Others are not at all anxious; theirs is the most serious hindrance of all—they are not keen. This is to some extent what is called “constitutional,” but is largely due to ignorance of the ways of learning, and to neglect of some one or more of the branches of play. As to-day a person may be a clergyman or a surgeon or a physician, but is seldom a healer of the whole patient, so in Cricket a person will be a batsman or a bowler without any noticeable ambition to enlarge his sphere of skill. In batting he may even be a fast-wicket batsman, failing regularly on caked wickets. For fielding he has no enthusiasm; or, if he is a fielder, he is perhaps good either at catching or at picking up or at throwing in—not at all.
Lack of enthusiasm, lack of concentration on and absorption in every part of the play as its turn comes round, this is almost fatal if not to success at least to success that is worth having. And I am not sure that the grievous and fatal error of allowing the eye to leave the ball too soon may not be to some extent a result of incomplete concentration.
CHAPTER VII.
GENERAL TRAINING FOR CRICKET.
There are some who deny that any special or even general training is needed for Cricket. Ranjitsinhji says that “cricket does not demand that severe course of training which is required by such athletic pursuits as football and running.” That it does not get that severe course is obvious; what it demands, let us examine in the light of a few facts which no one would dream of disputing.
If the game is to flourish, if it is to remain interesting (or, shall we say, to become interesting again), our modern plumb wickets demand many more and far better bowlers, especially fast and medium bowlers. We hear laments over the brief career of a Richardson as if it were inevitable; but knowing the nature of stimulants—they are a kind of whip or spur—and that meat is one kind, tea and coffee another, alcohol another, to say nothing of the irritant stimulants such as pepper, mustard, and salt, can we expect a man to go unharmed through a series of hard seasons if he uses the whip or the spur even “in moderation” twice or three times daily during many years? Now has any well-known fast bowler ever yet paid any real and special attention to diet (apart from the general adherance to “moderation” in quantity)? Has any, besides, kept up quick and interesting exercise of his body during the idle months? I do not allude to weight-lifting, which may be fatal to fast bowling, but to sensible exercises and breathing-exercises, say for ten minutes each morning. To me it seems obvious that a fast bowler, if he wishes to keep up his pace and endurance, must keep up at least as severe a course as football or running require.
Secondly, if the game is to be interesting and to flourish, we need good fielders—the second and I think the most important reform to counteract successful batting. We need fielders to be energetic, always ready to stretch out in any direction, to run in any direction at full pace, alert to back up, quick to throw in accurately. Yet how many dozen fielders outside the Yorkshire and Australian teams, how many out of our thousands, are even reasonably brisk, especially at the end or even in the middle of a day in the country? For my own part I should like to see a very severe course of training here; if the boys or men are going to stand there at all, let them at any rate stand in “the ready.” The listless loafing in most school and college matches is positively disgusting.
Thirdly, the batsman as well as the bowler and fielders should “feel the nip,” as Abel and Hirst and Shrewsbury agree; it is the result of fitness, and expresses itself chiefly in the fingers and wrist (at my games I get it in the balls of my feet also). The player should feel it not only during the first few minutes of play, but to some extent up to half-time at any rate. Mere endurance is not enough—this is not what I mean. I mean that joy in having hands and feet, which should be a general condition, but actually is an occasional condition—how many of the players can tell you why they have it at such-and-such a time? I find it comes naturally from my training, which is as severe as I should adopt for football or athletics, yet is a “training without straining,” a training that need not interfere with brain-work.
It is more than endurance, this feeling; it is enduring freshness. And, until both bowlers and fielders get it somehow or other, Cricket will probably be a one-sided affair—poor sport for the majority. It is as helps towards this enduring freshness that I offer a few hints as worth putting into practice. Let their results speak for them or against them.
Many professionals rely on walking, with an occasional run, as their sole exercise, and “not too much” as their sole law about diet, alcohol, and tobacco. Abel may practice a few strokes in a room; Hirst may play Knur-spell; Shrewsbury may get some practice on cokernut matting. But for the most part net-practice and Cricket itself are waited for and relied on. Now all these things are good, but by themselves are not good enough for ordinary people.
One notices a bowler run slackly after a ball, lest he should find himself out of breath. Breathing exercises are needed by nine cricketers out of ten. The whole apparatus—low and middle and upper—should be developed by full and frequent inhaling through the nose, by brisk movements, by diving and swimming, and so on. He who has a bad wind, whether because some parts of the breathing apparatus are undeveloped or overdeveloped, or owing to fatness, indigestion, constipation, smoking, drinking, deficient sleep, or sleep in bad air, muscular tension, etc., is at a most serious disadvantage. Either he does not run and move with speed, and thus is to that extent an inferior batsman, bowler, or field, or else he does move and becomes “puffed,” and of necessity loses “eye” and nerve. As Murdoch remarks:—“There is no doubt in my mind that running affects your eyesight in a greater or lesser degree, according to the condition you are in.”