroke is being made. One can—as Abel and Shrewsbury put it—“feel the nip” of the bat without any unnecessary tension. Not a few players have the grip of the two hands almost equal.
The left elbow should be well up, so as to keep the handle of the bat nearer to the bowler and thus to prevent a chance of catches. And the whole body and head should be well up as the bowler begins to bowl, so that the best possible view may be given.
One must watch the fingers and wrist and arm of the bowler; a change in his fingers
II.—Forward play: the bat has been drawn straight up and back (not in a curve) before the stroke.
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will mean a change of the ball he will bowl. Thus Hirst’s balls will differ according to the way in which his fingers are arranged (see the photographs). Abel generally watches the wrist rather than the fingers.
While the bowler is bowling, one should usually draw the bat up and back, without flourish, in the line opposite to the line of the approaching ball. The photograph of Shrewsbury (II.) shows the bat lifted for a straight ball which he is going to play (not drive) straight forward. By lifting the bat one gets more impetus and can use one’s height and weight better.
Attention and alertness—these are to be maintained. “This one thing I do now,” “On this depends everything”; such are samples of the suggestions which I often make to myself at my own games. Yet I try to economise energy and not to waste any of it; attention without tension, alertness without fidgetiness—these are right.
“Timing the ball is the secret,” says Giffen. It is a secret, not the secret. Nor is it a simple rule; timing is (see page 7) a concoction of many good things.
A simpler general rule is not to leave a large space between the bat and the legs, lest one should be bowled off one’s pads. The photograph of Abel shows no intervening space at all.
Another simple general (but not universal) rule is to end up—as in forward play—with the handle held by the first finger and thumb of the right hand and of the left; the other three fingers scarcely have any influence here. The nails of all four fingers—as in the photograph—should face the bowler (or yourself if you were opposite a mirror). The bat must not be tilted upwards nor drawn back behind the line of the right foot, which is firmly on the ground, and is certainly not drawn away to the leg-side.
About the “fixed right foot” there is—as we shall see—a great fallacy; theory has been allowed to controvert the practice of the leading experts. Shrewsbury in the photograh (III.) has his right foot firm indeed, and not shifted to the leg-side, but back almost to the wicket itself. W. G., in a photograph in Ranjitsinhji’s book, has his right foot back, though not nearly so far back. I scarcely ever see a player whose regular habit is not to shift back his right foot somewhat
III.—Playing back: the right foot has retired nearer the wicket, so as to give longer time for seeing the ball.
Note.—The bat should be held straight. This photograph was taken before Shrewsbury was in practice.
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in back play. Shrewsbury will tell one to get back far enough, moving back with the ball. This obviously gives one more time to see the ball and its break, turning a ball that is just a trifle short into a ball that is nearly a long hop; if the legs be—as they often are—in front of the wicket, so as to give a still better sight of the ball and also to save a play-on, then the retreat of the right foot is obviously useful. Others, however, do not move it in front of the wicket. But nearly all back-play is actually practised with the retirement of the right foot. Murdoch’s words are worth quoting at some length:—
“In the majority of cases, my experience has been that, by moving the right foot as much or as little as judgment dictates, the stroke is made with far more ease than by having your right foot a fixture. If you will take the trouble to notice all players, you will see for yourself that in almost every case when they are playing back the right foot is always moved. And, again, you will find you have far more command and power over the ball, and especially so over a rising one, and you can finish your stroke in a far safer way.... My advice to you is to move the right foot when, in your judgment, it requires it; if you find you can play the ball with ease by not moving it, well and good; but should you at any time think you could play the ball better by getting back a little, why do so, and you will find it will give you a particle more time and enable you to make things very much easier.
“I think the art of boxing very applicable to forward and back play of cricket, for whilst boxing is nearly all forward strokes, there are many times when a boxer has to get back, and he generally finds what a great difference there is in receiving a hit whilst standing principally on his right foot, and when he has moved it a few inches in getting back. So it is with your back-play at cricket, the velocity of the ball is not so great two feet back from your crease as it is right on it. The advantage of time is no doubt momentary, but still it is an advantage, and one that I have proved and seen to be very beneficial.”
One kind of glide-stroke forms a special branch of back-play: it is to be seen in the photograph of Abel (IV.). Ranjitsinhji is the master of this most useful stroke; he plays it for balls on the wicket as well as for balls to leg. Others use it chiefly or solely for balls off the wicket. For this stroke I believe every player has the right foot back. The bat’s face is held not flat towards the bowler, but slanting in one of many directions on the leg-side, according to the spot to which one wishes to place the ball.
The “half-cock” stroke is Grace’s favourite help in time of trouble. When he hesitates between forward and back-play, and especially after he has decided on forward-play and
IV.—The glide: both feet well back.
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V.—Playing back: right foot retired, to give extra time for seeing the ball; weight on right foot. This is Shrewsbury’s stroke when he feels “beaten” by the bowler.
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then doubts whether he can reach out near enough to the pitch of the ball to smother the ball, he is content to strike the ball scarcely at all, if at all, and to hold his bat half way between its forward and back positions, and wait in hope.
Shrewsbury, however, if the ball be straight, prefers to bring his bat straight down on to the block. He is to be seen doing this in the photograh (V.).
It appears to me that, as most Lawn Tennis players learn back-play securely before they learn forward-play (play, i.e., at the net), so most cricketers should learn back-play securely; they should learn to play forward, of course; but, as Mr. C. B. Fry says, they should not learn that only. Inasmuch as back-play is the easier and more natural—except for the art of not drawing away the right foot towards the leg side—it should probably precede the mastery of forward-play, towards which mastery the “half-cock” stroke might form a transition step.
There may be days when scarcely any forward-play is needed; there may be experts who prefer back-play even on fast and true pitches, just as Mr. A. W. Gore, the amateur Lawn Tennis champion of 1901, prefers habitual back-play at his game. But every player should be able to play forward, particularly to swift good-length balls on quick plumb-wickets which are either too dry or else too slippery to bite the ball and allow it to break; on the fast slippery wickets, however, forward-play must be accurate, because of the occasional shooter. Besides the safety of such forward-play, since it can smother the ball, there is the extra delight of meeting if not of attacking, and also of performing a movement which is not by any means natural—the extra delight of overcoming a mechanical difficulty.
We may begin to study this forward-play (for which we have already offered certain exercises—see above) by a couple of quotations from well-known writers.
“The golden rules to guide the beginner in playing forward may be very briefly stated. (1.) Play forward when the ball is fairly well pitched up, but remember that the faster the bowling and the faster the wicket the more frequently will forward-play be the safer style of play. (2.) Keep the bat quite
VI.—Playing forward to a ball on the off: the straight bat has passed near and beyond the left foot in a “follow-through.” Notice the fingers, especially the first finger and thumb of the left hand. At the end of the stretch the left arm is fully extended, and the right heel has come off the ground.
straight and the left shoulder and elbow well forward. (3.) Get as near to the pitch of the ball as possible. (4.) Do not put the bat further forward than the level of the left foot, which ought to be thrown right forward.”
“No forward-stroke is absolutely safe unless the ball is smothered. There are many very beautiful strokes effected by forward-play at the rising ball. Such strokes, however, are purely plumb-wicket strokes.”
In the face of this latter quotation, and of (3) of the first quotation, and in the face of the habitual practice of many leading experts (see Photographs VI., VII., VIII., of Abel and Shrewsbury) in following through with the bat beyond the left foot, the statement in (4) is absurd. And yet, as we shall see in the Chapter on Fallacies, it appears in almost every work on Cricket.
Personally I should far sooner see the general rule stated as follows:—
“At the root of good ordinary forward-play lies extension both direct (not curved) and well-timed and well-co-ordinated (not too early or too late, and not piece by piece—for example, first the foot, then the left elbow), and fast and powerful (not slow and tame), and full (not arrested); at the root of it lies such extension of right leg, left foot, left shoulder, left elbow, left wrist; but within the limits of power, and of balance or rapid recovery of balance.” When Abel or Shrewsbury can thus safely and strongly reach out an extra fifteen inches beyond the left foot, and thus smother a ball and its break, why forbid it? If only in case a ball hangs a bit, and also for the sake of the follow-through—I believe that nearly every ball-game stroke demands a follow-through—such a passing of the blade’s end beyond the left foot may be advisable.
Be this as it may—and it must be settled by practice, not by theory—at any rate the law holds good that for ordinary ground-play (as distinct from the drive out of the ground) the left wrist must come before the right, the right shoulder being kept down.
The base, the safe ἀφορμή of forward-play, is the firm right foot (nearly parallel to the three wickets) and the straight right leg. From this base the left leg has, as it were, to radiate forward in one or another straight line towards the approaching balls; not straight at those balls, but a few inches to one’s left; certainly not necessarily straight forward down the line from wicket to wicket, as the forward play of Abel to a ball on the off will show (see Photograph VI.); in fact, to a left hand bowler round the wicket one should as a rule not play along this line, but along a line further outwards to one’s right. The left toe points, and the left foot moves, not at but towards the line of the approaching ball, allowance being made for a curl or a break that will alter this line. It is the line that the ball will be making just when it strikes the bat (or, rather, just when it is struck by the bat) that has to be met by the bat, which must move in a line a few inches to the right of the left foot. The line both of left foot and of bat must be direct, not curved.
Over one’s bat comes one’s head: as Abel says, one must get above the ball and smell it. The bat itself, for ground-play, must not be tilted with its blade nearer to the bowler than its handle is, lest a catch be sent up. Its direction from the line when one lifts it before the stroke (see Photograph II.), right up to the end of the follow-through (see Photograph VIII.), must be as straight as possible; like a boxer’s blow straight from the shoulder, and not like the swirling arm of the unskilled navvy, even if both these movements might reach the same goal eventually. The curved line means a loss of time and of power, as well as a risk—for it allows a smaller margin of error.
The stroke should be all in one piece, the power beginning when the bat is near to the left leg, and of course reaching its fulness from each part of the mechanism just when the blade hits the ball.
To what part of the mechanism would one do best to attend? The firm right foot is the base, the point d’appui, the terminus a quo. I should say that the terminus ad quem, the point of limit, should be the outside joint of the left wrist. Let that go right out to its stretch. Most of us, by taking thought, can add an inch or so to our reach. I added two inches to my (easy) forward reach within two months.
The hand’s grip should change as the left wrist shoots outward. In the waiting position the bowler (or you yourself in a mirror) can see the back of your left hand; then
IX.—Position of hands and fingers at the end of the forward stroke: the left hand has shifted round, the right hand holds the bat with thumb and first finger only.
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back and up goes the bat—not too far, but enough to get power (my own ordinary Tennis and Racquet strokes and many a golfer’s ordinary strokes go up and back quite a short way as compared with the old-fashioned “complete” swing); then, as the bat comes down and forward, you yourself (if you had not your eye on the ball) should be able to see the back of your bat and above it the back of your left hand (as in Photograph IX. of Shrewsbury’s hands). So far as the left side is concerned, the stroke is an exaggeration of a left-handed backhand stroke, except that the thumb in cricket does not support the handle as it often does in Racquets.
If any one cannot yet play forward, but wishes to learn the art, let him practise (as I have recently done) this turn of the fingers, this outward stretch of left wrist, left elbow, left shoulder, straight along a line, full, swift, weighty. It is amazing how soon the straight line can become easy if one works faithfully along a line upon the floor and opposite a mirror, correcting all errors by the opposite exaggerations, but first of all securing the foundation—the long straight lunge of the left foot. Sandow and all high authorities say, Throw the whole will, focus the whole attention, concentrate the whole mind, fix the whole vital force, upon the muscles which you are using; first do this upon the left foot, then upon the left wrist (if not upon the handle of the bat, strange as it may sound).
Having acquired this free forward line, then practise a speedy recovery of balance afterwards, and a readiness to start running. Later on, add to these two a few actual steps. Eventually, though you may have had to conquer each mechanism by itself, as I conquered every part of my Tennis and Racquet strokes separately, yet you will be able to combine them together so harmoniously that no one will guess or believe how you gained your stroke. It appears so exactly like a unity, so exactly like one single action—that lunge with full weight, and recovery of equilibrium—that people tell me I never could have learnt it part-by-part. But I did. I can tell every part, though now the whole move is a unit. There is absolutely no necessity to begin by doing the whole stroke at once, so long as eventually you can combine the various members of it into a harmonious whole. Otherwise any one individual bad part may spoil the whole effect.
This correct stroke frustrates the bowler’s attempt to make you tilt up your bat’s blade and send a catch: having your left wrist well forward beyond your right, you keep your strokes down. Another common fault besides the tilted bat is the crooked bat, the bat of which the blade is too far to the off; this fault is obviated chiefly by the straight right leg: bend the right leg, and the tendency is for both these faults to appear.
Forward play may be either defensive or offensive. The latter kind merges into the ground-drive. In either case the average-eyed person must get to the pitch of the ball and smother it, or must not play forward, but either do the half-cock stroke or else step back and give himself the largest possible time in which to see the ball’s flight. The defensive should as a rule precede the offensive, both while one is learning to play forward and also while one is beginning any innings at a net or in a game. A few forward stretches before play will perhaps save a premature dismissal through stiffness.
In forward ground-driving the rule of not letting the bat’s blade go beyond the left foot is far more reasonable. One must get well over the ball, the power coming chiefly from just that jerk of shoulder, fore-arm, and wrist which Latham and Pettitt and a few others use at Racquets—the jerk of some whippers of peg-tops. But for this drive the bat need not move quite so near to the left foot. Moreover the bat may finish up with a smaller follow-through. Let the forward left elbow arrest the swing of the right arm, lest the bat be tilted and the ball rise: that wrench of the left elbow-joint is a satisfactory sign.
The forward off-drive (for a ball not coming at the wicket) allows of a far freer swing, and, if you see it well, of a far less straight bat. It needs more right wrist and less left elbow restraint. Indeed, it may end up with the bat over the left shoulder. Photograph XIII. shows Abel’s position for such a drive, though the position is better suited for a cut-drive.
For the forward on-drive the left foot is pointed out towards mid-on.
There used to be a fallacy that the pull was bad form because it was ungraceful; but now-a-days grace is of little account