There's a lot of terminology out there associated with learning cricket. People talk about getting the wrist behind the ball; driving through the crease; pitching on a good length; keeping the seam upright; and a million other nuggets of advice.
All of this makes sense, and I for one always endeavour to analyze my bowling in terms of these idioms.
But it's one thing to know how to do a thing, and quite another to actually do it.
So there I was in nets last night - I turned down the chance to bat to work on turning the arm over - and I was doing quite well. The line was great, but I was still getting tonked! Then someone said "A bit shorter Ed" and voila! a good length! The batsman hadn't a clue where to go and the ball ended up going right through him and just missing the top of off stump. For the next 6 or so balls I was nigh on unplayable! It's such a subtle difference between knowing where a length is and knowing how it feels to land a ball there.
The interesting thing for me is how sometimes you'll do something and it will feel right - so you step back and try to analyze what had changed. And during this review you'll stumble across a way of describing what just happened that sounds familiar - because every coaching resource has been telling you to do it for an age! Suddenly you'll go - "So THAT'S what they meant....."
I'm getting them a bit more regularly these days too. As I see it, my first season was for learning how to play cricket at a high level - like what was expected of a player on and off the field. Season two is going to be about improvements in technique. So after a winter of gym work and reading as much cricket related material as I could, I'm starting to see a payoff for my efforts. Long may it continue!
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