rushing out to smite. As a rule, however, no liberties should be taken until the bowling has been mastered and the eye is “in.” Time may be saved if one watches the previous batsmen and finds out how they get out. Moreover, just as Spofforth first tested the pitch and its pace and peculiarities on any given day, before he bowled his best, so a batsman may also test the pitch.
For different pitches demand different plays—different mechanisms, different tactics. Few, like Shrewsbury, have a style adapted alike to the billiard-table ground and the drying-ground. Ranjitsinhji’s book gives most useful remarks on these differences.
While you are batting, count a chance as a blessed indication of error; treat it as I treat a premonitory pain—do not wait for the illness itself, but find out and correct the mistake at once. You may have to exaggerate in the opposite direction—perhaps to play forward further out to the right than seems natural to you on that day.
WAITING FOR THE BALL.
Guard is taken not only to give one a sense of the direction of any ball, but also to give one the correct place for the right foot: the toe of the right foot should be quite near to the block. Therefore one should not have a block either to the off (in which case the right toes might be in front of the wicket), or short and too near the wicket.
Before and after taking guard one should look round to see how the field is placed.
As to the waiting-position, one may try several and choose that which is the best basis and starting-pose for most ordinary strokes. But first one should develop the various muscles, especially those needed for the quick movements; otherwise one might adopt an attitude suited for safe play when a more Jessop-like or at least a more Stoddart-like or Abel-like attitude might be better for one. A good attitude for many will be Shrewsbury’s as seen in the Photograph (I.). The body should be nearly sideways,
I.—Waiting for the ball, with the weight balanced almost evenly upon the two feet (which are near together), but rather on the right foot.
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with the legs (or only the left leg) very slightly bent, and ready to move backwards or forwards. One should not be stiff, but should be inclined to looseness, until one knows which ball is coming; till then one should be ready to run or jump out if it should be desirable. The feet should probably be quite near to one another, the right being near the crease and parallel to the wicket, the left outside the crease and pointing more towards the bowler. Probably both should be resting on their balls, and rather—so Mr. Fry advises—on the insides of their balls.
The weight of most batsmen should be upon the right foot, the batsman’s basis. Abel stands on the ball of his right foot; that is good if one be quick-footed. Ranjitsinhji explains some of the reasons why the weight should rest on the right foot—he instances several forms of exercise, such as boxing; for Tennis and Racquets I have spent hours in practising quick movements in all directions with the stiff right leg as my pivot. The left foot may be slightly up and prepared to move out along some forward line. In case of a late cut one has time to shift the weight on to it and make it the pivot.
The bat is usually held with one hand near the top of the handle and the other hand near the middle of the handle; if one holds the right hand lower down one gets more control, but may lose some pace; one is more apt to stoop, and to lift the ball. But for some strokes, as for certain late cuts, the shifted grip is often preferable; one should be able to slip the right hand down the handle towards the blade, near to which so many of the stone-wallers love to keep it. As the right foot and leg hold the ground more firmly, so does the right hand and wrist hold the bat more firmly, though there should be no tight and tense grip till the stroke is being made. One can—as Abel and Shrewsbury put it—“feel the nip” of the bat without any unnecessary tension. Not a few players have the grip of the two hands almost equal.
The left elbow should be well up, so as to keep the handle of the bat nearer to the bowler and thus to prevent a chance of catches. And the whole body and head should be well up as the bowler begins to bowl, so that the best possible view may be given.
One must watch the fingers and wrist and arm of the bowler; a change in his fingers
II.—Forward play: the bat has been drawn straight up and back (not in a curve) before the stroke.
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will mean a change of the ball he will bowl. Thus Hirst’s balls will differ according to the way in which his fingers are arranged (see the photographs). Abel generally watches the wrist rather than the fingers.
While the bowler is bowling, one should usually draw the bat up and back, without flourish, in the line opposite to the line of the approaching ball. The photograph of Shrewsbury (II.) shows the bat lifted for a straight ball which he is going to play (not drive) straight forward. By lifting the bat one gets more impetus and can use one’s height and weight better.
Attention and alertness—these are to be maintained. “This one thing I do now,” “On this depends everything”; such are samples of the suggestions which I often make to myself at my own games. Yet I try to economise energy and not to waste any of it; attention without tension, alertness without fidgetiness—these are right.
BACK-PLAY; THE GLIDE; THE HALF-COCK.
“Timing the ball is the secret,” says Giffen. It is a secret, not the secret. Nor is it a simple rule; timing is (see page 7) a concoction of many good things.
A simpler general rule is not to leave a large space between the bat and the legs, lest one should be bowled off one’s pads. The photograph of Abel shows no intervening space at all.
Another simple general (but not universal) rule is to end up—as in forward play—with the handle held by the first finger and thumb of the right hand and of the left; the other three fingers scarcely have any influence here. The nails of all four fingers—as in the photograph—should face the bowler (or yourself if you were opposite a mirror). The bat must not be tilted upwards nor drawn back behind the line of the right foot, which is firmly on the ground, and is certainly not drawn away to the leg-side.
About the “fixed right foot” there is—as we shall see—a great fallacy; theory has been allowed to controvert the practice of the leading experts. Shrewsbury in the photograh (III.) has his right foot firm indeed, and not shifted to the leg-side, but back almost to the wicket itself. W. G., in a photograph in Ranjitsinhji’s book, has his right foot back, though not nearly so far back. I scarcely ever see a player whose regular habit is not to shift back his right foot somewhat
III.—Playing back: the right foot has retired
