GENERAL TRAINING FOR CRICKET.
There are some who deny that any special or even general training is
needed for Cricket. Ranjitsinhji says that “cricket does not demand that
severe course of training which is required by such athletic pursuits as
football and running.” That it does not _get_ that severe course is
obvious; what it demands, let us examine in the light of a few facts
which no one would dream of disputing.
If the game is to flourish, if it is to remain interesting (or, shall we
say, to become interesting again), our modern plumb wickets demand many
more and far better bowlers, especially fast and medium bowlers. We hear
laments over the brief career of a Richardson as if it were inevitable;
but knowing the nature of stimulants--they are a kind of whip or
spur--and that meat is one kind, tea and coffee another, alcohol
another, to say nothing of the irritant stimulants such as pepper,
mustard, and salt, can we expect a man to go unharmed through a series
of hard seasons if he uses the whip or the spur even “in moderation”
twice or three times daily during many years? Now has any well-known
fast bowler ever yet paid any real and special attention to diet (apart
from the general adherance to “moderation” in quantity)? Has any,
besides, kept up quick and interesting exercise of his body during the
idle months? I do not allude to weight-lifting, which may be fatal to
fast bowling, but to sensible exercises and breathing-exercises, say for
ten minutes each morning. To me it seems obvious that a fast bowler, if
he wishes to keep up his pace and endurance, must keep up at least as
severe a course as football or running require.
Secondly, if the game is to be interesting and to flourish, we need good
fielders--the second and I think the most important reform to counteract
successful batting. We need fielders to be energetic, always ready to
stretch out in any direction, to run in any direction at full pace,
alert to back up, quick to throw in accurately. Yet how many dozen
fielders outside the Yorkshire and Australian teams, how many out of our
thousands, are even reasonably brisk, especially at the end or even in
the middle of a day in the country? For my own part I should like to see
a very severe course of training here; if the boys or men are going to
stand there at all, let them at any rate stand in “the ready.” The
listless loafing in most school and college matches is positively
disgusting.
Thirdly, the batsman as well as the bowler and fielders should “feel the
nip,” as Abel and Hirst and Shrewsbury agree; it is the result of
fitness, and expresses itself chiefly in the fingers and wrist (at my
games I get it in the balls of my feet also). The player should feel it
not only during the first few minutes of play, but to some extent up to
half-time at any rate. Mere endurance is not enough--this is not what I
mean. I mean that joy in having hands and feet, which should be a
general condition, but actually is an occasional condition--how many of
the players can tell you why they have it at such-and-such a time? I
find it comes naturally from my training, which is as severe as I
should adopt for football or athletics, yet is a “training without
straining,” a training that need not interfere with brain-work.
It is more than endurance, this feeling; it is enduring freshness. And,
until both bowlers and fielders get it somehow or other, Cricket will
probably be a one-sided affair--poor sport for the majority. It is as
helps towards this enduring freshness that I offer a few hints as worth
putting into practice. Let their results speak for them or against them.
Many professionals rely on walking, with an occasional run, as their
sole exercise, and “not too much” as their sole law about diet, alcohol,
and tobacco. Abel may practice a few strokes in a room; Hirst may play
Knur-spell; Shrewsbury may get some practice on cokernut matting. But
for the most part net-practice and Cricket itself are waited for and
relied on. Now all these things are good, but by themselves are not good
enough for ordinary people.
One notices a bowler run slackly after a ball, lest he should find
himself out of breath. Breathing exercises are needed by nine
cricketers out of ten. The whole apparatus--low and middle and
upper--should be developed by full and frequent inhaling through the
nose, by brisk movements, by diving and swimming, and so on. He who has
a bad wind, whether because some parts of the breathing apparatus are
undeveloped or overdeveloped, or owing to fatness, indigestion,
constipation, smoking, drinking, deficient sleep, or sleep in bad air,
muscular tension, etc., is at a most serious disadvantage. Either he
does not run and move with speed, and thus is to that extent an inferior
batsman, bowler, or field, or else he does move and becomes “puffed,”
and of necessity loses “eye” and nerve. As Murdoch remarks:--“There is
no doubt in my mind that running affects your eyesight in a greater or
lesser degree, according to the condition you are in.”
The following quotation is also sound common sense:--“The better your
condition, the less chance there is of your doing what boxers have
generally to do, and what I have often heard batsmen express as sparring
for wind. If you should care to go in for a system of training, it can
only do good; for in every department of the game, the better condition
you are in, the better chances you have of doing yourself justice. Good
condition means stamina, and you certainly want this to play a long
innings; and solely for the want of it I have seen batsmen get out. You
certainly require it, should you have a day’s outing in the field,
especially so if you are a bowler; so my advice is to make it a rule to
be as fit as possible.”
But to return to breathing, breathing slowly outwards, together with a
relaxing of the muscles, tends not only to endurance (by economy of
force), but also to calmness, patience, and contentment. All players,
and especially the nervous, need a very fine course of nerve-training in
these.
With the calmness, however, there must be promptness and quickness. The
senses must send a quick message to the brain, which must then give a
quick order to the muscles, which in their turn must quickly work
together in harmony. As to the senses, we need to have a clear eye,
and--a much under-estimated help--a keen ear. Therefore we need clear
blood, which will give us also clean joints and clean limbs--joints free
from deposits, limbs free from excessive fat or water or waste. We need
a brisk intellect, including a sensitive observation and retentive
memory. These may all be trained by the Macdonald Smith System, which I
should like to see as a part of national education. It is not complete,
but it is extremely useful. It will help, for example, to give a quick
and fairly strong wrist without that stiffness which is singularly fatal
in nearly every province of the game.
Exercises according to this system, together with exercises in complete
extensions, will be suggested in other chapters. I should like to do
away altogether with that popular test “How large does the muscle look?”
and to substitute for it, among other tests, “How far does the limb
stretch?” In the other chapters will also be emphasised the importance
of balance: one must be able to use weight without loss of poise.
The subject of training has been dealt with in a special volume of this
library, and food in particular has formed the subject of “Muscle,
Brain, and Diet.” Here we must be content to select a very few hints of
a general kind. Let us begin with food.
To what we shall say there will be exceptions. Some players are at their
very best after the grossest excesses, perhaps partly because the blood
has been cleared for the time by the quantities of stimulants; but such
excesses cannot be relied on to produce the very best. Moreover, few
such men last long, even though for a while the outward eye sees little
or no decay. If any one thinks he must have an occasional “bust,” let it
be very occasional. Far safer advice would be as follows:--Find out what
is nourishing to you. Don’t assume that it must be meat. It may be
cheese or Plasmon, or the pulses or nut foods or good grain-foods, all
of which have plenty of blood-forming and cell-building proteid, as this
little table will show:--
APPROXIMATE AMOUNT OF PROTEID IN VARIOUS FOODS (UNCOOKED).
Beef 20.
Fish 10.
Eggs 12 to 16.
Cheese 20 to 30.
Plasmon 70 to 80.
Peas (dried) 21.
Lentils and haricots 23.
Nuts 10 to 24 (walnuts and filberts 14).
Hovis 10.
Wheat and whole-wheat products 11.
Roots and tubers, vegetables and salads, and most fruits, though useful
for other purposes, are poor in proteid.
Take enough nourishment: let that be your first rule. Take say four to
five ounces of proteid a day, trying and testing several sources when
you have little at stake (as on Sundays). You can generally control one
of your daily meals. Start the experiment there. Eat slowly and enjoy
the taste fully. Don’t swallow disagreeable masses of vegetables or
slops: that is neither sense nor science. On Sunday give the in-side a
holiday: that is both sense and religion. Let the Sabbath rest for the
digestion be your second rule.
Find out what are stimulants and narcotics, and let your third rule be
this: never to become the slave of them; never to rely on them; above
all, never to let yourself increase the quantity so that you have to add
to the previous dose before anything “begins to count.” This is a
practical counsel, rather than a counsel of perfection.
If you are against any great change, any experimentation, then let me
give you some commonplaces, they are better than nothing. Keep to
moderation in quantity; go early to bed, till you find the fascinations
of a fresh head and body in the morning and throughout the day and many
days to follow, greater than the fascination night after night of
drinking, smoking, and cards; sleep with shut mouth, open windows, light
clothes; rise or work early; clean yourself with warm water and
friction; invigorate yourself with cool or cold water and friction, then
with brisk full movements; relax your limbs for a few moments now and at
bed-time; never have anxiety about anything; never have ill-feeling
against anyone; add to this little repertoire all helps that are
available everywhere, however poor you may be--not champagne, but
air-and-light baths, massage, and so on. Be clean with mind and mouth as
well as in body and limb; keep your physical vigour for play; study
health, not morbidly, but sensibly; be able to box, and supplement
Cricket with other games and exercises.
During the play, play with your whole heart and soul, as a member of a
team, but as an important and special member. Concentrate not only while
batting, bowling, and fielding, but while watching the niceties and
learning new points, and also while practising at a net or in a room; as
when you exercise yourself at starting in various directions, or at
step-dancing (as Mr. C. B. Fry advises), or at fast extensions, such as
stooping, or at throwing movements, or at bowling-movements. Concentrate
as if there were nothing else at all in the whole world but to do each
of these things very well--to do each of them better than any one ever
expected you would be able to. Throw your nerve-power, your will and
mind, your self, into your muscles, or, if you prefer, into their
reflection in the looking-glass. Each pavilion should have a large
mirror in it. At odd moments imagine different movements, different
strokes--and especially when undesirable thoughts come, unless you have
strength of mind to tire yourself out before sleep.
Perhaps you will never become very great at batting, though fair batting
seems to me to be within the reach of most people who take the proper
trouble; perhaps not very great at bowling either, though how most boys
or men should expect to bowl while they have huge muscle-areas and tiny
muscle areas so ill-controlled, I cannot tell; at least, however, you
may become great at fielding--quick to start and run, sure to catch.
Think what that needs--and practise accordingly.
So much for the attention when you are playing, practising, or training,
and when you are idle or inclined to worse than idleness. Insist on
complete concentration; recall again and again your wandering thought,
your roving eye and inquisitive ear. Say to yourself, “This one thing I
do now with all my heart.”
But apply that same concentration to whatever you do, if it is really
worth doing, or has to be done. Let each thing in turn be the sole thing
for which you were born. When other things are to be done, resolve not
to do or think Cricket. I believe that this may prove an excellent cure
for staleness.
The question of “staleness” has already been well discussed by Mr. A. G.
Steel, Mr. Edward Lyttelton, and many others. In my own games I believe
I am never stale now, and I attribute this blessing chiefly to my diet.
In the “trinity of games,” Cricket, there need be no staleness through
boredom, if only the player will cultivate all-roundness of play, and
will prepare for and supplement his Cricket by good brain-work, simple
exercises, and general health-culture. Much staleness is the result of
excessive, or else badly-chosen, or else badly-used, or else deficient
exercise, food, air, and so on; some is the result of the law of
vitality and of victory, that energy and success shall not be level, but
shall have tides; scarcely any, I believe, rests with Cricket itself. As
more than one able writer has pointed out, a successful cricketer is,
_ipso facto_, _not_ stale.
I am reluctant to preach, but it is useless to edit a book on cricket
without making clear to the reader that there is a problem for him to
solve _for himself_. No one else can possibly solve it for him. The most
I can do is to show my idea of the value of Cricket--the idea of one who
has not excelled at it, but who has decided to practise it for all that
it’s worth. What _is_ it worth? On the answer will depend the answer to
the question, “Is it worth much training?” For myself, I unhesitatingly
say “Yes.” During the next two years I shall practise exercises for
Cricket--for batting, bowling, and fielding; perhaps I shall not appear
in any game or match at all till then. This must not be misunderstood. I
shall focus my powers upon the exercises and practice, but before and
afterwards I shall try to keep them and the game in proper perspective
with reference to brain-work, character, the whole life. Others must do
the same, and cultivate Cricket according as it shall seem likely to
help with reference to these ends--not as first thing, I know; not as
last thing, I hope, but wherever it shall aid the body-building and
mind-building of a citizen of the British Empire and of the world. And
let me add a word. I am not sure that you will ever find a more
all-round exercise for the whole self, the whole _man_ (including the
“social animal” of Aristotle), than Cricket will be: it is not yet so,
but will be if it is properly played and practised and trained for,
_if_----
But if it is not properly done, if you don’t watch the game properly,
trying to get hints for use; if you don’t ask for advice from the best
professionals, experts, veterans, and spectators--they are the people;
if you loaf in the field and will not be prompt to start and stretch and
sprint and pick up and throw in, and safe “to have and to hold”; if you
will not learn to bat with the help of your feet and legs (I don’t mean
your pads), as well as with a straight bat and forward left elbow; if
you will not do exercises without which you cannot tell whether you will
be a bowler or not; if you will not train, or give up anything, or
study health at all; or, on the other hand, if you will not work, and do
not feel inclined to; well, then, I shall say, Cricket is not worth much
to you unless you are a born cricketer and also a born all-round boy or
man. At the most it is an open-air occupation with a certain value for
health, hardihood, discipline, social intercourse, but not much even of
a recreation. At its best its physical results may and probably must
develop corresponding intellectual and moral results, if not in this
generation and in this life, then surely in the next.