Cricket My Way. Ian Botham

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       Graeme Hick, my partner in some classic innings, playing his favourite square drive off the front foot.

      I am always on to my team mates about developing and sustaining a positive attitude. From the beginning of every match, I am trying to win; whereas some captains go the other way and aim firstly to set up a position from where they cannot lose, before they turn their attention to winning.

      Sometimes in Test cricket that has to be the way to play, but five-day Test cricket is a unique form of the game, and not too many valid tactical comparisons can be made with other formats. Certainly I can think of very few three or four day championship matches where that sort of approach accomplishes anything. Fewer matches are won in the long run, and also the entertainment factor is ignored.

      It is all very well county pros pleading a lack of understanding from spectators of the finer points of the game, and I know that it is mostly members and not the paying public who turn up in the week. But without those members, even in these days of wide sponsorship, the game would suffer a lot. Their entertainment must always be considered. Although the three-day crowds at New Road in the first season Graham Dilley and I had with Worcestershire in 1987 were nothing special, there was a huge increase in the membership, and I hope they agree we all gave them good value.

      I know how much importance I attach to being entertained whenever I watch sport – be it golf, or football, or even cricket. That is one of the reasons why I always try to give value to the watchers.

      There are so many different ways of building an innings. Geoff Boycott always aimed at ten runs a time, and in the first place never widened his horizon beyond that. I could not do that, and usually play it as I feel. For me, figure targets are bad because they inhibit me, and anyway they spoil my concentration.

      A GOOD EXAMPLE

       ‘Just look at someone like Allan Lamb. He is my sort of cricketer because, although he has his limitations, he never dodges a situation, or ducks a challenge. In one-day cricket, he is completely different from me. He works the ball about brilliantly, taking full advantage of the lack of close fielders, and the crowd are invariably taken by surprise when they look at the scoreboard, and see how many he has chalked up without doing anything spectacular.

       ‘Everyone remembers the 18 he took off Bruce Reid in Sydney in a World Series match in 1986. He pulled off the most astonishing win for us; but although he finished with an unbeaten 51 at a personal scoring rate of over a run per ball, he did not hit his first boundary until that final over.’

       CONCENTRATION

      Successful batting depends so much on concentration, and I help maintain mine by switching on and off between the action. Quite often, you’ll see me laughing and joking and apparently fooling around when I am batting. But as soon as the bowler runs in, I block everything and everyone out except how I am going to play that ball.

      Some players cannot do that, because once they switch off, they have problems in finding the ‘on’ switch quickly enough. Chris Tavaré is an example of that. He keeps himself wound up by going for a walk after most deliveries. Off he’ll go around the short leg area, just to think of the ball he has just faced, and to work out what he will try to do against the next one.

      I get bored doing that, and so I deliberately think of all sorts of things while the bowler is going back to his mark.

      Geoff Boycott is another who wound himself up tighter and tighter, and his concentration never wavered. I can’t do that. He could, and there is another instance of the fascination of cricket which is played in so many different ways by different cricketers.

      Early in an innings, I might keep myself geed up for a while, but I have to revert to normal pretty quickly, otherwise I find my mind becomes cluttered with things which are of no use to me at all.

      Some batsmen are great chatters, and it is always important when batting for a player to take into account the make-up of his partner. Needless to say, I love to chat in the middle with the other batsman, even if it is not too much about the cricket – unless I think he is struggling and I can help him with any advice or encouragement.

      It is surprising how often a batsman can lose his rhythm in the middle of an innings, and it is then his partner can help him with a quiet word, and perhaps by organizing the strike, if a particular bowler is suddenly looking dangerous.

       Geoff Boycott, England v India, Second Test, Lord’s, July 1979. Concentration personified; still head with eyes on the ball.

      Viv and I batted dozens of times together for Somerset, but I can hardly remember a conversation about the bowlers in all that time.

      I remember one chat with Mike Gatting at The Oval when we were both just blocking for over after over against Pakistan in 1987. After yet another maiden, I met him in the middle of the pitch and said: ‘Am I frightfully boring to watch?’ He just cracked up, but it helped to break the tension of the situation, and I knew a laugh would not break his concentration.

      A lot of players aim to bat for a session at a time, but again, while I accept that works for them, once I get time and lack of motion of that sort in my mind, it would be bound to affect the way I play, so not only do I rarely look at the clock, I am not one of those players who checks the scoreboard after every run, to see they have not been diddled.

      Sometimes I look up after a while, and I am genuinely surprised to see what has happened, but I play in the way I do because various targets which fill other players’ minds, never bother me.

      The only time I will keep a careful regular check is towards the end of a one-day match, or in a tight finish to a three-day game, where the number of overs left is always so important.

      Find out by trial and error what your mental limits are, and then evolve your own concentration key. Mine is to switch on and off, otherwise I quickly become bored and tired. Also to keep the blinkers on does not make me a better player, and I am a firm believer in not letting anything worry me more than it has to.

       RUNNING BETWEEN THE WICKETS AND CALLING

      There are enough ways of getting out in cricket, without being run out, and yet time and time again, the pressure of trying to sustain a victory charge produces the sort of mix-up when seasoned pros don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

      When most run-outs are analysed, and the blame apportioned – although there is often more disagreement about that than in deciding who was in the wrong in a car accident – it is surprising how few are unavoidable. By that I mean when the dismissal came about as a result of a magnificent piece of fielding, when it is only justice to give credit to the fielder rather than criticize the batsmen.

      The other common denominator is that remarkably few run-outs happen because someone is slow moving between СКАЧАТЬ