The body-swing upon the hips, with powerful play of the muscles round the shoulder, is scarcely less useful in all three departments of the game: it has been described in a previous chapter. Every fast bowler knows how his back under his arms (especially the latissimus dorsi muscles) aches after his first day of practice.
The shoulders should be jerked up, down, backwards, forwards; and also rotated. To keep both shoulders always back is not the ideal for a cricketer, who must be able to move either shoulder in any direction which the joints and muscles allow. If one feels the shoulders of good players while they go through the action of batting (including the cut of some players), bowling, and fielding, one is amazed at the amount of work that they do, work for which the arm and wrist get much of the credit.
The forearm also requires to be jerked powerfully and fully, especially by the action (as already described) of whipping a peg-top.
Full extensions of the arm are to be made in various directions: for example, one should reach up, down, out, across. They should be made, and then held. At the end of them should be added some action of the fingers. It must be remembered that the wrist and fingers have to do not a little work at the full extension, whether in bowling or in fielding or (occasionally) in batting. Let the wrist-joint go the full distance; beyond that point let it move about, and let the fingers move about.
The hand needs to be shaken out as if it were a flag at the end of a stick. Then let it be exercised in various directions. First let there be the freedom, next the fast and full movements in each direction, next the partial movements.
Finger-exercises can be tried at any vacant moment. The other hand can help to free them and stretch them and strengthen them by resistance: for here, as with the wrist, one does need some strength, some straining power, against the ball or bat.
Massage is useful throughout these exercises, but is most easily applied to the fingers. “Deposits,” which are causes and signs of fatal stiffness, may thus be removed, while the use of oil rubbed in, and attention to diet, will hasten the cure. The heat-treatment (known as the “baking-cure”), and the electric-light treatment, are both to be recommended.
Each finger should be exercised and developed separately, but the first finger in particular, for the sake of batting as well as bowling: the bat sometimes is held chiefly if not solely by this finger and the thumb. The full extensions and full flexions should be eventually both fast and strong, and also independent of the wrist-movements, so that for instance, while the bowler’s wrist is still or putting on one break, his fingers may move or be putting on another break, with intent to deceive. The thumb must not be neglected. It can be freed and extended and strengthened by the aid of the other hand.
As we suggested just now, a ball should occasionally be held in the otherwise idle fingers, a Lawn Tennis ball being at first preferable until the fingers have stretched and grown powerful. Various grips and movements should thus become familiar. A box-full of old balls might be used in order to practise bowling or fielding: the Lawn Tennis ball exhibits the effects of a break or curl in the air far more clearly than a Cricket ball. The practice may be by the player himself against a wall, or with another player, a stump being put between the two, and a third player acting as wicket-keep.
There should be practice of alertness, of control of the body’s weight, after each set of large muscle movements. For Racquets and Tennis I often practise in my bedroom a hard service of one kind or another, and then I immediately recover that waiting position from which I must be prepared to start in almost any direction at once. I suppose that skating must be almost the ideal training for weight-control.