Отрывок из книги
Robert Henry Lyttelton
Published by Good Press, 2020
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About nervousness nothing can be said. Every cricketer who is played for his batting is nervous, and if you hear anybody say he does not know what it is to feel nervous, catalogue that individual as one of many who do not like their true feelings to be known of men. Now we will suppose our friend, after a single, to have got down to the other end and to be preparing to meet the medium pace bowler, who has the power of changing his pace. If it is necessary to be careful for a quarter of an hour to fast bowling, it is probably correct to say that you had better pay respect to a "dodgy" bowler for half-an-hour before you play a free game. With the fast bowler you may assume that the pace for every ball is very much alike; but with the medium dodgy bowler like Lohmann this is not by any means the case; if you hit at all wildly you will find it easy to mis-hit, and if you leave your ground the wicket-keeper finds it easy to stump you. Let the different principles necessary for playing fast bowling and slow be here briefly examined.
Before going further, it must be remembered that each age has its characteristics, and that what was deemed true and correct, and even indispensable, in old days, is now criticised and not acted upon by a new and sceptical generation. Formerly it was a universally received axiom that to fast bowling the right foot must be kept firm as a rock—not the whole of the right foot, for when you are playing forward, the tip of the five toes of the right foot only must touch the ground, the back of the heel pointing straight to the sky; but the whole of the right foot must never be shifted except when you move it across to cut. Be careful to distinguish between cutting and off-driving. They are quite distinct, and one important difference between them consists in the fact that in off-driving, the left foot is moved across; in cutting, the right. G. H. Longman is the only instance I can call to mind of a man who cut with the left foot across, and his cutting consisted of beautiful timing of the ball, and more of a drive than a cut. But Prince Ranjitsinhji, whose wrists resemble small serpents, steps back to fast bowling, and with that marvellous quickness of his, hits the shortest fast balls all round the wicket. This, however, is a gift that I have never observed in anybody else, and I incline to the old opinion, that the right foot should never be moved to fast bowling except to cut. If anybody tries Prince Ranjitsinhji's methods with less than his suppleness of wrist, he will find his wicket disturbed. Ranjitsinhji himself could never have done it in old days when the wickets sometimes shot and often bumped; it is a stroke, in fact, begotten and nurtured on Fenners and Brighton. Another difference between playing fast bowling and slow, is that fast bowling is far easier to hit behind the wicket on the off-side than slow, as may be seen from the fact that Richardson has, besides the wicket-keep, three fields in the slips at least; while to slow—Tyler, for instance—two would suffice. As every cricketer knows, players are constantly caught in two minds when playing slow bowling, the result being a compromise frequently attended by disaster. To fast bowling there is no time for two minds; your first instinct may be a wrong one, but for better for worse it is the first and only instinct.
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