CHAPTER IX.

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.