That is nonsense. Firstly it breaks your own batting rhythm; and secondly it restores some of the bowler’s confidence. Not to mention helping to ruin your own side’s momentum. You only have to notice how many one-day matches change right around when a side suddenly backs off when they are on top. Too many batsmen think that if they try too many strokes and get out, they will be accused of a lack of responsibility.
Part of my 90 for Somerset v Middlesex, Nat West semi-final, August 1983, when I played out a last-over maiden, when the scores were level, to win the match.
That is negative thinking, and you’ll never win anything that way. I try to keep all my ‘vibes’ positive, and if I can finish the match well within the prescribed number of overs, that to me is the best way of staying on top once you have the edge.
An example of that was our Sunday League match at Hereford in 1987 against Surrey, when Worcestershire won the title. Tim Curtis and I went in to bat on the slowest, lowest pitch of the season, after Surrey had managed 154, with no fewer than 97 singles. That illustrates just how difficult it was to get the ball away, and I know the Surrey lads fancied their chances if they could contain us early on.
They did that, because although we put on 130, the 50 did not come up until the 15th over. Then I wound up at the slow bowlers and managed a couple of sixes, so now we were well on top and apparently cruising. There were plenty of overs left, and all ten wickets were intact, but I knew that if we just pushed around, things could so easily go wrong if we lost a couple of wickets, because nobody in the match had managed to come in and smash it around right from the start. So I kept going, but even when I got out for 80, Graeme Hick came in with the same sort of positive approach. We wanted 25 off 16 overs, but he hammered 19 in no time, and finished things off with a six to win us the match by nine wickets with 12.2 overs to spare.
We might well have won the match the other way, but that is never how I look at things.
Once I have pressed the accelerator, and I knock a few of the opposition over, I want full throttle to wipe them all out. If a side ever gets back into a match I have started to rush them out of, it is never because I have eased down in order to avoid unnecessary risks.
I am not trying to suggest that everyone should bat the way I do, because I know they couldn’t. Some cricketers are not as strong as me. Neither can they hit as straight, nor as hard. But they have their own strengths and they must play to them, spurred on by the right sort of positive attitude.
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.