The one that went Rat

Another net session last night – and I’m happy enough with how it went.

I got in to have a bat in the quickies net, and made a conscious decision to be as defensive as possible. I (initially) didn't play at anything wide, and I completely ignored anything on the leg side (I take guard on leg so this was safe enough). Then if a straight one came down I tried to forward-defend it into the ground.

I did get bowled once, by a short ball that stayed very low, but that's good preparation for the kinds of wickets we'll be playing on during the season. Round these parts it's called a rat-ball. We'd a game last year where we were bowled out for 70-odd, and only just lost by 2 wickets simply because the ball never got higher than your ankle! So it's forward defense, regardless of length methinks.

As the session went on I did become slightly impatient at watching all those deliveries outside off going by – and was eventually tempted into going after a few of them. This proved fruitless initially as I played and missed a lot. I quickly realized what I was doing wrong though, and refocused on playing the shots correctly and it came together alright. I managed to guide a few through the slips region and one or two through extra cover - and they stayed along the ground … which was nice.

There was one observation I made during the fielding drills. There were a few guys there that only started playing cricket this year, and so they didn’t fully understand what was required. For example, we were doing a drill where one guy attacks the ball while a 2nd backs up in case he misses – but because these guys had never played in a game before they weren’t going at the ball with any intensity, and they didn’t know where they were supposed to be to be any use backing up. The strange thing was, none of the people running the session made a big effort to explain. I suppose when someone takes up the game when they’re not a kid it’s harder to break things down into their simplest form for them, as it seems condescending to explain “kid’s stuff” to an adult.

From personal experience, I would have loved if someone had shown me more of this stuff before I started playing last year. It would have saved the embarrassment of backing up too close behind a teammate and consequently letting a ball through my legs to run away for 4 overthrows

Then again, if you try and explain this stuff in too much detail to someone who has no frame of reference you risk confusing the matter. There’s so much stuff to learn anyway, that it’s probably better to let people make some mistakes by themselves and then try and teach how to do it properly.

Needless to say, I’ve been hinting to these guys that they can pick up an extra bit of “sneaky learning” on the side by accessing a certain website or two.
The cricket club have also organised a game of paintball this weekend as a "team-building" exercise. Though the last time I tried to foster a friendship with someone by shooting them in the face it didn't work too well ...

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