CHAPTER II.
BOWLING.
Table of Contents "Every cricketer should be able to bowl when called upon to do so by his captain. Every man who has played cricket has bowled at a net, and he certainly has an action which is different from everybody else's."-From the Badminton Volume.
"Anything that improves bowling even a little is to be looked upon as an unmixed boon to the game. The number of bowlers who have hitherto made an honest attempt to acquire the knack is extremely small, so that we need not forecast from the past what the future might be."-Edward Lyttelton.
INTRODUCTORY.
Table of Contents More bowlers and better bowlers are sadly needed if amateurs are to hold their own against professionals in other games besides Lawn Tennis and Ping-pong. Bowlers are more and more needed in these days of good pitches, when the caking ground, the bowler's conjuror, cannot be had to order.
The cause of the behindhandness of bowling is partly the excellence of the plumb-wicket, partly the rise of the Pro bowler (without a corresponding rise of the Pro or Amateur fielder), and partly the consequent head-play demanded of the bowler, who to-day must think hard and must also be hard-must endure. But the cause lies less in the degeneracy of the bowler than in the progress of the batsman and his chances of scoring, the use of the heavy roller (to which Mr. R. H. Lyttelton so often calls attention), and last but not least the fatal theory that the bowler is born not made.
Of course the bowler is born-who isn't? But whether or no he may be made if the right means be adopted, remains to be ascertained by experiment, the only teacher. We must suspend judgment, must insist on ?p???, until some sort of method of making a bowler has been fairly tried. We freely grant a certain "luck" in the finding of a natural action with free swing and fine break. Yet we may still believe that proper practice, as distinct from casual and persistent plugging, may work wonders.
Anyhow, all should learn to bowl a bit, not only for their own pleasure and in order to get a place in a team, but also because the future of Cricket largely depends on the excellence and the variety of the bowling.
More and superior bowlers are urgently wanted, whether wicket-keeping and fielding be improved or not (of course the worse the fielding is, the better the bowling must be); whether batting be cramped or not (see the Chapter on Reforms); and whether the conditions of bowling be improved or not, as by the smaller bat, the larger wicket, the shorter innings, the artificial pitch to take the full break, and so on.
There is a great opening for every one who can learn to bowl. Is there no practical advice to be offered besides such hints as: "Bowl naturally," "Have an easy swing," "Get the length," "Put on a break," "Use a high action," "Vary and conceal the pace, etc."? At present no writer says, "Develop the right muscles rightly first." No writer seems to have sought what muscles are used by most good bowlers, and how they may best be developed. As to the exercisers and developers, they are in my opinion excellent for mere increase in the size of certain muscles, for weight-lifting, for rowing, for gymnastics, for pushing in the football scrum, but infamously worse than useless for bowling purposes until speed has already been acquired. Later on, we shall expose a few fallacies about bowling, especially the fallacy that premature failure means perpetual disability, whereas the real fault may lie with the undeveloped mechanism of bowling; thus I myself after a few weeks of bedroom-practice had added an inch to the upward extension of my arm, and can move my wrist and fingers freely in more directions than before.
The first thing is to find out what muscles are used and how. This we may do by watching good bowlers like Hirst, and by asking them, at the beginning of the season, where they ache. These muscles we may practise by fast full movements and fast arrested movements, not by strain-exercises. Thus, when we find the first finger of the expert nearly worn out, we may conclude that this finger is a potent factor in success. Till we can use it, let us not despair. This is only one example. Personally I do not see how any one could expect to bowl decently with trunk, shoulder, wrist, and fingers as stiff as mine were.
Having found out the mechanisms, we must secure them; we must be content with nothing short of mastery, especially in these days of plumb-wickets. The beginning need not be too fast; medium bowlers have succeeded as well as fast, and have lasted longer.
And now as to the
ORDER OF LEARNING.
Table of Contents Bowling is in Cricket very much what serving is (or should be) in Racquets and Tennis; very much the same order can be observed as in these games, apart from the bowling at nets, at a stump, and against a wall-all of which are useful afterwards.
1. First comes the mechanism, the control of the requisite muscles and combinations of muscles. For this control certain exercises may be outlined; they are suggestive rather than complete. Let each reader and teacher add his own. But the mechanism must become easy before the would-be bowler decides which style he will adopt. Otherwise
XX.-Bowling, third position: bowling arm extended fully forwards and downwards, body facing forwards, back leg fully extended.
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XXI.-Bowling, second position: bowling arm extended fully upwards, body coming round with arm.
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what is naturally easy may be practically uneconomical or risky, as almost every one of my "natural" movements at any game seems to have been. Let the beginner begin without a ball.
a. Notice the extension of the back leg in Hirst's photograh (XX.); that is a simple yet important item. The hand and shoulder are extended fully backwards and downwards.
b. The arm reaches upwards and, in some cases, outwards. Try that, without straining. Having formed the full extension (do not neglect the extra inch that the shoulder can give), then point upwards with your first and middle fingers, and, keeping them as far as possible in the same direction, turn the arm round quickly in both ways. It is as if you wished to visit a distant possession of your kingdom and were not content merely to reach it but wished to take an excursion when you had reached it-to become more familiar with it. The top of the stretch will be seen in Ranjitsinhji's book, in the photographs on pp. 76, 79, 90, 99, 101, 104 (First Edition), as well as in the one of Hirst in this volume (XXI.). Abel says:-
"Before you settle on any particular style of bowling, try various plans, and that which is easiest and most effective you should practise continually, but I should strongly recommend the high delivery."
An exception is when you have some good leg-fielders, and dare to imitate W. G.'s effective low action round the wicket.
c. The sideways position of the body during the moment of delivery (see Hirst) seems more usual than the position facing the batsman. This means some of that body-swing which the golfer uses, in common with the tennis-player, the mower, the pitch-forker, and others. It is described in the Volume on Training.
d. After the bowling and (see Hirst), in the case of some experts, before it also, the hand comes right down in front, near the left knee. Let the arm come down from the full upward extension to this position, preserving the outward stretch as long as possible. The shoulder comes with it.
e. The wrist is important. Hold your elbow close to your side, and your palm, fingers upwards, in front of your face, as if you were going to read your own fortune. Then twist it round smartly as far as it will go, the thumb moving across to your left, the little finger away to your right. Recover the first position smartly, and repeat many times. Another wrist-exercise is the one straight up and down. Starting from the first position, bend the hand briskly towards you, as if to fan yourself; then briskly back again.
f. The fingers and thumb, but especially the first finger, must acquire full extensions, full contractions, and the power of rapid yet strong movements in various directions. For example, imagine yourself to be spinning a peg-top with your first finger, now in one direction, now in the other. A second exercise is to move the tips of all the fingers, separately, sharply down towards the palm, and sharply back again.
We need a teacher to tell beginners and others which part of their mechanism is weak or slow, which part is not doing its share of work, which part is working wrongly, and so on.
As a change, the exercises may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to left-hand practice.
THE ACTION OF BOWLING
Table of Contents has already been hinted at in these exercises. But, before the ordinary action, may come a few words about the lob, the use of which Mr. Edward Lyttelton advocates so well. The following ideas are mostly his.
We seldom see lob-bowlers to-day. Perhaps many promising boys have been discouraged by too much hitting of their lobs, or too bad fielding (or badly-placed fielding), or too little practice (at a stump and onto a small piece of paper). Yet lobs may be very useful when runs are coming fast; they are like slow...
