If any reader can easily perform the various movements of Cricket as shown in the photographs and in the actual play of experts, he does not require special exercises for Cricket. But—if we may judge by results—he is the exception; he is the genius, the born player. How is it that we have so long tolerated Carlyle’s ridiculous assertion, “Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains”? This is just precisely what genius is not. In Cricket the genius-player plays correctly without taking pains, almost without taking thought. For such players this book is not written. It is written for beginners and others, to suggest certain exercises and practice and principles of practice which are not necessarily quite correct, but which are the best which some of the most successful models have hitherto enabled me to devise in order that care and art “may triumph over nature till art becomes natural.” It is this second nature, this sedulously acquired nature, which now has become so much a part of myself at Tennis or Racquets that the sedulous attention is utterly denied by many. What I have done at these games, others can do at Cricket.
Is such practice worth while? will be the question asked here, as in the chapter on Training. Here, as there, the answer depends on whether Cricket well (or better) played is worth while? What is meant by Cricket well played? Enjoyment, health, physical and mental and moral education. If these are brought or increased by improvement, and if improvement results from such practice, then such practice is worth while. Only personal experiment can decide on the merits or demerits of the system; certainly it is economical of time as well as of money, since five or ten minutes a day are quite enough.
The part-by-part system of practice has been defended at some length in “The Training of the Body.” American athletes use it with great energy and great success; examples are given in the chapter on Fielding. Mr. Edward Lyttelton, in his book on Cricket, remarks of the learner that “his principal task may be described as learning certain motions till they become habits....” While he frequently advises bedroom-practice with a bat and without a ball, he does not suggest bedroom-practice without a bat. Yet it is by such practice first of one part of the mechanism, then of another, that all the parts can be made good and easy and then by degrees be combined harmoniously together in good and easy strokes. Otherwise some part or parts will almost certainly be done wrongly.
For many of the strokes and other movements of Cricket are not natural—are even against the natural movements. The reader should study what Ranjitsinhji says on pp. 152 and 158 of his book (First Edition). He says: “Both batting and bowling call into play particular muscles” (I suppose he means “combinations of muscles”) “which they alone can exercise.” One might add wicket-keeping and fielding, with their quick stooping and stretching to this side or to that. Let the forward-stroke be again outlined, to show how little likely one is ever to master its mechanism without mastering the parts of it.
In order to smother a ball successfully by forward-play, one needs an eye to watch and observe intelligently and to send a report quickly and accurately to the brain, and then to watch again; this, and what will follow, one needs to have as nearly automatic as possible. One must have a good brain to order and ensure correct and well-timed and co-ordinated movements of the muscles; these include (1) a rapid and direct lunge of the left foot, slightly to the left of the approaching ball, and with the body-weight; (2) a firm right foot and straight right leg; (3) the head coming (with the body-weight) over the left foot; (4) a rapid and direct extension of left wrist, left elbow, left shoulder, the knuckles of the left hand leading the way, the fullest force to come at the instant when the bat shall strike the ball; (5) a straight bat (covering the wickets as much as possible); (6) preservation or rapid recovery of balance; (7) alertness to run forward, if necessary. These being some of the requisites, how many are likely to possess them merely through net-practice or games?
Of course some net-practice and games must come before and while the part-by-part system is tried, if only to give interest to the system, to show the difficulties of the game, to show the progress made, and—because human nature is as it is. But too many games by themselves will tend chiefly to accentuate and habituate the natural movements, which are faults. The probability of many faults—I myself had nearly all when I played—will be clear if we consider how many different classes of movements are involved in the stock-in-trade of a good all-round cricketer. We are so deluged by the general word “exercise,” that we forget how many provinces it has, instead of being simply a matter of large biceps and power to lift weights. Such symptoms have little to do with success in Cricket; they may even have something to do with failure in so far as—for example—they bring with them slowness and neglect of the internal organs of the body. I notice that one book of “Physical Culture” suggests a series of strain-exercises as useful for batting, bowling, etc. I should consider these to be hindrances rather than helps. Imagine a person who should practise fast throwing, by movements against a strong resistance!
If only in order to expose the fallacy that every form of “exercise”—any and every exercise in a gymnasium or elsewhere—must be useful for the motions of Cricket, let us note
THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF EXERCISES
which are demanded by Cricket as a “trinity of games,” including the two very complex arts of batting (forward-play, driving, back-play, cutting, etc.), and of fielding (starting, running, catching, picking up, throwing in, etc.).
Fast full movements are to be found in all these departments of the game, as the photographs will show: for example, one often stretches out quickly to the full reach in forward-play, in overhand bowling, in fielding a ball nearly out of reach.