C. B. FRY’S LETTERS TO CRICKET LADS

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22133, 29 November 1941, Page 9

C. B. FRY’S LETTERS TO CRICKET LADS

4—GOLDEN RULES FOR BATSMEN It is next to impossible to explain in writing how the various strokes in cricket should be made. It is only at all possible when the reader knows already what is meant by such terms as “playing forward,” and “playing back,” and “driving,” and “cutting.” You should get someone who can play to show you these things. Always remember that the greatest and the commonest of faults in batting is failure to watch the ball long enough and closely enough. I believe that nineteeen out of twenty times when one is clean-bowled, the catastrophe is due simply to having taken one’s eyes off the ball. The Great Difficulty Always remember that in all “forward” strokes, and in “driving” or “hitting,” the great difficulty is to avoid playing too soon. When you know how to “play forward” and to “drive" correctly, you will find it hard to apply these strokes well; and your difficulty will be, as I say, to keep the swing of your bat in hand long enough. •

You will have a natural tendency to begin the swing too soon. It is a golden rule, when you decide to “play forward” or to “drive,” to steel yourself to keep back the forward swing at the ball till the last possible Instant. This is more important than ever when you are playing slow bowling. Another golden rule is never to decide on your stroke until the ball is well on its way towards you. For instance, in playing slow bowling, you should never begin shaping for your stroke until the ball is well on its downward drop from the highest point in its flight. Half the faults in batting come from beginning to play before one really knows what sort of ball the bowler has bowled. Boys—and coming batsmen—have a sort of ingrained fear that they will be late for the stroke, but their commonest fault is that they are much too soon. Lift your bat back as early as you like, but do not begin swinging it forward, or moving your front foot out towards the ball, until the last possible instant. I can assure you that much more often than not a boy has got half-way through his “forward stroke” or his “drive” by the time he ought barely to have begun it. I must explain that, in playing fast bowling, if you find that you are too late with your strokes, the fault will be not that you are late in beginning to “play forward” or to “drive,” but that you are late in lifting your bat back ready to come forward. To be late in lifting your bat back in readiness to make a stroke, and to be late in actually beginning the forward motion, are two totally different

things. It is a very curious fact that those batsmen who are too slow in lifting their bats back are the very batsmen who swing it forward too soon: they begin too late and finish too soon. If you lift back your bat just as the ball leaves the bowler’s hand, and then resolutely decline to begin your “forward” stroke or your “drive” till absolutely the last instant, you will find your batting enormously improved. In ’’playing back” there is no natural tendency to play too soon. The fault is to fail to glue your eyes to the ball. Remember: No bowler can bowl more than one ball at you at a time, and every ball can be played if you look at it.—C.B.F.