As with other games like Tennis and Racquets, so with Cricket, we may assume that the game as now played is excellent for experts who either have wealth and leisure or else are professionals. For those, and for others at intervals, let the play be nearly as it now is. Let the best go on. Let there be test-matches, county and ‘varsity matches, college and school matches, house and dormitory matches, and so on. Here we deal chiefly with reforms outside these decisive games which are likely to remain as they are.

With those who are not experts of the classes mentioned above, the play cries for adaptation. First of all, there is need for snob-cricket, stump-cricket, room-cricket (not mere bedroom practice, but an actual game), as a more regular and more enjoyable substitute. Secondly, there is need for preparation; Cricket has been described as a trinity of games, and the stump-practice suggested in a previous chapter can serve as a preparation for fielding. The exercises offered in other chapters would serve as substitutes and also as preparation for play when play itself was out of the question. Cricket is a river that needs a good source and many good tributary-streams; it needs preparatory exercises and games. Such practice would soon make the play itself far more pleasant and interesting. Thirdly, there is need of supplementation—for example, left-handed play, the use of the left side being important, not merely in fielding (what crocks most people are with their left hands!), but in change-bowling also. Why should not more players be able to bowl an over or two left-handed for a change?

Besides this, there is need of cheapness—of economy of money and of time as well, so that each player may get more work to do and less dull waiting.

Above all, there is need of some “fun for the duffers,” if the game is to spread or even to hold its own. We are rapidly becoming Americanised. No longer do the majority care to serve merely as watchers, or at the best as ninepins to a Hirst or a Rhodes, as feeders and throwers-in for an Abel, a Shrewsbury, a Fry, or a Ranji. They want to be up and doing and enjoying themselves, or else they will give up the so-called play in disgust; it isn’t play. That is their true complaint.

And so we say, let the best players and the other players at intervals have their matches and games and net-practice as before, with any changes that may be accepted (such as those which will be touched on directly). But let there be something to give pleasure to the average person, whether it be an occasional game of tip-and-run, or an occasional game with some sort of a handicap.

What the handicap shall be, whether more men in the field, or both sides fielding, or fewer men on the stronger side, or smaller bats, or larger wickets, or a time-limit, must be left to the players themselves to decide. Only, one could wish for a more democratic and representative vote instead of the whole management being left to the few experts or “aristocrats,” who, of course, will legislate from their own point of view.

The reforms suggested by so many writers do not really deal with the masses of cricketers at all. The time-limit for the innings (it might be annulled in case of a difficult wicket), the running out of boundary hits, the declaring of the innings closed at any moment, the innings of sections of sides at a time—these things do not tend to make Dick, Tom, and Harry really enjoy themselves or improve their play appreciably more than at present.

As contrasted with short games of stump-cricket (to encourage accuracy of batting and to develop new bowlers), and with the building of clubs having plain rooms for evening games, such reforms are trifling except for the very few who play well. It would be far better to tell people how to field, or even how to watch with a view to interest and improvement. Reforms must aim at giving amusement, interest, attractiveness to the play of the average cricketer.

Let us consider a common experience in a one-day College match at Cambridge, putting aside the wet or rather the difficult wicket on which every player gets a knock; we want to think of Cricket at its best—on a fine day and a good wicket. The side that wins the toss sends in its first two or three bats; they pile up some hundreds of runs; the other members sit and do nothing; the captain eventually declares; the opposing side, after its hours of “country life,” has no chance of winning, so the players either stick and try to play out time, or else make a desperate attempt and slog at everything like a set of Jessops, but unskilled. No wonder there is apathy.

We begin by pointing out what appears at first to be the most ridiculous change; yet it is certain that when the tail of a team does go in, then it wants to enjoy itself for more than a few brief seconds. If the captain will not every now and then absolutely reverse the order of going in (at least at the end of a day’s scouting), then let the tail improve its own batting. The improvement rests with the members themselves. Let them begin practice on any level piece of ground, with a soft ball and a stick (to emphasise the importance of the straight bat); or let them in private (if not in a new form of drill) lunge with the left foot, stretch straight forward with the head and left-wrist and elbow, move the right foot across and cut with shoulder, forearm, and wrist, repeat the body-swing, and so on. The drill could be made less dull if one individual “set” the exercises to the rest, at first simple movements, then more complex movements with varied pace. Let the players give themselves the best possible chance of a reasonably long innings when they do go in. Let them make runs somehow,[10] not neglecting the safest kind of pull, for example, merely because it is called “bad style.”

More important than attention to batting is attention to bowling. We need not allow a “free margin” to bowlers of doubtful action; there are other remedies. Why should not people learn to make the ball curl in the air, starting their experiments with a Lawn Tennis ball, which gives more marked effects. That which is done habitually by Baseball throwers, and occasionally if unintentionally by a few bowlers, can surely be done frequently and intentionally by many bowlers, if only there be careful and thorough research. But anyhow let the breaks be learnt; let the first finger and the wrist be trained to strong movements of various kinds. Let the young players be given small bats and balls to play with. Let them and older players be given an over now and then for a change in less important games. Certainly let the various mechanisms of bowling be mastered before a player decides that he has not the gift of bowling; let him do arm-and-shoulder extensions (see the photographs of Hirst), wrist-turns, and so on; and then (as suggested above), practise with a stump, a wicket-keeper, and another bowler on the other side of the stump; let each have his little paper-marks on the ground, and let him pitch the ball as near as he can to these. Let every would-be bowler, that is to say every cricketer, try to bowl round the wicket, if only in the old style with the low delivery (like W. G.’s, as described by Mr. A. G. Steel). Or let him try his luck with lobs, if only that he may learn how to make the ball break both ways. Let him see if he cannot bowl a little with his left-hand—who knows? We must raise the number of bowlers as well as the standard of bowling. On that point all are agreed.[11]

Perhaps at the same time the power of the batsman might be lessened,[12] either by a number-limit or a time-limit to the innings, or by a smaller bat (narrower and thicker), or by a larger wicket (higher or broader, or both—at the moment when I write this, the suggested change has not been accepted by all—), or, better still, by the following plan. On a caking wicket we do not need to shorten the batsman’s innings, except to put a stop to excessive poking. The ground takes whatever break is put on (and perhaps adds some of its own). Why should there not be an artificial material which would take a good deal of break and not be dangerous. The M.C.C. out of its abundance might offer a reward (say of £100) to the inventor of some material, which need not extend over more than a small area. We want a floor that will show just what twist or spin has been given to the ball, so that inferior batsmen shall not now make their centuries merely because the ball will not “bite.” In Racquets, Tennis, covered-court Lawn Tennis, and Ping-Pong, the ball performs practically whatever antics it ought to perform. We want a pitch that will carry out the bowler’s work without adding or subtracting much. Neither a plumb wicket nor a caking wicket does that. We need some such material as Mr. W. J. Ford suggests, perhaps a kind akin to cokernut matting.

The proposed leg-before-wicket reform by which the batsman is given out if, in the opinion of the umpire, the ball would have struck his wicket (rather than if the ball pitches in a line between the wickets, which militates against the old round-arm bowling round the wicket), may or may not prove advisable. It is not a really radical reform.

But far the best change, the most potent, and in every way most profitable to all, to the bowler, the wicket-keep, the fielder, the spectator, and even ultimately to the batsman, would be an improvement in fielding. Some time ago one of the greatest of all cover-points past or present remarked to a friend of his, “If you and I were there, that side would have been out by now.” With this man at cover, the batsman was never let off at cover. With a team of such fielders, the game would be quite altered. A century would then mean something. As it is, a player is said to have given no chances when with a field full of Vernon Royles[13] he would have given several chances of being caught, and many chances of being run out. But how can fielding be improved?

Why are there so few prizes for fielding? Why in athletic sports is there a prize only for distance-throwing, and not for regulated direction or regulated pitch? Here is a great opening for schools, and especially to-day when, as Abel said, stone-throwing in cities is sadly discouraged! The beach of the sea-side is not always accessible. Besides this, it is good to practise catching and fielding with a soft ball against a wall; various games of catching and fielding can be made exciting enough; the stump-game (suggested in another chapter) can be adapted to throwing as well as to bowling; points may be counted. Excellent exercise can thus be had at odd moments. Or Fives and left-handed Squash will develop the left side, and prizes for left-hand throwing may be offered by schools. Boxing is capital in its effects on alertness and “eye.” There should be boxing by all means.

And let there be training in general—for how can one field well unless he be fresh and untired? Let there be full control of arms and legs and body without loss of balance, full quick stretchings, full and quick stoopings, in all directions; let there be—we repeat—plenty of Fives for the left side and for stooping; diving and swimming for endurance; and the fast extension-movements, at the end of which the extensions should be held for a moment or two.

This implies careful analysis of the mechanisms of fielding—of starting, of catching, of picking up, of throwing in. It implies a system or systems based on this analysis. It implies careful study. But if Cricket be a desirable game, above all if it be compulsory, then it must be taught well, especially at the outset. As Murdoch says: “A good ground-work must be laid down, and the young beginner cannot be too painstaking and careful.” The drill must not be in all the refinements of Cricket, such as the Ranjiglide; it must be in that A B C of fielding, etc., which no really great fielder has lacked. That which is not by nature must come by art. Some drill there must be, even if it only be self-drill. But drill itself will do a boy no harm to-day. A veteran cricketer, in his time an excellent field and now a superintendent of a boys’ institution, tells me on the one hand of the inferiority of fielding to-day, and on the other hand of the lack of persistent concentration among boys to-day. Boys, he says, lack that power, and drill can give it to them so that it lasts through life.

Reform in Cricket must not be merely reform for a few match-players. Apart from increased power of sustained self-control, of immediate self-direction, apart from confidence and readiness, it must be for the greater enjoyment and greater skill of the majority of British boys and men. With this end in view, we may have to adapt Cricket to indoor play in well-lighted and well-ventilated rooms in cities and suburbs (in America the city-clubs, built storey upon storey upwards, allow of other games by electric light). Any old room would do. We do not want only this adapted game, any more than we want only drill and practice; we want net-play also; practice-games also; matches also. But we want the game itself, the grand old game, when it is played, to be played better and to be played better all round, in all its branches, by all its players.

When we come to look at the matter impartially, and to ask what Cricket might and should do for us physically, aesthetically, mentally, morally, as individuals, as groups, as a nation; when we come to compare its effects—even as they now are—with those of our school-lessons in Latin grammar, geography, history, arithmetic, and so on, we do not hesitate to say that Government support is needed, not only in establishing such clubs, for evening and wet-day play within cities, but also for allowing Cricket—the trinity of Cricket, batting and bowling and fielding, and perhaps the theory of Cricket also—to count something in certain Government examinations, especially in those for the Indian Civil Service. For is it not of more value than many crammings?

Let Cricket be given its proper place—no higher, no lower. It is an amusement; true. But it is also an education for character and life. It might be ten times the education that it is, for almost the whole of character and life. Sensible reforms would make it so—reforms which would in no way interfere with Cricket as it is now played in important matches, and as it is now practised in practice-games and at nets. The reforms would prepare for these excellent occasions, and would also serve as substitutes for them and as supplements to them, and would thus bring in many converts to the game, bring back many renegades, and enable Cricket to hold her own against all her rivals, especially against excessive Cycling, Golf, Croquet, Ping-Pong, idleness, the public-house, and that evil for which at present there exists no other name but smuggishness.