FAULTS IN PLAY AND PRACTICE.
No part of this book do I edit with such confidence as the part that
deals with faults. I seem to have had every one of a certain class,
though not want of endurance and strength, nor a bad eye, nor
unwillingness; ignorance I had, not apathy. My chief sin--of which I
shall speak below--was that I tried to practise the whole rather than
its parts; I had matches, games, nets in abundance, and a few fielding
lessons, but made hardly any progress.
And so it is with most. They try the whole--or at least the whole
stroke--all together at first, seldom if ever concentrating their
attention on any one part. They do what is natural, and this is usually
“wrong.” They have no method of learning, except repetition which will
only increase and ingrain the faults. Authorities recommend
net-practice; but much of it is surely next to useless until the A B C
has been mastered by batsman and bowler. If there are three bowlers at a
net, the batsman gets excessive variety of bowling, the balls follow one
another in too quick succession, each dulling the memory of the previous
two; after the stroke--in which there is little incentive for
carefulness--the batsman does not recover balance and prepare to run;
the bowler has small inducement to lead up to a special head-ball, as he
would by a consecutive series in a game, and, besides, he gets the wrong
intervals--not a series, then a rest, but a single ball, then a rest;
last, and not least, there are few fielders.
Let us be more concrete, and point out a few of the definite faults
which are encouraged rather than removed by ordinary net play and games.
Stand directly behind the wicket in a school or college game, or behind
a practice-net, and watch the batsman play forward; you will generally
see the bat move up and back and then towards the ball in a far from
straight line. That fault, it is well known, may be partially remedied
by practice along a chalk line on the bed room or pavilion floor. “Play
with a straight bat,” is the most familiar commandment. Besides, you may
notice that his left foot does not go out nearly to the full extent of
which a young and vigorous limb should be capable, and it does not go
out straight; the bat may move towards the ball, but between it and the
left foot is a great gap, through which the ball may pass. This is not
the only fatal result. The left foot is sending the weight of the body
too much to the left, to the leg-side, instead of straight down upon the
ball: there is loss of power. Now does the fault lie with the hands and
arms and shoulders that move and direct the bat, or with the left leg
and foot? Sometimes with both, but nearly always with the left leg and
foot, which tend to get away from their work. The lesson is obvious; but
I have never heard any coach advise players to practise their feet
alone. Yet how else can one learn to control them--that is, if one does
not control them instinctively--except by concentrating the mind on them
_at first_ and until they will of themselves do what one wants? Mr. C.
B. Fry alone seems to realise the importance of the feet--of their
correct positions and movements. For years I have been studying them in
Racquets and Tennis, for years I have been convinced that this is why,
_ceteris paribus_, most unsuccessful players are unsuccessful; for years
I have been training mine; and at length, instead of being always
unready and out of position in my racket-games, as I was at Marlborough,
I am now told that I am almost invariably ready and in position. If this
practice be vitally indispensable at Racquets and at Tennis, if it has
proved abundantly worth while, why not at Cricket also? In what
essential respects do strokes at Cricket differ herein from strokes at
these games?
This is just one example of the lines on which much of the book is
written. As, for my own games, I studied Latham and Standing, Brown and
Pettitt, Fennell and Harradine, Saunders and Fairs, so here I have
studied Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury. What they do regularly, if
unconsciously, this I have found out by questions and by the
incontrovertible evidence of photographs, and this I have then analysed
and described especially for the benefit of beginners, but also, it is
hoped, for the benefit of others who--like myself at my own
games--played and played and played, practised and practised and
practised, but wrongly, for want of simple teaching, for want of
elementary apprenticeship, for want of knowledge and mastery of the very
alphabet of play; and so scarcely improved but rather confirmed their
bad habits.
Let me diverge for a moment to give a word of warning. To all such
players--whether their form of exercise be Cricket or Racquets or Tennis
or Lawn Tennis or other games--I would say: “Do not grudge time and
trouble spent over the simple A B C, _at the start_; get over the
drudgery; make the letters and words automatic--integral parts of your
very self and of its cells, fibres, nerves, and muscles; then and not
till then play naturally. But do not imagine that it is worth while to
play naturally so long as at least one-third of the mechanism of your
body is wrongly employed or else atrophied through neglect. Develop all
your important muscles (for pray tell me what important muscles are not
wanted by a good batsman, a good bowler, a good fielder), by prompt fast
and full movements of the two sides of the body independently--a most
vital point; by extension movements; by practice in weight-shifting
and balance; by imitation-batting and its various motions,
imitation-bowling, imitation-fielding and throwing, in a bedroom or
elsewhere. (I do a little nearly every morning.) Then and not till then
will you have a right to tell me that you can’t play or can’t improve in
spite of nets and games. Then and not till then will I believe you. Till
then, I repeat, you are not yet a real failure. You have not done
yourself justice.” For we wish in this book to prove several things that
may give hope especially to young players and duffers, and to those who,
alas, have abandoned our great national game in despair, because they
have not found it worth the expenditure of money, time, tediousness, and
disappointment.
Let us consider in how many respects one may very likely be making
serious mistakes. Let us realise the multitude of possible faults.
1. First of all--as the photographs will clearly show, thanks to the new
idea of the white line out from the middle stump--the feet are the
foundations of successful and therefore of enjoyable play. Abel plays
with his feet. We must have their positions and movements not only
correct but also automatically correct--already integral parts of
ourselves--if we would wait well, play forward well, play back well,
pull well, drive well, step or jump out well, cut well, cut-drive well,
bowl well, field well. So long as we have to be thinking consciously of
our feet, we cannot focus our attention on the bowler’s wrist or the
batsman’s bat. He who would succeed must--unless he be a genius, a born
player--drill his feet for a few minutes almost every day. Such drill
will be useful for many games and forms of sport, as for Football,
Hockey, Track-athletics, self-defence, to say nothing of the mental and
moral training which are indissolubly bound up with the physical.
2. Secondly, the weight and the balance of the body must be under
control both during and after the stroke or other movement. Over his
foot-work and equilibrium the keen fencer will spend many months; why
should not the keen cricketer thus spend several hours? Does he not
think that Cricket is of more value than many fencings? Now although the
whole weight of the body must move together, especially in the forward
stroke, yet perfect balance implies perfect (conscious or else
sub-conscious) control of _all_ the muscles, in Cricket scarcely to a
less degree than in skating. To put the total force into batting or
bowling would mean with the average player either a fall or a strain.
But with special practice the power is acquired. Almost any one can by
sheer practice, even of the least scientific kind, learn to direct his
limbs and yet maintain his balance in skating; and if in skating why not
in Cricket also, particularly should special practice-exercises be
devised? These have been devised, and are offered in this volume.
3. It is above all in the full extensions that average cricketers are
weak. “I say, reach out and field them,” is the complaint of the school
captain; “Come forward to it; get your bat well over the ball--get right
to the pitch of it,” is the refrain of the coach. But if the ordinary
person followed out the instructions he would perhaps tumble over.
Extension of legs, trunk, arms--this can be mastered by proper practice.
Fencers and boxers can master it; why not cricketers also?
4. Boxers and “Bartitsu” experts have to be alert on the balls of their
feet, and ready to move now here, now there--not ever to lose poise,
but to put the full weight, to make the full extension, to shoot out the
required limb or limbs fast and straight and true. The batsman, the
fielder, the bowler (at least after he has bowled), all have to be
prompt commanders of their many-portioned persons, waiting for the
unknown, or, rather, for some one out of the several knowns. At present
we have scarcely any means, except the imagination, of practising
preparedness for the unforeseen. But at least we can, again by specially
contrived exercises as distinct from dumb-bells, weight-lifting,
strain-exercisers, gymnastics, develop an almost incredible looseness of
joint and litheness of limb, so that after a little play at the game
itself, merely to have seen the ball will mean to have formed “the
ready” in a moment, and to be waiting _in_ “the ready”--“the ready”
being that position from which the strokes, etc., are most easily and
safely made; whereas without such practice we should have stood and
waited in “the unready” and should either have missed the strokes, etc.,
altogether, or should have made them with difficulty and with risk.
5. Nor is it mere quickness to prepare that the cricketer needs; he
needs also quickness to perform, to carry through. In the hundred yards
sprint, one should not only start rapidly, one should also run rapidly.
As training for this we require fast full movements, simple to begin
with (first for the right side, then for the left); but afterwards more
and more varied, complex, and speedy. Nothing could be better here than
the Macdonald Smith system. Slow movements of strain are not to be
recommended for Cricket purposes, except in so far as they strengthen
the fingers and the wrist and the forearm. And even these parts should
not be strengthened till they have already become prompt to start and to
move, lithe and supple under the control of the will.
6. A high authority, quoted in a previous chapter, asserts that Cricket
does not need very special training. But we insist that, if one
wishes--and one ought to wish--to run fast and vigorously and to move
fast and vigorously (whether as a batsman or as a bowler or as a
fielder), one should be in condition analogous to that of a football
three-quarters. Quite apart from control of special muscles or sets of
muscles, one must be able to run and move not only fast, but often; one
must have endurance, or else one will amble after a ball--a disgusting
sight to the true sportsman--instead of racing after it. And one should
be calm; calmness, I find in my own case, is an inseparable
accompaniment of good condition. Bad condition is a very serious fault;
it “flusters” the player.
There is no space to enlarge upon errors in detail; for example, to warn
the batsman against bending his right knee (except for the late cut), or
against lifting his bat up and back in a crooked line before the stroke
(this he can test by means of a looking-glass), or against standing too
far from his work as if he were playing Lawn Tennis or Golf. These and
other hindrances to success will be dealt with in the special chapters.
Here let us rather try once again to emphasise _the_ fault of faults.
“Don’t slog at a ball well up to the off,” “Don’t pull”--these are not
fundamental rules; they are good for nearly all beginners, but less
applicable to him who has mastered the mechanism and elements of play
already. _The_ mistake is to have failed to master this mechanism; to
have neglected the apprenticeship--an apprenticeship for a game which
then becomes in itself an admirable apprenticeship for serious life as
well as a relief from that life, and yet is both complex and to a great
extent against nature in general and the nature of a player of
ball-games in particular. To play forward with full force and with the
bat near to the left foot and not tilted upwards--this implies a very
special skill, with considerable restraint. The average player fails
here. He has neglected to practise with concentration and care certain
all-important parts of his forward-playing apparatus. He might have
mastered each one of these parts and made it his own, and then have
combined them; the straight full lunge with the weight thrown on to the
left leg and with the right leg stretched straight; the complete
forward-extension of the left elbow with some shoulder-movement; the
turning of the left hand so that its knuckles shall face the bowler. For
a late cut he might repeat, till they become easier and easier, the step
across (an imaginary) wicket with the right foot, the shoulder-jerk, the
forearm-jerk, the wrist-flick. Other strokes need other things; the pull
needs the body-twisting from the hips; bowling needs not only large
movements but also fine turns of the fingers and wrist. Let any player
have neglected such mechanisms, and he need not wonder at ill-success.
Should he disbelieve me, then he must watch some expert at work: if the
expert will give an exhibition stripped, so much the better. This will
certainly convince any one that the co-operation and co-ordination of
many members of the body is demanded by nearly every department of the
play.
The use of the left-side will then emerge clearly into its prominent
importance. Cricket can claim infinitely more left-sided skill and power
than any authority seems to imagine. A man is said to bat right-handed;
but watch his ordinary play forward, feel his left shoulder and forearm
and his left thigh: the stroke is only more right-sided than left-sided.
In the drive along the ground, the left arm may serve as a powerful
check, as it may in the late cut. Good fielding requires frequent quick
and complete extensions of the left arm with power to catch while the
extension is still complete. To throw in with the left hand nearly as
well as with the right is an art alien to nearly every one; but alien by
neglect and not by want of birthright. Every boy should be taught to
throw with his left hand, or at least to pick up neatly with it. Nor
need any one, until he has tried fairly and failed, despair of some
success as a left-hand change-bowler, thanks to the break from the leg
and the unfamiliar point of departure from round the wicket.
The utter inability of at least nine individuals out of ten to make a
fast, full, and free extension with the arm in any unexpected direction
is closely connected with their inability to throw the body’s weight
rapidly hither and thither without loss of balance, without sacrifice of
“the ready.”
Hence and from other sources arise many special failings, which the use
of ordinary strain-apparatus or heavy dumb-bells would probably do very
little to correct. He whose _first_ aim has been to become strong--a
lifter or puller or pusher--may have hampered his rapidity of movement
for years, if not for all his active years. Of course he needs _some_
strength to hold and control a bat; but even that should not be
developed until the limbs already have their promptitude and speed. It
is not a matter of physical “development”--a term used by ignoramuses to
veil a multitude of faulty methods. It is a matter of _proper_ physical
development, one tending to _freedom_. And against this freedom I am
sure that the use of “manly” implements and conditions by boys must
militate. Most of the highest authorities are agreed here; I select one
or two quotations:--
“There are three great difficulties with which young boys have to
cope--the regulation size of the ball, the full distance between
the wickets, and the full size of the bat. Some attempt has been
made to provide them with bats to suit them, but, unfortunately,
most small-sized bats are made of inferior wood and are badly
shaped. All implements and conditions of the game should in every
case be proportioned to the players.”
“Why in the world is it that small boys are made to play cricket
with the same sized ball as Dr. Grace and Mr. Bonnor use? What a
ludicrous piece of mischievous uniformity this is! The only hope of
making cricket as really attractive and useful to young boys as it
might be, is to reduce the size of the ball as well as the size of
the bat, and keep the full distance. At present a diminutive brat
pummels the big ball with all his might, and it barely reaches
cover point; his best half-volley drive goes meekly into mid-on’s
hands--or, rather, it would, if the ball were not too big to get
there. Not only is his hitting spoilt: the throwing becomes
painful, and the bowling in spite of the short distance strains the
shoulder. The game is out of proportion because the fields need
never occupy their proper place, and the ball never travels to them
as it will hereafter, nor can they be expected to stop it clean
when it does reach them. The fact must be insisted on, that it is
all important to make cricket thoroughly attractive to young
players, or they will probably give it up.”
“Small boys cannot obviously use full-sized bats. The mischief
that results if they do is fatal. It is impossible for them to play
straight, because the end of the bat smites the ground and the
stroke comes to naught. Besides which, the excessive weight makes
them late for all the hits.”
Another disadvantage of this premature use of heavy implements is that
it encourages tension. Players like Mr. L. C. H. Palairet are singularly
free from it; but they are so by nature. With comparatively few
exceptions, the habit of tension is, alas, almost national. We English
are a stiff-bodied and stiff-legged people: the legs and body may be
fairly big and muscular, but the muscles are of the wrong order for
Cricket--akin to lumps of wood rather than to lithe pieces of snake.
Even when we watch cricket we often watch it with tense and strained
bodies: we do not sit reasonably comfortable.
Owing to these and other faults hundreds give up the game. They say that
they can not play it regularly (because it takes up too much time), and
that they do not play it well enough for it to be worth while. They may
be anxious to keep in practice and to improve, but they do not know how.
Others are not at all anxious; theirs is the most serious hindrance of
all--they are not keen. This is to some extent what is called
“constitutional,” but is largely due to ignorance of the ways of
learning, and to neglect of some one or more of the branches of play. As
to-day a person may be a clergyman or a surgeon or a physician, but is
seldom a healer of the whole patient, so in Cricket a person will be a
batsman or a bowler without any noticeable ambition to enlarge his
sphere of skill. In batting he may even be a fast-wicket batsman,
failing regularly on caked wickets. For fielding he has no enthusiasm;
or, if he is a fielder, he is perhaps good either at catching or at
picking up or at throwing in--not at all.
Lack of enthusiasm, lack of concentration on and absorption in every
part of the play as its turn comes round, this is almost fatal if not to
success at least to success that is worth having. And I am not sure that
the grievous and fatal error of allowing the eye to leave the ball too
soon may not be to some extent a result of incomplete concentration.