09/06/2012 - Hampstead Heath Extension

Absolutely bugger all to report. Came in towards the end, didn't get much strike and didn't time it very well when I did, suddenly discovered there were only five overs left and four wickets still to come, had a bit of a slog, then ran myself out for not many. Bowled some alright seam up that didn't go for any runs but to be honest the wicket was so very slow and the outfield so long that I'd have had to bowl very badly for that to happen.

I've kind of resigned myself to the view that this season isn't really going to happen as there have been so many games rained off: I don't get to play as much as I used to due to work and next year I'll be leaving London and starting a new life. It's kind of depressing, and kind of liberating. But that's another story, for another day.

Anyway, the fact I don't have anything to write about ties in with the subject of today's blog, which is actually a little book review of this: Ed Cowan's diary of the 2010/11 season. Sadly many of the incredibly intelligent points I wanted to make about it have passed me by, because I read it bloody ages ago and haven't had a chance to blog about it till now, but let's give it a go anyway.

So then. We all like Eddie Cowan, don't we? Many a cricket fan has literary tendencies and the fact that one of us bookish sorts is currently practising at the top level is rather exciting. Professional sportsmen, by and large, are a frustrating lot - they can just do the stuff they describe: they don't need to think about or analyse it a huge amount, and if they do they're not given to articulating their analyses in any great depth. The classic example of this is something like the Darren Lehmann book I reviewed ages ago on here.

It really pisses crap cricketers off, this tendency, because cricket is a game of skill, and technique, and many an intelligent but bad cricketer has been lulled into thinking that their game's deficiencies can be resolved if only they think about it enough, which neglects that sad fact that actually there's a point where it's all about co-ordination, and you can't will that into existence.

In 2005 I joined a club that was full of Cambridge graduates who'd spend hour after hour after hour getting drunk and talking about their games (usually after they'd scored 0 and we'd been bowled out for under 100). It was interesting because you'd hear them correctly analyse why they'd been bowled middle stump, and agree with them on what they needed to do next time round, but the fact remained that they would continue to make technical mistakes because they just weren't very coordinated. It meant they'd instinctively do the wrong thing every now and again, and those mistakes would be more costly than they would be for their opponents because, well, they weren't very coordinated. The sad truth is that MS Dhoni actually has a worse technique than many club players. He also has an eye approximately 10,000 times better.

But now we have Eddie Cowan. He has a LOT more talent than us, and he thinks about it all as much as we do. And the end result is - well, a stodgy late-blooming Test opener who has yet to make everyone sit up and take notice. But of course, we're absolutely rooting for him, because he's one of us.

And I suppose the depressing thing about this book for the average crap cricketer is how familiar it all seems. In terms of his technical analyses, there's some great insight here - and it's particularly interesting for left handers like me - but actually, there's nothing that made me think 'gosh, how cunning, I've never thought about incorporating that into my game'. At one point he talks about how to play right arm over inswing. He describes exactly what I do. The only difference is that the bowlers he faces are 20mph quicker and a lot more accurate. The difference between the scenes that were played out on the field in the picture above and the ones he describes at the Hobart Oval come down, I'm afraid, to talent.

Fuck. This is bad news. And it gets worse.

He gets incredibly excited about playing alongside famous players like Ricky Ponting. He's overawed by famous opponents, and scared of quick bowlers. Exactly as we would be.

He worries about keeping a diary. Why's he doing it? Is it healthy? When things are going well it's fine, but when things are going badly isn't it just adding extra layers of self-doubt and wrecking his own confidence? Is he - like me - just writing for writing's sake, and making things worse? Turns out it probably is.

He worries about his form. The overriding impression that comes out of the book is that he's struggling to buy a run, that the game is making him miserable, and that he's really not good enough to play it. Except, when you look at the stats, he actually had a very good season. Turns out that's just how the game makes you feel, unless you're averaging about 200.

He loves and respects his team mates, to a rather touching degree. If anything they're the only things that keep him sane. But he also frets and becomes increasingly bitter and slightly jealous when he's dropped from the team for shorter forms of the game. As we all have at one point or another. Turns out that's just what we do.

To reiterate - this is a man who was just about to be selected to play for his country, having a strong season in one of the toughest domestic leagues in the world, and the entire experience, word-for-word is....well, it's pretty much this blog.

Worth reading? Absolutely, if you can take the dispiriting news that the game is no different at all at the top levels, with the small difference that the people competing are much better. Here's an extract.

And as an added bonus, here's a piece by him on facing Mitchell Johnson, which is really one of the better bits of cricket writing by a professional in the last few years.