MERITS OF CRICKET.
Cricket as she is played does not bear one tithe of her possible fruits;
the soil is not properly prepared for her; she is left to grow anyhow.
This is a sad error, if only because she is not a natural game--a game
of natural movements. What more unnatural is there for most of us than
to play forward correctly? The same applies to most games, for example
to Lawn Tennis. Here we must consider the advantages of Cricket not as
the practice and play now are, but as they easily _might be, if
all-round Cricket were well prepared for and taught, well practised and
played_; learnt and cultivated with science, not haphazardly; in
moderation, not too little, not too much; with conscious care at the
start, until conscious correct care has begotten sub-consciously
correct ease.
The first advantage of the game, as it should be, is economy. If it only
saves doctors’ and druggists’ bills, it is worth its cost in time and
money. Professionals earn a healthy living by Cricket. Many
schoolmasters, many clerks and partners, owe their position largely to
their Cricket. This is but common sense. To play Cricket well is at
least as good a qualification as to know well the names and dates of
many prophets, kings, battles, and other dull trivialities.
For Cricket should develop the intellect. Quite apart from the effect of
bodily health and activity upon brain-work, quite apart from the tonic
of recreation and change of employment, Cricket should give lessons for
life: it should teach co-operation, division of labour, encouragement of
individuality; it should teach the art of mastering the mechanisms, the
A B C, so indispensable to success; it should foster observation, rapid
decision, then rapid action, judgment by results, memory, foresight. It
_should_--though it seldom _does_. This intellectual aspect of Cricket
is of national importance. We need intelligent leaders and workers:
Cricket might easily be made to produce them. We need such in war as in
peace: as Ranjitsinhji insists, “after all, Cricket is warfare in
miniature. It is man against man, general against general,” and, we may
add, team against team.
To pass from the intellectual to the physical advantages which are so
closely connected with them, Mr. Edward Lyttelton says:
“It is impossible to make twenty runs in decent style without giving
evidence of bodily pluck, readiness of resource, patience, health,
strength and training.” But here again we must distinguish what _is_
from what might and should be. Cricket should encourage general health
and training, general fitness (most excellent word), the power to
preserve life, not only by its exercise and physical virtues, but also
by the movements of muscles, by the air, light, scenery, subsequent
washing, which can all improve the well-being, not completely yet
conspicuously.
The enjoyment--if only we were better trained to enjoy the game--must
affect the blood in the most favourable way, as the chemical experiments
of Professor Gates, of Washington, have demonstrated, in the American
“Medical Times” for December, 1897. We thank God better by genuine
enjoyment than by mere word of mouth.
The word “aesthetic” is used in two senses--in reference to enjoyment,
and in reference to artistic beauty and gracefulness. Cricket should be
an “aesthetic” game in both senses. When properly prepared for and
played and supplemented, it should produce a body pleasant to behold
whether in motion or at rest--a “kinetic” and “dynamic” and “static”
pleasantness to the eye. The senses also should have their interesting
growth by Cricket; the sight by the timing and by the use of the
imagination; the hearing; the touch; the muscular sense.
Of the moral and spiritual effects we need not say much. It seems to me
to be here that Cricket _does_ do much that it _should_ do. Honour,
sympathy and courtesy, pluck, patience, good temper, these are a few of
the qualities that do often result.
Clearest of all, however, is the social value as a tie and connecting
link between individuals and groups both small and great. Rudyard
Kipling, with all his genius for seeing and describing things imperial,
scarcely realised the function of Cricket as a common ground for meeting
and forming friendships, quite aside from its advantages in opening the
mind by journeys among near or distant people. What Ranjitsinhji so
aptly remarks in reference to the classes within England herself can be
applied also to the relation between any sets of people anywhere. He
says:
“It is a grand thing for people who have to work most of their time
to have an interest in something or other outside their particular
groove. Cricket is a first-rate interest. The game has developed to
such a pitch that it is worth taking interest in. Go to Lord’s and
analyse the crowd. There are all sorts and conditions of men there
around the ropes--bricklayers, bank-clerks, soldiers, postmen, and
stockbrokers. And in the pavilion are K.C.’s, artists, archdeacons,
and leader-writers. Bad men, good men, workers and idlers are all
there, and all at one in their keenness over the game. It is a
commonplace that cricket brings the most opposite characters and
the most diverse lives together. Anything that puts many very
different kinds of people on a common ground must promote sympathy
and kindly feelings. The workman does not come away from seeing
Middlesex beating Lancashire or _vice versâ_ with evil in his heart
against the Upper Ten; nor the Mayfair _homme de plaisir_ with a
feeling of contempt for the street-bred masses. Both alike are
thinking how well Mold bowled, and how cleanly Stoddart despatched
Briggs’ high-tossed slow ball over the awning.”
This is pre-eminently true. Cricket already is, and can be to an even
greater extent, a healthy interest that is a grand bond of union for the
nation, and yet not (like so many religious, commercial, educational,
and other bonds) a frequent cause of separation from other nations.
What is Cricket to you? That is a very different question from “What
might, can, should Cricket be to you?” We have answered part of the
latter question. Before answering the former let us take some contrasts.
What already exists that can be compared to Cricket in regard to
effects? Gymnastics, strength-and-strain-exercises; card-games, other
games (Lawn Tennis, Ping-Pong, Golf, etc.); “economical”
education--where is any teaching about such lessons as co-operation to
be found in England? It is to be found in America, but with it is also
to be found the terrible money-grubbing and grabbing spirit;
“intellectual” education--sum up the useful results of what one has
learnt in school: nine-tenths of it I pray that I may forget; physical
and hygienic education--where is it? Not at home, not at school, not in
business, not in society; in Cricket there is quite a supply of such
education, mainly of an unconscious kind; enjoyment, gracefulness, pure
and wholesome cultivation of the senses--where are they? Education about
pure and wholesome and kindly social and national relations--where is
it? Even moral and spiritual education by preaching and teaching.
Compare and contrast these and other means of education for physique,
for character, for life, with Cricket as she is, and then with Cricket
as she might and should be. Judge the advantages of Cricket for yourself
as an individual and as a member of many groups.
The present advantages of Cricket would be increased ten-fold if more
care were taken by those in authority. Cricket needs greater interest
and attractiveness for the majority of players; it needs better basic
preparation for all departments of play; it needs supplementation by
other exercises and other means to health. By itself it is not, never
will be, never can be, a complete education. Of course not. But properly
cultivated, with other things, in its proper place, it seems to me
splendid. If it seems so to the reader, then let him give it a care, let
him cultivate it, _in proportion to its all-round value in his eyes_.