Eureka again

Just had the indoor cricket session, and the good news is - I can still bat!! The first over I faced was hopeless, I was incapable of hitting a ball (albeit from a chucker ::) ). But then I decided to just relax and play the ball as it came to me, which worked great! Anything straight and short was either pulled away or pushed into a side-wall for 1 run. Anything full was hit straight down the ground, so I was able to pick up a run or two for nearly every ball.

Of course, it was only after 4 balls of this that the very large and angry penny managed to drop all the way onto my head and scream "That's what they mean by playing each ball on it's merits!". It seems obvious now, but before this I always would have been thinking "I need to get my front foot forward", or "I need to defend this ball", as opposed to just relaxing, watching the bowler and playing the ball as it deserved to be played.

To be fair, before now I couldn't afford to relax at the crease, as the odds of me hitting a ball of any speed were akin to the odds of me winning the lotto or writing a novel by accident. But since I've started practicing by driving balls with a stump, I now much more rarely miss a straight ball! And this practice has had the added benefit of making me cut out unnecessary cross-batted shots.

I also actually enjoyed batting today. Up till now I could never understand why anyone would actually want to bat. I saw it as a necessary evil that I had to get out of the way before I could get down to bowling and fielding. Now I'm looking forward to the game tomorrow so I can have a bit of a bat and see if the indoor feeling follows me. And the best thing is, I've been so bad this season with the bat that the pressure is completely off. No one expects the last partnership to last a full over. So if I get some runs - bonus. I must make sure that the guy at the other end doesn't throw away his wicket in an attempt to score a few before I face :-/