So you stop and watch a cricket match and you soon work out roughly the standard by all sorts of things - the setting of the field, whether the fielders are in grown up or schoolboy/girl places, whether they walk in properly and the returns to the keeper quite apart from the standard of the bowling and strokes played.But I recently found out whilst playing a game that was frighteningly above my standard (why had I agreed to play?) of another much more reliable indicator. How the ball gets back to the bowler after it's gone dead.
Quite early in our fielding session in this game I noticed that it was never dropped and it wasn't just gentle loops keeper-slip-gully-square cover-extra-mid off-bowler. It was often slip or even keeper to mid off and these guys just never dropped it (40 overs!).
So ever other over I'm at cover and the pressure's building (it only went rarely down the leg side) would I be the first to drop it?
Bowling was a nice release from pressure and then long off was a blessed relief.
Did I drop it? What do you think?
And the team I was playing for? The Barmy Army - some seriously good players there ( but not seriously in the literal sense)
Yes, I remember having a chat with a certain 3rd team captain who admitted to me that his field placings were more about spreading out so that the distances thrown from fielder to fielder to get the ball back to the bowler were not far, rather than where they needed to be to stop runs or take wickets.
ReplyDeleteOf course you didn't drop it!
I knew it!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete