FALLACIES OF THEORISTS AND OTHERS.
It is safe to presume that every reader has read some one or more of the
many writings on Cricket (from a penny upwards); that he has seen many
good matches and many great amateur as well as professional experts;
that he has batted often, fielded often, bowled at least once. So there
need be no explanation of the game and its divisions; the reader already
knows pretty shrewdly the chief merits of batting, fielding, and
bowling, at least when he sees these merits. He rather needs to have
fallacies exposed and faults explained. This chapter will clear the
ground of rubbish after we have begun to sow advice upon it; the ground
must be cleared, even if it be necessary to pull down some old ruins
surviving from fifty years ago.
The first fallacy is about games in general, and about Cricket in
particular as the grandest of them all. And here we must distinguish
what our games _are_ to some few, from what they _can_ and _should be_
to many if not to all. We shall claim much for them as the British
nation claims much for itself--on the strength of its best examples,
without imagining that the full advantages are universally, or even
generally, realised. For the fallacy of many good players, that Cricket
actually is all that can be claimed for ideal Cricket, rather than that
it might and should be all this, is no less ridiculous. If, for example,
the fielder stands careless and listless, Cricket becomes for him almost
an exercise in non-promptitude! The ball runs to the side of him, his
lazy flop towards it is almost an exercise in non-extension as well. We
must guard against all extreme statements as to what cricket is. It
certainly is not an end in itself. Even all-round success in it is not
an end in itself; still less is success in some one branch only. But it
is as well for all who play Cricket to remind themselves if not of the
ideal yet of what is higher than their present actual.
Cricket is not merely a muscle-maker, a sort of gymnastic drill which
scarcely trains the nerves at all. To run out to a ball, to stand up to
a fast bowler and not draw away the right foot, to field a hard drive,
this means nerve. Nor is Cricket merely a physical health-maker or
disease-palliator. To have practised and played it properly is quite
impossible without some mental and moral exercise and health as well; it
is a social game of the best kind--it is a great bond of union. Far
above brainless frivolity, farther above mere recreation, it can be a
preparation for the whole of life, even for business life; for it can
teach co-operation, specialisation, patience, observation, promptness,
full extension, use of great weight and power without loss of poise. It
can be valuable for all life, which mere muscle-straining without
nerve-training, mere disease-avoidance, mere amusement, cannot possibly
be.
There are those who would not deny to Cricket some of these many merits,
but they would say that Cricket can only be played properly by born
players, that no others can ever play it well. To fielding this
certainly does not apply: fielders can be trained; so can batsmen, up to
a certain point; so--for all we know--can bowlers. I do not mean by the
present absence of method, but by the use of sensible methods.
For the common advice of the genius-players who are so often set to
teach the game is little likely to make cricketers. “Play in a natural
way,” they say. This advice must be exposed, though it is insisted upon
by some of the leading authorities. For Cricket is not a natural game.
As Ranjitsinhji aptly says, the natural tendency is to hit up and to
pull to the on. In playing forward one does not naturally keep the bat
straight and with its handle nearer to the bowler than its bottom is;
one does not naturally keep the right foot still, send the left elbow
forward, and the bat near to the left foot. The instinct is against all
this--for example, to keep the striking implement well away from one’s
body, as at Golf, Lawn Tennis, Tennis, Racquets, Squash, Fives, Hockey,
and so on. Conversely, Mr. Lacey, the Secretary of the M.C.C., after
having the Cricket-habit ingrained in him, found it hard at Tennis to
get far enough away from the ball. And how can bowling be considered
“natural” for him whose fingers and back-muscles are practically
undeveloped? So our answer to the teacher who would say, “Choose the
natural way of batting, or of bowling, or of fielding,” is that this may
be well enough if you already have control of the different parts of
your batting, or bowling, or fielding mechanism; but that otherwise (and
the chances otherwise are at least ten to one), the undeveloped muscles
will probably be unused; the work will be thrown on other muscles, and
will be done either badly or with excessive effort. We should prefer to
say this: “Get control of the various muscles, as by the fast
full-movement[7] system; then get the foundations of play--the right
foot as pivot, the left leg as straight lunger (for forward strokes),
the straight bat with left elbow well forward, the habit of the eye on
the ball, and so on; then, if you like, by all means try different ways
and styles, and choose what is natural to you; but--unless you are a
prodigy--do not be natural prematurely, or you will almost surely form
bad habits.”
That practice of this kind or indeed any sort of training will not be
worth while, is a fallacy that has been exposed at the beginning of the
chapter on Training. Even if Cricket led to nothing at all, training
would still be as useful as most things that we attend to. But Cricket
can make one fitter for all-round activity, and proper practice and
training must make one fitter for Cricket--fitter in skill, fitter in
endurance, fitter in every way.
It is necessary to secure _proper_ practice, not practice based on mere
theory. Many theories are egregious fallacies. Let us consider a few of
them on the art of batting.
The first is that in forward play the bottom of the bat must never be
sent forward beyond the left foot.[8] In this, as in most theories,
there are germs of truth, namely (a), that not many can stretch out much
further than this without undue strain or loss of balance; (b) that very
few can get pace and power at all into the stroke beyond their left
foot, and that therefore the above is a safe rule for the attacking
drive; (c) that the ball should usually be hit when the bat is not
further forward than this. But the theory--which is repeated by most
writers on the game--utterly ignores one or two undoubted facts, (i.)
First of all it seems a general principle of ball-games that to ensure a
straight line of stroke (and also to allow for too early a stroke), one
must _follow-through_ some way with the implement; this is especially
true of the ordinary forward stroke, which is usually played by faith as
well as by sight; (ii.) the defensive and “safety” forward-stroke (when
it is distinct from the attacking drive) has as its first object to
smother the ball, to get near to the pitch of it, before the break works
out its fulness; common sense would urge a player, if he could do so, to
add an extra foot or so to his reach; (iii.) both Shrewsbury and Abel
(see the photographs, which show them after the ball would have been
hit) do actually reach far beyond the left foot. Who is to limit an
Abel, if he has the litheness to add to his stretch those cubits which
he cannot add to his stature? The decision seems to be one for the
individual. If he can stretch out thus without tilting up the bottom of
his bat (and so lifting the ball), and without straining himself or
tumbling over, then by all means let him do so, for he will crush the
ball thus. But if he cannot, then let him do what he has been so often
told to do.
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 kept still. 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 wrist _only_.
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 a _sine 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 not be 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.
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 it meets 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 jump out 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 got through 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 more need 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 of _any one_ thing _par
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.