We really need to talk about Kevin

Batting is about confidence. How often do you see a ball, decide on a shot, lose confidence part-way through and give an easy catch where if you'd just gone through with it you'd have a boundary?

The problem is, your confidence is always getting eroded. This post is only part in jest. Every time you take a risk and get out as a result, you're always going to think twice about playing that shot again. It's perfectly natural for a batsman to become more circumspect as he gets older and more battle-scarred. Steve Waugh is the classic example. By the time he finished his career he averaged millions and had reduced his entire technique to two shots, or possibly even one - I don't know because I could never be fucked to watch him.

Well, we're seeing that process writ large in the case of Kevin Peter Pietersen. Cast your mind back to his test debut - Ashes 2005. The abiding memory, for me, is of him shattering Glenn McGrath's invincible aura in one totally unexpected blow, by sticking him on the Lord's pavilion. Never mind Harmison's spell, that was the moment when I thought we could win the series.

Would Kevin play that shot today? Never in a month of Sundays. The Kevin of today is a much more clinical batsman. He's the kind of player who takes flagging Australian and West Indian attacks for chanceless 200s where before there was every chance he'd be on his way for 80 off as many balls.

It's not surprising. As the years went by, the English public and media decided they didn't like his style of play. Every aggressive shot that lead to his wicket was met with a STUPID KEVIN BLOWS IT AGAIN headline and considerable tut tutting from crusty old TMS listeners. Of course it had an effect. As has been endlessly pointed out, much of Kevin's swagger is born of a lack of confidence. Yes, we've had less needy girlfriends than him. But you try going out to bat knowing that millions of people think you're a bit of a wazzock. It's hard enough knowing the same about one friendly cricket club.

It's partly a cultural thing. We like to think that as the country that invented the game we're also bastions of playing it properly, damn it. At club level most Pakistani and West Indian guys seem to bat like they've got a bus to catch. Far rarer to see a Brit playing like that. And the thing is, you often wonder how stupid some of those shots Kevin used to play were. For instance, two shots characterise this knock - an innings which, lest we forget, defined an era of English cricket:

One is the hook for six off the extremely fast bowler, Brett Lee. The other is the swipe against the spin of Warne. You see, for all the attacking intent, they're both percentage shots, in a way. There are a number of things in favour of the hook - one, the ball's coming at him so fast that a six is quite likely if he gets any bat at all on it, and two, well - look what happens when he tries evasive action. The slog sweep is much more risky, granted, but look what happens once he's played it a few times - there's a man out there at deep midwicket, and he can play with the spin into a new gap. Would he play a knock like that today? I'm going to say no. Is it just possible that in the heat of the moment he'd inadvertently plotted out the best possible innings in terms of keeping his wicket intact (dropped chances aside)?

So here's to the next time Kevin, on course for 100, spanks Yuvraj Singh or some other bowling heavyweight straight up in the air this summer. Even if I do shout at the TV and call him a stupid bastard when he does it.

Another reason I won't play for England

Fairly unlikely I'll be done for libel but just to be on the safe side - unnamed current England cricketer is batting against my school. He edges a spinner to slip, who puts him down. He turns around in horror, then stands in the middle of the wicket, beating himself on the pads with his bat.

"YOU TWAT! YOU FUCKING TWAT! MOVE YOUR FEET!"

We all look at each other, wondering whether we should run him out. Decide against, because it's actually a bit scary.

He was 135* at the time.

That Guy

You know That Guy. You can't bowl to That Guy. He makes 150 in a 35 over game, and doesn't once play and miss. You bowl line and length with long on and long off out and he just keeps clearing them. You give him any width and it pings through the covers like a tracer bullet. He's usually a massive bugger as well, That Guy, so he never hits it in the air because he's always on top of the bounce. Every so often you get the line and length absolutely spot on, and That Guy pats it back down the pitch to you, which feels quite patronising because you know he could hit you for another massive six if he really wanted, he just wants to show he appreciates your efforts. The massive twat.

Everyone hates bowling at That Guy.

I've come up against That Guy eight times. Three times, That Guy would go on to play for England, which gives me a better ratio than most Crap Cricketers in the claim-to-fame stakes. It's the other five times that interest me. Those five players, I and mutual acquaintances agree, were as good as if not better than the three players who ended up international superstars. What happened? Injury and the decision to try and be pro at other sports accounted for three of them. I don't actually know what happened to one of them. But I know what happened to the other one, who was called Mike.

Mike played for my club. He was absolutely fucking a-maz-ing. I remain utterly convinced he's the best batsman I've ever bowled to, better than a guy who now averages plenty in Tests. Former tormentor of every school attack in the area, he averaged 100+ in the top league he could play where all sorts of county seconds and ex-pros are knocking around. Scored loads of runs for our County's Second XI. Finally the day came when he'd make his debut for the county. With bated breath, our team are sitting around Ceefax in the club house to see how he gets on. The scorecard comes up, and we're all rather puzzled. Mike's been put in the order at number eight.

Now, I'd had a lot of net sessions with Mike. I loved bowling at him, and would beg him for another ten minutes every time the session was over - you got the thrill of bowling at an amazing batsman without the pang of guilt that comes from watching your team mates have to retrieve the ball from a hedgerow several miles away. The challenge was considerable. My stock ball, assuming I landed it on a perfect line and length, would go for four, more often than not.

If I didn't want to get hit for four, I had to vary every delivery - take some pace off, add some pace on, cut it, try and swing it against my usual direction. Then only half of them would go for four. Partly this was due to me being somewhat pedestrian compared to most bowlers he faced, and partly it was due to the fact that it was just how he batted, whoever he was facing. It meant I used to get him out every now and again. A typical Crap Cricketer/Mike net session would probably see Mike dismissed for about 75, made off something like 20 balls. Yes, fuck off. I'd take a first class bowling average of 75, even if it is coming at an economy rate of 20 an over. Back in the 90s it probably would have got me into the England ODI side.

An amazing batsman. But a bowler? Well, he was big and strong and had a nice action, but even this Crap Cricketer didn't find him unplayable. It was very good, good enough that he could play for the club as a bowler had he been unable to bat, but it was quite clearly a hobby. The problem was that our county, at the time, had a lot of good batsmen. Mike was in direct competition for a place with someone who'd just been discarded by England. What it needed was an all-rounder. And that's what Mike had been instructed to become.

But the way you make your name in the professional game is usually through One Day cricket. It's rather hard to do that as a batsman from number eight. Mike tried as hard as he could with his bowling, but it just wasn't good enough. On the rare occasions he did get to play a four day game - as a batsman - there was so much pressure (he was only ever in the side through injury) that he became a totally different player. Suddenly he was playing with caution, and he wasn't getting many runs. It was tortuous for all of us at the club. I should have mentioned he was also a lovely bloke - always full of encouragement for every player, however hopeless they might be.

One glorious day at the end of a season (pressure off) he struck 150 against Middlesex, I think. This was the inevitable breakthrough, we all assumed. But the next year there he was again, drifting around 7 or 8 in the order and being relied on to bowl eight not-very-effective overs on a Sunday. Finally, the county discarded him.

Ultimately, of course, it's Mike's fault he didn't succeed. But professional sport is a business. The county is paying you for a service it requires. An all-rounder made economic sense. Another good batsman didn't. Behind the success stories there are all sorts of nasty little tales like this - people who've given up everything in pursuit of a career, who in a different time and place would easily have made it. So next time That Guy smashes you for six, don't get bitter. Nor when he does it the next time. After all, you've always got a chance.

On not being God

What's the point of writing about Sachin Tendulkar? Any effort to encapsulate the genius is doomed to fail, just another drop in the thousands upon thousands of words that have passed before in vain. Inevitably the cliches end up tumbling out: weight of a billion people on his shoulders, insatiable hunger for runs...blah, blah. The matter is beyond doubt. He is God. The Master. With the possible exception of Bradman, a hoary old myth who exists only in half-believed chronicles and indistinct rolls of flickering film, he is the greatest batsman who ever lived, and probably the greatest sportsman on earth.

Rather like anyone unfortunate enough to bowl at him, I may as well try. This is a blog about being crap at cricket, so I suppose our theme is obvious: 'What can the Crap Cricketer take from the Great Cricketer?' Of course, it's like asking what the Alphaline Wessex service can learn from a Japanese Bullet Train, what McDonald's can learn from Claridge's. But still:

1. Balance
It helps, of course, that Sachin is a wee thing. It means he can transfer his weight more quickly. If your weight's going in the right direction, you're going to time it. Thus:

In moving onto the back foot the momentum is taking him backwards, but by the time he's into the shot all his weight is being transferred into it. Above, this dual process is happening against someone bowling at 80-something mph: that movement is decided upon and carried out in 0.4 of a second. He uses a heavy bat for a little chap, which when you combine with the balance means the shot can be little more than the tiniest push. And that means he's got more chance of timing the good length ball (second shot below)

2. Eye
Thanks to Bob Woolmer's magnificent book, we know a bit more about what constitutes a 'good eye'. It's not about eyesight. It's about the brain's ability to calculate the ball''s trajectory. Batsmen see A) the ball out of the hand, we follow it towards the pitch, lose sight of it, then B) Pick it up again once it's pitched, whereupon we make our last adjustments to movement off the pitch etc. Woolmer describes an experiment he carried out with Peter Kirsten (ex SA batsman) and some club players. They faced a bowling machine - as the machine released the ball, the lights in the indoor school were switched off. I forget the figures, but as I recall Kirsten was twice as likely to make contact as the club players. At professional speeds, the vast majority of your reasoning is happening as a result of A), which is why it's fortunate no one's ever spun it like Shane Warne at that speed.  Sachin, it's fair to say, is an infeasibly accurate predictive machine.

3. Batting Brain
And this is where it gets frustrating for the Crap Cricketer. The Crap Cricketer thinks about cricket a lot, to the point of writing an interminable blog about it. The Crap Cricketer is pretty sure that there are plenty of people who are much better than him - even professionals - who by dint of physical virtues such as the above, don't need to think about technique and tactics half as much. Listen to them being interviewed about the game they've played - all that horrific talk about 'good areas', 'executing disciplines'. It's so unjust. Of course, part of the problem is the journalists themselves. Every so often, they ask the right questions, and suddenly you see that these players aren't just extremely athletic automatons. I digress.

You don't need any such interview to understand the genius of Sachin. In Test Match terms, he and Jacques Kallis aren't a million miles apart. But in all formats of the game? Sachin's streets ahead. Kallis is, by and large, a run-a-ball man (especially if he gets out under 50). Sachin is a run-a-whatever's required man. He computes every risk the bowler poses with the field he has, and persistently selects whichever shots will bring him maximum runs at minimum risk. Bowler getting swing away at pace? Then he'll concentrate on working the off-line ball off his legs, or putting away the short one. Spinner finding prodigious turn? Then you'll rarely see him hit against it. Spinner finding less turn? Then he'll begin to take a few more risks, as long as the line and length are right. Fine leg in the circle? Then the walk across the stumps is on, but not if he's facing a bowler with a good yorker. Etc. Now of course it's easy to rule out the risky shots when you play the less risky ones so well, but Sachin's commitment to the right shot is almost autistic. Which leads us to...

4. Hunger
I love cricket. Absolutely love it. But the fact of the matter is, it's mentally knackering. I reach 50, say, and I start playing stupid shots because I think I can. Fuck, I've reached 12 not out and done that. By about August, I can barely find the enthusiasm to turn up to the ground because I'm sick of playing. I still do, because I love it...but it's a fractious relationship. I've played for 17 or so years, and since adulthood not a season's gone by without me thinking I should give up till next year. I've probably scored getting on for seven or eight thousand runs, give or take, playing once or twice a week, and mostly against fielding sides that Sachin would barely recognise as cricketers. I've had dips in form that have lasted for months, even whole seasons at a time, mostly due to this mental fatigue.

Sachin has scored nearly 15,000 Test runs. 18,000 ODI runs. 23,000 first class runs. Plus Christ-only-knows-how-many before he turned pro. He's never really lost his form in all that time. It's almost impossible to comprehend.

5. Magic
I've only ever seen him in the flesh once. It was India against the Duke of Norfolk's XI, at Arundel Castle. It's a pretty small ground, just about standard club size. I love watching proper cricket at a place like that - it really brings home how high the standard is. James Kirtley was bowling - a very good bowler, in his day. First thought - it often is when I watch pros at a small venue - 'Fuck me, he's fast.'

Neville Cardus once wrote of Ranjitsinhji: 'This dusky, supple vision of legerdemain. The honest straight ball was not met with the honest straight bat, but by a flick of wrist, and lo! The ball was charmed to the square leg boundary.'

Kirtley bowls. There's a tiny, barely perceptible movement from Sachin. A split second later, the ball crashes into the hoardings on the leg side. A split second after that, there's a crack of ball on bat echoing around the ground. And a split second after that, he completes his follow through - like many Indian batsman, the leg glance doesn't finish with the bat pointing vertically upwards, instead the bottom hand carries it right round, like the hand of a clock. Bang:

I don't actually remember how many he got. I just remember the shot.