MORE NORMAL APPROACHES
So let me concentrate on more normal innings, and whether you play like me or Geoff Boycott, there are certain common factors to be taken into account.
Let me deal firstly with my own approach. It never bothers me how long I stay on nought after I have come in to bat. Some batsmen are looking to get off the mark straight away with a mid-wicket push for a single. I would rather concentrate for a few deliveries at least, to play ‘in the V’ as we call it – that is the area between mid on and mid off.
Viv Richards is one who loves to slide his foot forward and push a run or two through his favourite mid-wicket area, but you cannot take him as an example of too much because he is a genius. I could not do what he does and he won’t try too much of what I do. We both play to our respective strengths, and that is what coaches should encourage.
When I start batting, the bowler is in between me and what I want to do, so I try to work out the best way of dominating him. Some bowlers cannot take this. They worry, try to change their natural method, and the argument is settled after a few deliveries.
Other more resilient cricketers are tougher nuts to crack. John Emburey is as good an example of this as I can quote, because he has such an unshakable faith in his own ability and method of bowling that he never gets rattled if he gets smashed around. Not that that happens too often, which is why his captains pay him the supreme compliment of entrusting the closing overs of a one-day match to him.
Somehow, I want to introduce my natural aggression into proceedings as soon possible. I keep coming back to aggression, because it is such an integral part of my game and approach, but I recognize that it takes different forms with different players. For instance, many people regarded Geoff Boycott as a run machine who ground his runs out, rather than give rein to a lot of the flair I know he had. Flair which only occasionally in one-day cricket used to be unwrapped, but I knew was always there, having travelled the world with him.
I have watched him in the nets countless times, where he has played all the shots, only to go in and revert to type. I used to think that was illogical, but he would argue it was done to get rid of his aggression before he started his innings, because he was then more likely to produce the sort of big innings needed in Test cricket.
I thought that a wrong approach, but it made him such a great run scorer, who can argue?
Whatever I have been accused of, when on the surface I have got out to a silly, irresponsible shot, nobody can ever say that I have been short of self-belief. I know that on my day I can destroy an attack, and turn a match right round in a short space of time. I think I am helped by batting at five or six, because the match situation has started to develop by then, and much of what I do can be viewed in that context, compared with those top order players who try to shape events.
They shape, and sometimes I try to change – there is the big difference. But I can only change things because I believe in myself, whereas there are quite a few cricketers who sell themselves short, because they do not fully believe in themselves.
GOING FOR IT?
‘It is only on rare occasions that I feel free to come in and go for it from the first ball. Edgbaston in 1985 against Australia was one of those, and I will never forget my first ball six off Craig McDermott.
‘At 572 for 4, we were not exactly struggling, and Mike Gatting hardly needed to tell me to get on with it. But that situation was just as much a one-off as the one at Headingley four years earlier when we were 133 for 7 in the second innings, still 94 runs behind Australia. ’
It’s all a matter of courage and self-belief, with a touch of arrogance thrown in. My aggression does not come from just going in to wallop the bowling. Look back and see how many of my big scores have come when the side has been in trouble, and my initial approach had to be different.
Unless I receive some rubbish bowling to start with, I play normally for a bit longer than usual before I set out to destroy. Then I sort out their most dangerous bowler, and attack him sensibly to see if I can get him off. In those circumstances, a captain often panics and whips the bowler off, which is wrong on two counts. He just might get me out, and anyway he is still posing the same threat to my partners.
Mike Gatting did well in the 1987 World Cup on at least two occasions in this regard. Both times Eddie Hemmings was the bowler, and in matches against West Indies and India, Viv Richards and Kapil Dev had smashed him for boundaries. But Gatting kept faith, and so did Eddie, and he got both men out with well-flighted deliveries, when England were facing defeat in matches which they went on unexpectedly to win.
Such a big part of the game is who can dominate who, and no batsmen should ever settle for just going through the motions when they bat. Things rarely happen – they have to be made to, with so much depending on the match situation. If the runs are not coming, don’t get bogged down – push and sprint a few singles. More likely than not, the fielders will come in and then there is a better chance of hitting a four.
A POSITIVE ATTITUDE
What seems to inhibit a lot of players is if their first attacking stroke costs them their wicket. That never bothers me, because I am never afraid of the consequences if things go wrong. Fear has no part to play in my game. I’ve seen too many players start off in a team, either at county or Test level, with the sole thought of surviving to stay in the side.
Attacking the bowling like this can unsettle the opposition and panic their captain into rash decisions. If it causes good bowlers to be taken off it can benefit others in your team as well as yourself.
My attitude is different. I go out there and tell myself, ‘I’ve got here because of the way I play – so why change it?’
Another thing, once some batsmen get on top and start the roller coaster going, it is just as though they are afraid of how fast they might go, and they jump off. I remember sitting with Viv on the balcony at Taunton a few years ago, watching our Somerset team’s approach to a fairly easy Sunday League victory target of around four runs per over. Once a four had been hit, even if the same delivery came along next ball, a different stroke was played. The attitude was ‘We’ve got our four this over, why take chances?’
A DIFFICULT INNINGS
‘Occasionally, circumstances call for the elimination of any risk, and although I find this sort of innings the hardest of all to play, I still bring all my aggression to bear, as the best way of disciplining myself Like, for example, my innings on the last day of the Oval Test against Pakistan in 1987, when we were totally up against it, and I knew I had to stay there with Mike Gatting all day. Runs did not matter – it was just a matter of survival against their attack under the pressure of having fielders all round the bat all day, after they got that massive first innings total of 708.
‘The only hope I had was to wind myself up, so that I could impose myself on them, even though it would be in a different way from usual. I said to myself: “Right, cut out all the chances of getting out, and don’t play a shot.”
‘It was one of the most untypical innings of my life, but I actually enjoyed it more and more as the day wore on because the Pakistan side was getting increasingly frustrated with me. I concentrated on leaving alone as many balls as possible, and those I had to play, I did with bat and pad locked together – and it worked like a charm.