The Specialist Tryer

Had indoor on Thursday with work - quite sedate in comparison with the Friday evening version, but still good. There's no running involved during the batting - so scoring is controlled by hitting the walls or getting the ball past lines on the floor. For the most part it's good to practice hitting gaps - but I have nowhere near that level of control for the most part. Still, managed to put on about 4 an over, which is OK with me. The winning player was going at 14 an over, so no hope of competing with that! And I didn't get out for a change :)

I bowled well though, probably got hit for the least runs and took the most wickets. At one stage I was on a hat-trick - but as has happened every time I've been on a hat-trick - I bowled a wide :( Fielded pretty well off my own bowling too, saving a few runs. But I did let a chance past me. To be fair, it was past me before I realised it was a chance - but some days those chances stick.

I saw something on a forum earlier about all-rounders that made me think. Technically an all-rounder is someone who could be picked in the team based entirely on either batting or bowling. In club cricket there are plenty of these guys. They're the ones that open the bowling and the batting every week and pretty much single-handedly win the game. But there are plenty of others that consider themselves all-rounders - because they are equally mediocre at both batting and bowling. Which isn't what the tag represents at all! I don't really know what you'd call these players. A "specialist tryer" perhaps :)

It also got me thinking about all-rounders in international cricket. It's fairly undeniable (I'm open to argument on this) at this stage that the standard of world cricket has improved a lot in the past number of years/decades (as it has in all sports really, records are constantly being broken). The expected standard of batting and bowling is way above what it once was - so does this mean that there are less genuine all-rounders these days? And instead is there more pressure for all players to be at least capable in their non-chosen skill. Almost every batsman these days bowls a bit of part-time spin. And it seems to almost be a droppable offence for a bowler to be unable to hold up an end.

Anyway, just something I've been thinking about. The only thing I know about all-rounders is that I'm unlikely to be one any time soon :D