rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_62f1c216-e537-55c7-b403-20630c62bf94">SINGLE WICKET.
Passed by M.C.C. Committee, June 16th, 1902.
THE CRICKET OF ABEL, HIRST AND SHREWSBURY.
CHAPTER I.
BATTING AND RUNNING.
I.—INTRODUCTORY.
It was once thought that the universe moved round our earth merely as its accompanying condition, existing simply and solely for the sake of our earth. And so the batsman has been, and generally still is, regarded as the centre of cricket, for whose enjoyment the rest of the players subsist. Batting seems best worth while, not so much because of the qualities, such as pluck, which it demands, as because of the pleasure it may give. The reason why most people like batting, even if they hate wicket-keeping and fielding and watching, and do not bowl, is the enjoyment of striking and of scoring runs. Perhaps in this there is some relic of the desire for hitting and killing—the desire for overcoming and controlling Nature, for using power. Moreover, batting includes defence as well as attack; indeed the safest defence may really be to attack boldly. Batting at its best and fullest involves a complexity of characteristics: it involves back-play, with gliding and late cutting, pulling, forward play, with the cut-drive and ordinary drive, the “half-cock” stroke, the snick; a decision between these varieties, followed by a hit, then recovery of balance, then a decision whether one shall run or not, then perhaps a run, then a turn at the crease—and much besides this. It may involve a great change of habit. Thus in many other ball-games the ball is hit when it is further off from the striker’s foot—as in Golf, Racquets, Tennis, Lawn Tennis, Fives. In Cricket, except in such strokes as the pull and the cut, the ball should be hit when it is near to the striker’s foot.
He who is not born a batsman, he who wishes to be made—that is, make himself—an all-round batsman, must learn not only general rules like this, but also details with regard to the individual strokes. In studying these details he will meet divergent theories; here again is scope for individual trial and judgment, and for observation. He can notice what the best players actually do, for, as Murdoch says, this is of more importance than what they think they do.
The would-be batsman, therefore, is offered perhaps a few really universal laws, and certainly many general hints, yet he must judge of each hint by its results in his own case after fair experiment. He must be a free agent. He may find that the advisers have assumed that he has little reach, little activity, whereas he may be a Ford or Abel for reach, a Jessop or Abel for activity, without the safety of a Shrewsbury or the strength of a Hirst. Why should such a one be tied down by a law that in forward play he shall not let his bat pass beyond his left foot, if he has it in his power to send his bat with force many inches beyond that point, and so smother the ball? Who shall bind down such players? On the other hand, who shall spoil the slow player’s pleasure and safety by bidding him run out?
Throughout this chapter all rules or hints are submitted to the test of utility for the individual. They must be studied; questions must be asked of coaches and others, who should explain strokes by doing them; the mechanisms must be found out, and also the causes and reasons for them. These mechanisms—some will be described later on—must be mastered, if not in early life, then now; they must be mastered sensibly, not with huge bats and balls to begin with, but with lighter implements. The advice must all be judged by its effects.
If the reader will bear in mind that the mechanisms suggested, together with the other helps, are not necessarily the best (though they are based on a study of what the best players actually do in games), he will treat them in the right spirit, with a view to sensible trial and judgment by fruits. Anyhow, be these helps right or wrong, it is obvious that, by all except the genius player, some A B C should be acquired as a personal possession and habit before much regular play has confirmed bad habits. Mr. Edward Lyttelton insists on this in the following passage, after he has described what is needed for a correct stroke:—
“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.”
2.—THE ALPHABET OF SAFE BATTING.
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.
