Be this as it may—and it must be settled by practice, not by theory—at any rate the law holds good that for ordinary ground-play (as distinct from the drive out of the ground) the left wrist must come before the right, the right shoulder being kept down.
The base, the safe ἀφορμή of forward-play, is the firm right foot (nearly parallel to the three wickets) and the straight right leg. From this base the left leg has, as it were, to radiate forward in one or another straight line towards the approaching balls; not straight at those balls, but a few inches to one’s left; certainly not necessarily straight forward down the line from wicket to wicket, as the forward play of Abel to a ball on the off will show (see Photograph VI.); in fact, to a left hand bowler round the wicket one should as a rule not play along this line, but along a line further outwards to one’s right. The left toe points, and the left foot moves, not at but towards the line of the approaching ball, allowance being made for a curl or a break that will alter this line. It is the line that the ball will be making just when it strikes the bat (or, rather, just when it is struck by the bat) that has to be met by the bat, which must move in a line a few inches to the right of the left foot. The line both of left foot and of bat must be direct, not curved.
Over one’s bat comes one’s head: as Abel says, one must get above the ball and smell it. The bat itself, for ground-play, must not be tilted with its blade nearer to the bowler than its handle is, lest a catch be sent up. Its direction from the line when one lifts it before the stroke (see Photograph II.), right up to the end of the follow-through (see Photograph VIII.), must be as straight as possible; like a boxer’s blow straight from the shoulder, and not like the swirling arm of the unskilled navvy, even if both these movements might reach the same goal eventually. The curved line means a loss of time and of power, as well as a risk—for it allows a smaller margin of error.
The stroke should be all in one piece, the power beginning when the bat is near to the left leg, and of course reaching its fulness from each part of the mechanism just when the blade hits the ball.
To what part of the mechanism would one do best to attend? The firm right foot is the base, the point d’appui, the terminus a quo. I should say that the terminus ad quem, the point of limit, should be the outside joint of the left wrist. Let that go right out to its stretch. Most of us, by taking thought, can add an inch or so to our reach. I added two inches to my (easy) forward reach within two months.
The hand’s grip should change as the left wrist shoots outward. In the waiting position the bowler (or you yourself in a mirror) can see the back of your left hand; then
IX.—Position of hands and fingers at the end of the forward stroke: the left hand has shifted round, the right hand holds the bat with thumb and first finger only.
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