People do not play the game well enough to enjoy it as much as they enjoy their other games and exercises—or their laziness and “amusements.” And behind this low standard of play (and hence of enjoyment) is the fact that they have not yet mastered and appropriated the alphabet of Cricket.
I have never yet heard of anyone who systematically divided Cricket strokes into a number of parts, persevered in assimilating each part, combined and co-ordinated the parts; and then, even then, looked out for faults to be corrected by a similar process. I have scarcely ever read or heard of a sensible analysis of any Cricket stroke, except by a few such writers as Mr. C. B. Fry (for we must put on one side the nonsense that the late cut is done only with the wrist: that is not analysis but bad guess-work). And this, too, although any stroke can be analysed.
I will go further. I have never yet read or heard of the following advice (let the reader tell me if it has ever been given): that, if a beginner must or will do the full stroke at once, he should concentrate on each part of it in turn, now on the left foot again and again, now on the left elbow, and so on; somewhat as—to repeat a comparison—the conductor might during rehearsals concentrate his attention on each instrument in turn, now on the first violin, now on the ’cello, and so on. The end and aim would be a perfect whole; but each part must first be perfected if ever a complete harmony is to result.
Now why should there not be at every decent school, if not in every decent home, a drill for games? A few foundation-movements were suggested in the “Training of the Body” (Appendix II.). I remember a deadly dull drill of monotonous rhythmical both-sides-together exercises at two private schools; the compulsory drill for first-year-students at Yale College in America was better, but still far from fascinating. Why was there no swift lunge for the left foot in a straight line; no throwing in all directions with each hand in turn; no wrist-turning (as suggested in “Daily Training”); no starting out and then back and then sideways; no running similarly? In a word, why was there no drill at all in view of those games and sports in which every single British boy I have ever met would love to be able to excel; why was there no sort or kind of apprenticeship for Cricket or other athletics? The drill was not even healthy—did not make us lively and fresh. It was the acme of dreary discipline.
Every true British subject is at least slightly annoyed when England is beaten; when it is shown that we, the nation of game-players, who play habitually at schools and elsewhere, play—let us recognise the truth—not very well. Most of us have many important muscle-groups absolutely or partially undeveloped; nor will the few repetitions of any movement, in a wrong manner, tend to develop these groups. We rely on the unreliable—especially the wrist. Our very foundations are out of course; our feet and our bodies are wrongly posed, wrongly poised, slow to extend, slow to change, slow to bend.
No book tells us to develop our muscles rightly before we play games constantly. Right practice in bedrooms and elsewhere would be most valuable for Cricket and other games, and for development; as far as I can tell—and I believe I have studied all known systems—it would be no less valuable for physical and mental health and vigour than any of these systems; granted a keenness for success in games, it would be far less dull. We need not practise to an American University extreme. My many hours’ work each day is a safeguard against that extreme for me. But, for the sake of the self and the side and the nation, I cannot but feel that if games are to be compulsory, then we had far better teach them well, and so raise the standard of excellence and with it the standard of interest and pleasure. We need not give more time: we might give many hours less time each week (I shall find less than ten minutes ample for most days). But we must give more sense, more care, if we are to hold our own as a nation of all-round cricketers and a nation of healthy all-round men.
APPENDIX II.
LAWS OF THE GAME.
The reader is strongly recommended to buy the (Threepenny) Laws of Cricket, with Interpretations, etc., published by the Marylebone Cricket Club.
THE LAWS OF CRICKET.
AS REVISED BY THE MARYLEBONE CLUB, 1884, 1889, 1894, 1899, 1900, AND 1902.
1. A match is played between two sides of eleven players each, unless otherwise agreed to; each side has two innings, taken alternately, except in the case provided for in Law 53. The choice of innings shall be decided by tossing.