Sometimes, I Bloody Hate Cricket

If you are one of the many several stylish, tasteful and discerning people that choose to regularly read this blog, you have probably noticed that this instalment is being published over a week late. My apologies for that, but the game that I should be writing up annoyed me so much I couldn’t face it, hence the radio silence.

The game was against Sway, a team in a very similar position to us in the league, leading to us hoping that we had a chance of coming away with the laurels. Having won the toss, I chose to field. The pitch looked ok but wanted to give my bowlers a chance to use the shiny hard ball (at this level remember, only one ball per game). As a captain, choosing to field always seems to be a risk, as if the opposition get off to a flyer you feel a bit of a fool. No worries of that in this game though, we had Sway at 72 / 8.

AND THEN WE STILL BLOODY LOST

What? How? Why? Fa crying out loud…….. From 72 for 8 they ended up on 190. On a good pitch this should have been doable but we ended up 159 all out.

Where can blame and credit lie for this? Well, lets look to myself first. As captain, could I have done anything else? When we had them on the ropes, I was happy to carry things on as they were, they were working so why not let them carry on working? I could have been more proactive, brought back the opening bowlers with more attacking fields to wrap things up, this may be a lesson learnt.

Next, got to give credit to the two bats that put on the 100 runs stand. Fair play, they did the business, with a mixture of defensive batting when needed and attacking strokes when able. They were also very active in hustling the quick singles when they could. Well played gentlemen.

There is possible also an issue with the mental strength of the team when things started to slip. Rather than people stepping forward to calm things and take responsibility it all got very ragged, the team got a bit shell shocked. Quick singles were given away when they should not have been – people were not in their position and on their toes. To stop the rot at one point as captain I quickly called everyone in to speak about being switched on and doing the basics better, which did have an effect. By then it was a bit too late.

So 190 runs more or less given away. The pitch was playing well though and it should have been chased down. Too many silly mistakes, to many people not taking responsibility to make things happen when they should have done (talking about the senior players here, not the youngsters, me included). This led to a game that should have been a win petering out to a distinctly annoying loss.

72 for 8 should have led to out first win of the season, instead it become the worst loss of the season instead. Bah, sometimes I bloody hate cricket………….