The Cricket of Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury

by Unknown

A story is told of one of the most famous of Cambridge coaches (alas! now dead), to the effect that a pupil once asked him for lessons in Hebrew. The coach knew no Hebrew, but, thanks to his excellent teaching, he managed to secure his pupil a Second Class in the examination, after which the pupil heard to his surprise that the coach himself had only been one lesson ahead all the time. So here the veriest beginner may feel that I am not far ahead of him—that perhaps in some respects I am behind him, since I have to undo many old and habitual faults. Let him imagine me, at the age of thirty-four, in the midst of a busy life, playing forward vigorously in the privacy of my small bedroom, first with my left foot (with the body-weight) direct along a line again and again, till it moves along that line rapidly almost of its own accord, with only an occasional supervision as of a well-regulated servant; then this together with the quick reaching out of a straight bat in dangerous proximity to my left foot (which now lunges safely, surely, rapidly on its line), while my left elbow comes well to the front at full stretch. In fact, let him picture me practising for a few minutes morning after morning, with ever-decreasing difficulty, all that the best exponents seem to do so naturally and easily. He would see me ready to start and starting at hundred yards’ pace here there or anywhere, as Mr. Vernon Royle used to stand and start at cover; or extending now this arm, and now that, up, down, out to imaginary balls, and then throwing these in at once just above imaginary bails (which will be spots on the wall-paper).

“It is not thus that Cricket is learnt,” I hear the genius say. Yet it was thus—partly thus—that my Racquets and Tennis were learnt, and I for my part shall try to learn Cricket thus also; and I shall advise others who are as backward as I am to try thus. If the plan be wrong, yet at least I am putting it into action in my own case, so as to make as much a part of me as I can those movements that seem always to have been a part of the born experts, who are my models, and whose expertness has hitherto been regarded as beyond hope. I do not mean fancy strokes, such as the risky glide, but the ordinary and common strokes, the “nine out of ten,” for which the many mechanical workings are buried so securely deep in the sub-conscious minds of the skilful, that there is needed a thorough probing and cutting up by the anatomist if ever the secrets are to be laid bare.

There must be no reliance on mere theories; actual models and photographs of models have been and are to be the basis of my advice and of my own steady practice. Photographs are less likely to err than the opinions of those whose chief merit is to do well rather than to teach well or even to know well.

But, though the most careful analysis has been made, and though I myself shall do whatever I urge the beginner to try, yet the advice will all be put forward as worth a fair trial—no more, at least for purposes of Cricket. For purposes of physical development, health, control of the body and of the will, and so on, I think that every such exercise can safely be recommended to most people. I cannot believe that a few minutes each day would do any Anglo-Saxon boy or man any appreciable harm, if only the rapidity and extension be increased gently and sensibly.

My point of view is entirely new. I come to the reader not as a good batsman, bowler, or fielder. I was what may be called a Public School and College cricketer, and poor at that! In my last season of College Cricket I made one or two centuries and got well over my hundred wickets; but all this I did in the most atrocious style. And I gave up the game many years ago. Why then do I dare to offer hints?

Let me repeat that, as a player of Racquets and Tennis, in spite of much play, I still used to exhibit practically every serious fault except a bad eye, weakness, and indifference to success. As I have confessed or boasted elsewhere, and as anyone who saw me would confirm, the positions and movements of my feet, legs, trunk, shoulder, arm, wrist, and fingers were incorrect; and I used to let my eye wander from the ball. These faults I found out; and I afterwards found out that my faults in Cricket were closely akin to these. Now comes the interesting argument. I taught myself and am teaching myself what is less incorrect. I practised and am practising sedulously, to a great extent outside the court, and especially in my bedroom. I chose good models in Racquets and Tennis—for example, Latham and Fairs; I analysed their strokes, watching part by part, asking questions, accepting kind advice, listening to sane or mad theory. I tried to master each part of the mechanism, at first by itself, then with other parts, at times repeating with concentration, at times exaggerating the opposite fault. There cannot be the slightest doubt that I am mastering the mechanism of these racket-games.

Incidentally I may mention that these two games taught me many useful principles for Cricket-practice: the right positions of the legs; the art of running side-ways with the eyes looking forwards; the formation and preservation of that correct pose and poise which may be called “the ready”; the use of the straight right leg and firm right foot as a pivot; the body-swing from the hips; the shoulder-jerk; the forearm snap in contrast to the mere wrist-flick, which of course is also extremely useful, as in peg-top whipping; the wrist-flick itself, especially at the last moment; the habit of not taking the ball too far in front of one except when one wishes to hit high; the follow through; the fast full extension with power but without loss of balance or else followed by rapid recovery of balance.

As a player of Cricket I used to suffer from similar and equally fundamental hindrances to success; most of these I believe that I have now found out. I shall give myself nearly two years in which to correct these faults and to embody and infibre the best positions and movements that I can learn from the actual play of the best models (Abel, Hirst, Shrewsbury, and many others besides), as shown in practice and in their photographs. Much of this apprenticeship will take place in my bedroom. All the time I shall continue to watch, to ask questions, to study theories; I shall try to keep up to date both in my learning and in my advice in this volume if future editions should be needed.

In a word, I write and shall write not for genius-players so much as for players like myself. For genius-players, the Lytteltons, Steel, Ranjitsinhji, Grace, and others have already written infinitely better than I ever could. I have no ambition to supersede these great authorities except in so far as I must set the evidence of the camera and of the muscles themselves above theoretical opinion. Even here I wish to show the foundation of fact underlying the superstructure of dogma.