Parle-moi de jeu

C’est la semaine francaise bebe!

A game against Parley 3s, with a somewhat rubbish outcome. So I thought I would start the game review with a quote from my favourite French cricket coach, er, Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

The moral is to the physical as three is to one.

What the Sartre does that bloody mean? I hear you ask, and why are you bringing it up now? Well, it means that, in war, mental factors are three times as important to the outcome of battle as physical factors. As in war, so in cricket. The team suffered another batting collapse, failing to make a game of it. I think this is more a mental thing than a technical one, as the team have some good bats, but things are not rocking and rolling.

To be fair, Parley bowled decently, I could even go so far as to say well. But they were not that good, decent but hardly unplayable. Perhaps they were always going to beat us, but it should not have been by such a margin. It is in fact easy to bowl well when not under any pressure, and the Kapils batting performance was such that Parleys bowling was never put under pressure, a few well struck 4s in the first few overs but after that, nada.

And the mantra has been ‘you don’t need to push it, plenty of overs, no need to take risks, build an innings.’ Perhaps this is internalised as ‘be cautious, it’s difficult, it can go wrong at any moment’. Because we seem to be a team that is batting with an expectation that it will go wrong. Perhaps as a team  we need to be giving each the other the message ‘it’s a game, that we are pretty decent at, go and do your natural thing, sure respect the good ball but look to score when you can’. Because there is nothing that makes bowling seem really hard than being biffed for a couple of boundaries in an over. Or perhaps we just need to get into the nets for a bit of a practice……. (Always have to remind myself, c for a noun…)

But I still had a relaxing day out, which considering the tonking my team took is absurd. But as Camus argued; absurdism arises out of the tension between our desire for order, meaning and happiness and, on the other hand, cricket’s refusal to provide this. All we can do is recognise this and impart our own meaning onto life, cricket and everything. Or maybe forget about it all and go to the clubhouse and have another beer.

 

Albert after getting out for a duck against a swinging ball

If you are playing at Winton Rec and decide on the coffee, be careful if you order a Cafe Latte from the cafe next to the Oval. I had one at the weekend and it was hotter than the sun, it bloody well blistered my inner lip, best give it a chance to cool down. 

Match Scorecard

 

On a more positive note, another quote from everyone’s favourite French would be world conqueror that is pertinent to the team’s position and kind of inspirational.

‘Victory is not always winning the battle, but rising every time you fall.’