DIRECTION.
The direction should at first be regulated chiefly by the position of the body, especially the feet, and by the larger muscles; without loss of the free swing, however. Aim at a chalk wicket on a wall—an old Lawn Tennis or Squash ball will do to begin with—or try to get someone to stand at the further side of a wicket on a level bit of ground: then you two bowl at that wicket alternately. Correct your mistakes by exaggerating in the opposite direction (a principle invaluable for self-correction throughout games and athletics and life). If you are bowling too much to the off-side, then either keep your body turned further to the (batsman’s) on-side, or else make your shoulder and arm and hand swing less freely and extendedly and fully to the off, and more fully out to the on. Stretch out and away at the end of the swing, and “follow through.” But probably you will be bowling too much to the on; in that case either alter your feet or else make your shoulder and arm and hand swing more fully over and across to the off. For practice, keep it extended out there. Hold it at its extreme limit, and then add another inch to the reach. Exaggerate, but always follow well through. I have never seen this last and most important point mentioned in any book or writing.
Of course in actual practice and play one must be able to bowl persistently to the off. To keep the ball to the off, one must bowl at an imaginary wicket there. One needs the power of forming a picture in the mind’s eye. (In Tennis I picture an imaginary net two inches above the real one; that is my net, and I ignore the real one.) The reasons why orthodox bowlers bowl to the off are that balls off the wicket are harder to meet in their own line with a straight bat, so long as the right foot is kept rigid. The orthodox bowler has most of his fielders to the off, for catches owing to the crooked bat. If the batsman tries to pull into the desert on the on-side, so as to escape the forest of fielders on the off-side, he generally runs a risk. That is what the bowler wants.
Besides, “it is worth remembering, when bowling to a quick-footed player, that he can run out with more safety to a dead straight ball than to one upon the off. It is very difficult to keep a ball down when it pitches some distance to the side of you.” (The writer adds “after a big drive, or after a couple of big drives, it is bad tactics to drop the next ball very short.”)
Having acquired a free bowling swing with full extension of hand and arm and shoulder and back muscles and left leg, and in an accurate line towards the imaginary stump on the off-side, one can then learn to vary the line slightly, using for this purpose not only the general direction of the feet and body and arms, but also the smaller movements of the wrist and even of the fingers.
But first get the line safe and sure. Don’t yet bother about length or pace or break. Get direction. Concentrate on that.
LENGTH AND HEIGHT.
Though there is no absolutely good length in bowling, yet the following is useful as a general rule:—“For a fast bowler a ball that pitches on a spot within from five to seven yards from the batsman’s wicket is ‘good-length’; for medium pace, the spot lies between four and five yards; for slow, between three and four yards. Notice that the faster the bowling the wider is the margin of ‘good-length.’”
This general rule must be altered according to the state of the ground (wet, dry, etc.), the reach of the batsman, which depends not only on his size but also on his use or non-use of his feet, his “class” (witness the rule, keep a good player playing forward, a bad player playing back), the previous balls which have led up to a certain ball, and so on.
A more comprehensive definition of a good-length ball is that it is just beyond the spot at which a player can play forward with safety, and yet is not a long hop. It is the ball which puts the player in two minds; the ball of which he loses sight; the ball to which he may pay the high compliment of the “half-cock” stroke.