Cricket 1903

9 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. J an . 29, 1903. tries to get out of it, and doesn’t give it up like so many other men. Then, again, form was all wrong last year, and men like Ranji and Fry couldn’ t get gcin g, but you may take it that they have not lost any of their skill for all that. They are both wonderful bats, and both did so well in previous years that people all expected great things of them, and were proportionately disappointed. If Trumper came over here again everybody would expect him to do something altogether wonderful, and if he did not it would be said that he had gone off.” “ Were you much impressed by Trumper’s batting F” “ Undoubtedly his splendid batting was the main factor in the great success o f the Australian team. I never saw anything like it, and I was particularly struck b y the way in which he punished balls and yet kept them down. H e is indeed a splendid bat. Perhaps the slow wickets were the means of bringing him to the front even more than fast ones would have d on e; he seems to have the defence of Shrewsbury combined with the hitting o f F. S. Jackson. I have always held that Shrewsbury is the best batsman in the world on a slow wicket, and given a wet wicket all the year round look how he comes o u t ! I believe that in com ­ parison with his play over here, Clement H ill will come out well in Australia, for he is essentially a fast wicket player, and a left-hand batsman is never seen at his best on a slow wicket. Y ou may be sure that he has not fallen off, but he has altered his style a little, and in Australia last season he took liberties and often ran out to h it; but he made a lot of nineties.” “ What do you think o f present-day fielding ? ” “ Australians are much better than Englishmen as a rule in picking up and in starting quickly after a ball. They not only start quicker but run faster after it, and if you were to put the Australian team and an England team in line and let them run a sprint, about eight Aus­ tralians would come in first. A ball will be twenty yards on its course before the ordinary fieldsman has made up his mind whether he ought to move or not. I can’t help thinking that it would do a lot of good to men if they would practise fielding before they become first-class cricketers. They sit in the pavilion until their turn comes to go to the nets to have a knock, and they m ight just as well— indeed, far better—go out and practise fielding and catching. Where practice helps you so much is especially in the case of long hits. A man in the outfield is likely to be nervous; he thinks of what the crowd will say if he misses the catch. H ow many men in the out-field don’t turn white after they have made a catch ? A lot of practice is not necessary, for it hurts one’s hands to be constantly catch­ ing b ills which are hit from a distance, but what is wanted is enough practice to make one familiar with catches. I might instance Massie as an example of what may be done by practice. When he first was in the Australian team he was a bad field, and before he came to England he never seemed able to stop anything. But he knew his weakness and set to work hard to conquer it, with the result that in a single season he had developed into one of the best fields I have ever seen. In connection with £elding, learning to throw is of the utmost importance, and it is unfortunately sadly neglected. Many men, even in first-class cricket, have to go through an action almost as laboured as that of a bowler before they can return a ball to the wicket. But watch a first-class field, and you will see that with one and the same action he gathers the ball and brings his hand back to the position for throwing. It makes all the difference in the world whether this is done or n ot.” “ What do you think is the best system to go upon when teaching boys to play ? ” “ I think that boys ought to play hard, but not for too long. One of the greatest mistakes made b y many of those who coach a b oy is not to let him exert himself. They think he ought not to bow l fast, for fear that he should over­ work himself, and of course I do not suggest that he ought to bow l fast for hours and hours at a stretch. But watch a man in training. A rower does not try to row slowly, or a runner to run slowly. Nor does the weight-lifter try to lift the easiest weights. A t least once a day during their practice they all exert them­ selves to their full extent. The time to learn to bow l fast is when you are young — you must learn before you are twenty. Y ou may get faster after you have learned, but it must not be all strength. A man loses his pace when he is about thirty or thirty-two, and is probably at his fastest when he is about twenty-two. Y ou don’t want to teach a boy to break, it stops his pace, and that is why fast bow ling is at such a premium. Every little boy nowadays breaks both ways, but he would be much more effective in after years if he did not do so until he was twenty. Remember that about five men out of every eleven cannot play a fast bowler, and another five don’t like him. When I was at my fastest I was told over and over again that whether I was getting wickets or not the other side would have been glad if I had bow led slower. It often happened that when a man was making runs off me I gave him a medium pacsd ball, with the result that he was so pleased to get a slower one that he had a hit and was out.” “ Do you believe much in professional coaching.” “ In the ordinary way I do not. In Australia boys teach themselves by watching each other and any grown up cricketers whom they see. The result is individuality, while their natural ability is not dwarfed by other people’s ideas. I should like to ask the question, ‘ Who teaches the professionals to bow l ? ’ And yet while all of them learn to bowl, there has not been a crack amateur bowler for years. Moreover, nearly all the best amateur bowlers of any time have been men who have taught themselves. It would not be going very far out of the way to say the same of the best amateur batsmen. The sooner the present system is done away with the better for English cricket.” “ What do you think are its chief defects ? ” “ Its failure to allow originality to develop, and its tendency to make a cricketer a machine. Players who have been taught b y the same man get into the same groove. The Harrow drive was never any good. I don’t know whether there was ever a celebrated Eton stroke, but if there was, all the boys would learn it. Y ou want in batting, as in bow ling, to foster originality. Now when a man is old he forgets a lot which made him famous, and very likely thinks he owed his success to something quite different, which he carefully teaches to the boys under his care. If he has been a great cricketer, the boys reverence him and get into all his ways— which in all probability are far removed from the ways of his period of fame. One can hardly imagine an old professional teach­ ing Jessop how to b a t! Jessop has taken a line of his own b y which he has made himself famous, but when he is an old man he won’t be able to teach boys how to hit.” W . A. B e t t e s w o r t h . W ISD EN .* The fortieth edition of this well-known almanack is at least as interesting and useful as any of its predecessors, which is saying a good deal. One always looks to see what the editor has to say about the abuses of the game, for he is always frank and outspoken. But this year he has not felt called upon to utter any warnings, and this may be taken as a sign of the times that no warnings are needed just at present. Many cricketers will agree with his remarks about the proposed widening of the wicket. “ Without wishing to pose as an opponent to all change,” he says, 1 ‘ I hope sincerely that the propositi will not be entertained by the Marylebone Club. Cricket should be the same game all the world over, and I hold very strongly to the view that as regards the implements employed no alteration should be made with­ out long and exhaustive experiment. There is too great a tendency just now to treat the game exclusively from the point of view of first-class players.” Various secretaries and captains of second-class counties have given their opinions on the subject of the proposed new leg-before-wicket law, which was tried without success last year in second-class county matches, and on the whole they dis­ approve of it. As the time has long gone by when “ Wisden” was thrown away in the course of the year (for nowadays everybody keeps it for reference), it may be questioned whether the small photographs which annually appear of five prominent players are sufficiently permanent for an important publication. An examination of some of the back numbers certainly points to the contrary. ’ VYisilt'll's Ciicketero’ Almanack. London : John Wisden and Co. 40th edition. Edited by Mr. Sydney H. Pardon. Is. P AP.HI CRICKET, with 27 Illustrations, by M. E. Pavbi.—A History of Parsi Cricket given in a lucid and concise form. Records and many memor­ able achievements of prominent Parsi cricketers, etc. Price, 48.; post free, 4s. 3d .—Cricket Offices, 168, Upper Thames Street, E.C,