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- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
EDITORS’ PREFACE. There appear to be hardly any beginners or habitual players who know how to profit by seeing experts at play and at work. The reason cannot well be that we do not look on at games sufficiently often! No, one reason is that we have not been trained to observe with a view to personal experimentation afterwards; and another reason is that there is very little time to catch and realise the different positions and movements as they flash by. Hence the value of photographs, especially when they are—as many of these thirty-four are—taken from behind: it is not easy to reproduce for ourselves the action as shown by an ordinary photograph (taken from in front), since it gives us everything the wrong way round. But even photographs often fail to teach their lesson. The learner must be told how to teach himself from photographs. After which he will find it easy to teach himself from actual models, as soon as he knows just what to look out for—the feet and their “stances” and changes, and so on. It is to be hoped that these photographs, and the notes on them, and the obvious inferences drawn from them, will train readers to study various other experts besides these three, who are only a few out of a host. For the object of the book is not to tie any player down to any one method, but rather to set him on the track of independent research and self-instruction: to show him how to watch and see, and how to practise the best things that he sees, and what the best things are most likely to be. Not a single hint in these pages need be followed until the reader is convinced that what I advise is what most if not all great players actually do, whether consciously or by instinct. The volume is not intended to compete with the many excellent books edited by those who themselves play the game well. It boasts of a large debt to these classics, but having gathered hints from them it moves away on altogether different lines. The best player is seldom the best teacher of average beginners. On the principle of “Set a thief to catch a thief,” a duffer has here been set to teach a duffer, while at the same time the whole teaching is, I hope, strictly according to the actual play of good players, as shown by observation, by photographs, and by answers to questions asked during special interviews. The three chief players (whose ascertained positions and movements are made the basis for all the simple lessons offered here) are Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury.
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Table of contents
The Cricket of Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury
EDITORS’ PREFACE.
POSTSCRIPTS.
CONTENTS.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE CRICKET OF ABEL, HIRST AND SHREWSBURY.
FORWARD-PLAY AND SAFE DRIVING.
GENERAL HINTS.
THE ACTION OF BOWLING
GENERAL HINTS.
CHAPTER III. FIELDING AND THROWING-IN.
NOTES ON IMPLEMENTS.
CHAPTER V. THE IMPORTANCE OF ALL-ROUNDNESS IN CRICKET.
CHAPTER VI. FAULTS IN PLAY AND PRACTICE.
CHAPTER VII. GENERAL TRAINING FOR CRICKET.
ACTUAL EXERCISES,
CHAPTER IX. FALLACIES OF THEORISTS AND OTHERS.
CHAPTER X. MERITS OF CRICKET.
CHAPTER XI. SUGGESTED REFORMS.
APPENDIX I. THE EDITOR’S DEFENCE OF THIS SYSTEM FOR BEGINNERS AND OTHERS.
THE COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP.
Contents.
List of Illustrations(In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] clicking on the image will bring up a larger version.)
(etext transcriber's note)
The Cricket of Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury
The Cricket of Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury
EDITED BY
ILLUSTRATED WITHTHIRTY-FOUR PHOTOGRAPHSBYMASON AND BASEBENEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO. 31, West Twenty-Third Street 1903PRINTED BY KELLY’S DIRECTORIES LTD LONDON AND KINGSTON.
EDITORS’ PREFACE.
There appear to be hardly any beginners or habitual players who know how to profit by seeing experts at play and at work. The reason cannot well be that we do not look on at games sufficiently often! No, one reason is that we have not been trained to observe with a view to personal experimentation afterwards; and another reason is that there is very little time to catch and realise the different positions and movements as they flash by. Hence the value of photographs, especially when they are—as many of these thirty-four are—taken from behind: it is not easy to reproduce for ourselves the action as shown by an ordinary photograph (taken from in front), since it gives us everything the wrong way round.
But even photographs often fail to teach their lesson. The learner must be told how to teach himself from photographs. After which he will find it easy to teach himself from actual models, as soon as he knows just what to look out for—the feet and their “stances” and changes, and so on. It is to be hoped that these photographs, and the notes on them, and the obvious inferences drawn from them, will train readers to study various other experts besides these three, who are only a few out of a host.
For the object of the book is not to tie any player down to any one method, but rather to set him on the track of independent research and self-instruction: to show him how to watch and see, and how to practise the best things that he sees, and what the best things are most likely to be. Not a single hint in these pages need be followed until the reader is convinced that what I advise is what most if not all great players actually do, whether consciously or by instinct.
The volume is not intended to compete with the many excellent books edited by those who themselves play the game well. It boasts of a large debt to these classics, but having gathered hints from them it moves away on altogether different lines. The best player is seldom the best teacher of average beginners. On the principle of “Set a thief to catch a thief,” a duffer has here been set to teach a duffer, while at the same time the whole teaching is, I hope, strictly according to the actual play of good players, as shown by observation, by photographs, and by answers to questions asked during special interviews. The three chief players (whose ascertained positions and movements are made the basis for all the simple lessons offered here) are Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury.
The editor of this volume used to play Cricket at school about as well or as badly as he used to play Racquets. After his school and undergraduate days at Cambridge, he discovered many fundamental faults in his play at Racquets—faults which abundant practice had strengthened and fixed into bad habits—ineradicably and hopelessly bad habits, his critics said. He had some hints from the best professionals (Smale, Latham, and others); he studied their positions and movements carefully; then, chiefly by the help of certain easy and healthy exercises in his bedroom for less than five minutes a day (Mr. Edward Lyttelton constantly recommends bedroom-practice for Cricket, and quotes the success of Jupp thereby), he found that he was gradually removing those habits, and building better habits which persisted in subsequent play in the Court itself. Quite recently, after noticing the various positions and movements of the great experts of Cricket (including the three professionals whose photographs appear in this volume), he concluded that there had been remarkably similar faults, and no less fundamental faults, in his Cricket, though of course the games of Cricket and Racquets have marked differences. He thinks that these faults were amply sufficient to account for his past failure to enjoy Cricket (that is, to improve at Cricket), just as the other faults had proved sufficient to account for his past clumsiness at Racquets. He therefore devised special exercises by which he might eventually be enabled to do himself less injustice at Cricket also. [1] These he intends to practise regularly in order to secure the bodily mechanisms of play, to make them his very own, before he once again meets those “disturbing elements” in Cricket (as in Racquets and Tennis), the ball and the opponents.
Whether he will ever become a cricketer or not he cannot say—he does not expect to become one in less than a year or two: so numerous and deeply ingrained were his mistakes, so execrable was his style, if he is to believe his most candid friends and enemies! But at least he can safely say that these mistakes—which he observes to be common to nearly all duffers and most beginners—are now so absolutely obvious as to supply ample reasons for any amount of his failure in all kinds of batting, in all departments of fielding, as well as in bowling. He can safely say that until he has mastered those positions and movements which nearly all the experts already have as a matter of course, until he has learnt the A B C, built the scaffolding, formed the skeleton, or whatever one likes to call the process, he will certainly not become a cricketer. He cannot reasonably expect the tree to bear fruit for a long time yet; but he hopes the fact that he himself is practising what he preaches will encourage others to give the method—sensibly adapted according to their individual opinions and needs and models—a fair and square trial, as thousands have already given a fair and square and successful trial to the simpler diet. The method is urged as claiming a reasonable experiment before condemnation: that is all. It is not meant to harass and cramp all players, so as to make them uniform, any more than the learning of the alphabet and of spelling is meant to harass and cramp all writers. He only describes what he believes to be the correct alphabet and spelling of words in Cricket. Out of this alphabet and these words let each player subsequently form his own sentences and paragraphs and chapters. Let each player develop to the full his individual merits and specialities. But not until he has made the alphabet and the vocabulary his very own, to use easily at will, is he likely to develop his individuality satisfactorily and successfully, any more than a builder would be likely to build a good house without good bricks, mortar, and wood, and some knowledge and practice of the best ways of using them.
The suggestions are one and all based upon the practice or the teaching of successful players. Of the three special models here, not one has the advantage of superior height, and at least one had not the advantage of athletic physique. The instructions point out the apparent foundations of batting, bowling, and fielding, and, by contrast, the apparent faults to which the natural duffer like myself is liable. It is hoped that critics and other readers will kindly offer every possible hint and correction.
Each true lover of games, whether he play or watch or both watch and play, must see that if this way be good—this mastery of the instruments of play, in addition to the usual net-practice and games—it surely will improve the health and physique of the nation; will bring in more recruits for Cricket; will enable the busy man to keep up at least his muscular, if not his nervous apparatus, so that he need never get considerably out of practice or training, and need never, as too many thousands have done, give up the game merely because he has not time to play the game itself regularly. The editor feels assured that any feasible five-minutes-a-day system like this, which may tend to spread the greatest of games more widely, and to raise our national standard of skill, enjoyment, and physique, will be received by every patriot in the spirit in which it is offered; namely, as perhaps useful for most, and probably healthy and harmless for all. Every sensible person will agree that if the game is going to be played at all—and it certainly is—then it is worth playing well, and therefore worth learning well and practising well.
Whether these exercises and general hints will help towards my end—towards a game better played all-round (in batting, bowling, and fielding), better watched, and so better enjoyed—experience must decide. But all will concede that these exercises are not less pleasant and wholesome than those of drill and dumb-bell and strain-apparatus; that they are far better adapted than these are as a preparation for the noblest of sports and for much of daily life itself, since they encourage not mere strength and vastness of muscle, but also full extensions in various directions, promptitude to start in any required direction, rapidity to carry the movements through, endurance to repeat them, self-control to keep or recover poise in spite of the fulness and rapidity and promptitude and unforeseenness of the motion; to say nothing of the corresponding mental and moral excellences. If the system demands only a few minutes each day then in so far as it is correct—and it will be gradually corrected as observations and criticisms pour in—it will prove well worth while, especially on wet days (which are not unknown in England), and in winter, for those who do not grudge many hours a day to Cricket itself with all its waitings and watchings and disappointments.
The system is the chief new feature of this book, which, however, does not by any means underestimate the equally essential coaching by schoolmasters and professionals and others, and net-practice and practice-games as an addition to the system and as the test of its merits or demerits.
These ought we to do, and not leave the other—the system which teaches this very alphabet of Cricket—undone, especially to-day when the majority of people are cooped up in cities without the chance of a practice-game or even of a net. The plea is not for uniformity of style, but for reasonable mastery of the spelling of words before we write essays; for a system of self-teaching and self-correction; for a system of training and practice when regular play is out of the question; for a drill which fathers and uncles may teach their children and nephews; for a healthy and interesting use of odd minutes which would otherwise be wasted or worse than wasted.
POSTSCRIPTS.
1. Mr. C. B. Fry’s advice in “Cricket” (just published by C. Arthur Pearson, in 1903) should be carefully read. He says: “To train his muscles for heavy weight-lifting is precisely what a cricketer ought not to do. . . . It is remarkable how much a player can improve himself . . . . by simply practising strokes with a bat and no ball or bowler. But this is easily understood when you perceive that the actual correctness of a stroke, so far as the movement of the feet and of the arms is concerned, is entirely independent of the ball. To make a stroke with the correct action and to time the ball are two distinct things; both are necessary in a match, and you can learn the second only with a ball bowled at you; but the first you can certainly to some extent acquire by mere chamber drill.
“It is also worth knowing that much may be done with a ball hanging by a cord from a beam or a tree. A little ingenuity renders practice at the swinging ball quite valuable.”
2. The death of Shrewsbury in May, 1903, has been a great loss to Cricket and cricketers. His enthusiasm, his mastery of certain mechanisms of batting, his calm confidence and patience, his gentleness and good nature, made him an almost unique personality in the world of Cricket.
CONTENTS.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE CRICKET OF ABEL, HIRST AND SHREWSBURY.
FORWARD-PLAY AND SAFE DRIVING.
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. It is after the ball has left the bowler’s hand that it must be sedulously watched. Nor can it always be watched right on to the bat; exactly how far it can be watched is a much disputed point. Certainly few batsmen can carry out the golden rule of Golf. I believe that most of them—I speak from my own Tennis and Racquet experience—take their eyes off the cricket-ball too soon. Few err by looking at it too long. In my games, almost without exception, the longer I look at the ball the better my stroke is.
