Читать книгу The Cricket of Abel, Hirst, and Shrewsbury - E F Benson - Страница 13

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There may be days when scarcely any forward-play is needed; there may be experts who prefer back-play even on fast and true pitches, just as Mr. A. W. Gore, the amateur Lawn Tennis champion of 1901, prefers habitual back-play at his game. But every player should be able to play forward, particularly to swift good-length balls on quick plumb-wickets which are either too dry or else too slippery to bite the ball and allow it to break; on the fast slippery wickets, however, forward-play must be accurate, because of the occasional shooter. Besides the safety of such forward-play, since it can smother the ball, there is the extra delight of meeting if not of attacking, and also of performing a movement which is not by any means natural—the extra delight of overcoming a mechanical difficulty.

We may begin to study this forward-play (for which we have already offered certain exercises—see above) by a couple of quotations from well-known writers.

“The golden rules to guide the beginner in playing forward may be very briefly stated. (1.) Play forward when the ball is fairly well pitched up, but remember that the faster the bowling and the faster the wicket the more frequently will forward-play be the safer style of play. (2.) Keep the bat quite

VI.—Playing forward to a ball on the off: the straight bat has passed near and beyond the left foot in a “follow-through.” Notice the fingers, especially the first finger and thumb of the left hand. At the end of the stretch the left arm is fully extended, and the right heel has come off the ground.

[Between pages 30 and 31.

VII.—Playing forward to a ball slightly to the leg side: see remark on previous photograph, and notice the head well over the bat-handle.

[Between pages 30 and 31.

VIII.—Playing forward to a straight ball: see remarks on previous photographs.

[Between pages 30 and 31.

straight and the left shoulder and elbow well forward. (3.) Get as near to the pitch of the ball as possible. (4.) Do not put the bat further forward than the level of the left foot, which ought to be thrown right forward.”

“No forward-stroke is absolutely safe unless the ball is smothered. There are many very beautiful strokes effected by forward-play at the rising ball. Such strokes, however, are purely plumb-wicket strokes.”

In the face of this latter quotation, and of (3) of the first quotation, and in the face of the habitual practice of many leading experts (see Photographs VI., VII., VIII., of Abel and Shrewsbury) in following through with the bat beyond the left foot, the statement in (4) is absurd. And yet, as we shall see in the Chapter on Fallacies, it appears in almost every work on Cricket.

Personally I should far sooner see the general rule stated as follows:—

“At the root of good ordinary forward-play lies extension both direct (not curved) and well-timed and well-co-ordinated (not too early or too late, and not piece by piece—for example, first the foot, then the left elbow), and fast and powerful (not slow and tame), and full (not arrested); at the root of it lies such extension of right leg, left foot, left shoulder, left elbow, left wrist; but within the limits of power, and of balance or rapid recovery of balance.” When Abel or Shrewsbury can thus safely and strongly reach out an extra fifteen inches beyond the left foot, and thus smother a ball and its break, why forbid it? If only in case a ball hangs a bit, and also for the sake of the follow-through—I believe that nearly every ball-game stroke demands a follow-through—such a passing of the blade’s end beyond the left foot may be advisable.

Be this as it may—and it must be settled by practice, not by theory—at any rate the law holds good that for ordinary ground-play (as distinct from the drive out of the ground) the left wrist must come before the right, the right shoulder being kept down.

The base, the safe ἀφορμή of forward-play, is the firm right foot (nearly parallel to the three wickets) and the straight right leg. From this base the left leg has, as it were, to radiate forward in one or another straight line towards the approaching balls; not straight at those balls, but a few inches to one’s left; certainly not necessarily straight forward down the line from wicket to wicket, as the forward play of Abel to a ball on the off will show (see Photograph VI.); in fact, to a left hand bowler round the wicket one should as a rule not play along this line, but along a line further outwards to one’s right. The left toe points, and the left foot moves, not at but towards the line of the approaching ball, allowance being made for a curl or a break that will alter this line. It is the line that the ball will be making just when it strikes the bat (or, rather, just when it is struck by the bat) that has to be met by the bat, which must move in a line a few inches to the right of the left foot. The line both of left foot and of bat must be direct, not curved.

Over one’s bat comes one’s head: as Abel says, one must get above the ball and smell it. The bat itself, for ground-play, must not be tilted with its blade nearer to the bowler than its handle is, lest a catch be sent up. Its direction from the line when one lifts it before the stroke (see Photograph II.), right up to the end of the follow-through (see Photograph VIII.), must be as straight as possible; like a boxer’s blow straight from the shoulder, and not like the swirling arm of the unskilled navvy, even if both these movements might reach the same goal eventually. The curved line means a loss of time and of power, as well as a risk—for it allows a smaller margin of error.

The stroke should be all in one piece, the power beginning when the bat is near to the left leg, and of course reaching its fulness from each part of the mechanism just when the blade hits the ball.

To what part of the mechanism would one do best to attend? The firm right foot is the base, the point d’appui, the terminus a quo. I should say that the terminus ad quem, the point of limit, should be the outside joint of the left wrist. Let that go right out to its stretch. Most of us, by taking thought, can add an inch or so to our reach. I added two inches to my (easy) forward reach within two months.

The hand’s grip should change as the left wrist shoots outward. In the waiting position the bowler (or you yourself in a mirror) can see the back of your left hand; then

IX.—Position of hands and fingers at the end of the forward stroke: the left hand has shifted round, the right hand holds the bat with thumb and first finger only.

[To face page 35.

back and up goes the bat—not too far, but enough to get power (my own ordinary Tennis and Racquet strokes and many a golfer’s ordinary strokes go up and back quite a short way as compared with the old-fashioned “complete” swing); then, as the bat comes down and forward, you yourself (if you had not your eye on the ball) should be able to see the back of your bat and above it the back of your left hand (as in Photograph IX. of Shrewsbury’s hands). So far as the left side is concerned, the stroke is an exaggeration of a left-handed backhand stroke, except that the thumb in cricket does not support the handle as it often does in Racquets.

If any one cannot yet play forward, but wishes to learn the art, let him practise (as I have recently done) this turn of the fingers, this outward stretch of left wrist, left elbow, left shoulder, straight along a line, full, swift, weighty. It is amazing how soon the straight line can become easy if one works faithfully along a line upon the floor and opposite a mirror, correcting all errors by the opposite exaggerations, but first of all securing the foundation—the long straight lunge of the left foot. Sandow and all high authorities say, Throw the whole will, focus the whole attention, concentrate the whole mind, fix the whole vital force, upon the muscles which you are using; first do this upon the left foot, then upon the left wrist (if not upon the handle of the bat, strange as it may sound).

Having acquired this free forward line, then practise a speedy recovery of balance afterwards, and a readiness to start running. Later on, add to these two a few actual steps. Eventually, though you may have had to conquer each mechanism by itself, as I conquered every part of my Tennis and Racquet strokes separately, yet you will be able to combine them together so harmoniously that no one will guess or believe how you gained your stroke. It appears so exactly like a unity, so exactly like one single action—that lunge with full weight, and recovery of equilibrium—that people tell me I never could have learnt it part-by-part. But I did. I can tell every part, though now the whole move is a unit. There is absolutely no necessity to begin by doing the whole stroke at once, so long as eventually you can combine the various members of it into a harmonious whole. Otherwise any one individual bad part may spoil the whole effect.

This correct stroke frustrates the bowler’s attempt to make you tilt up your bat’s blade and send a catch: having your left wrist well forward beyond your right, you keep your strokes down. Another common fault besides the tilted bat is the crooked bat, the bat of which the blade is too far to the off; this fault is obviated chiefly by the straight right leg: bend the right leg, and the tendency is for both these faults to appear.

Forward play may be either defensive or offensive. The latter kind merges into the ground-drive. In either case the average-eyed person must get to the pitch of the ball and smother it, or must not play forward, but either do the half-cock stroke or else step back and give himself the largest possible time in which to see the ball’s flight. The defensive should as a rule precede the offensive, both while one is learning to play forward and also while one is beginning any innings at a net or in a game. A few forward stretches before play will perhaps save a premature dismissal through stiffness.

In forward ground-driving the rule of not letting the bat’s blade go beyond the left foot is far more reasonable. One must get well over the ball, the power coming chiefly from just that jerk of shoulder, fore-arm, and wrist which Latham and Pettitt and a few others use at Racquets—the jerk of some whippers of peg-tops. But for this drive the bat need not move quite so near to the left foot. Moreover the bat may finish up with a smaller follow-through. Let the forward left elbow arrest the swing of the right arm, lest the bat be tilted and the ball rise: that wrench of the left elbow-joint is a satisfactory sign.

The forward off-drive (for a ball not coming at the wicket) allows of a far freer swing, and, if you see it well, of a far less straight bat. It needs more right wrist and less left elbow restraint. Indeed, it may end up with the bat over the left shoulder. Photograph XIII. shows Abel’s position for such a drive, though the position is better suited for a cut-drive.

For the forward on-drive the left foot is pointed out towards mid-on.