Which shots have we been playing this season?

The Reverse Moo
Where you're aiming: To farm a good length ball for six over mid wicket.
Where it goes: Usually for two, sometimes for four if you've really given it some, over backward point.

The Dil-pull
Where you're aiming: To caress the short ball through the leg side.
Where it goes: Millimetres past your face off the top edge, over the keeper and away for four.

The Inverted Cover Drive
Where you're aiming: Through the covers.
Where it goes: Screaming for four through mid on, which implies it came off the middle. I have no idea how this shot works, but having played it a couple of weeks ago, I can confirm it exists. Practise your on drive afterwards and no-one'll notice.

The Lofted Late Cut
Where you're aiming: Through gully on the off side.
Where it goes: About 10 ft over second slip's head. Apparently late cuts require timing, rather than a potentially shoulder-dislocating slash.

The Impossible Harrow Drive
Where you're aiming: Possibly somewhere through the off side, but you might be trying to dig a yorker out.
Where it goes: You're playing on a rubbish, crumbling council pitch. You're late on the shot, and the ball goes straight into the trench that's been dug on the popping crease and flies away at an improbable angle. My effort this season almost carried for a bump ball six, over the keeper's head.

The Utter Spanner
Where you're aiming: Possibly over the keeper, because you're playing a Dil-scoop, or through the off side with a reverse sweep.
Where it goes: Straight into your face. No one shows any sympathy, and nor should they. You twat.

Any more?

Good sledging/bad sledging

Good sledging - Sangakkara: charming.

Bad sledging - Boucher: charmless.

Bonus very bad sledging - Sohail: probably felt like a bit of a tit.

Which batting eccentricities are we adopting?

The combined bat-twiddle and box-fiddle.

As modelled by: Alec Stewart. And resplendent in this video.

Why you should do it: Because it sends a message. The box fiddle asserts your masculinity, the bat twiddle looks like you're a tad insouciant and not taking it all that seriously. Also formerly modelled by the same player: the seamless drive-into-tucking-bat-under-arm follow through as the off stump cartwheels backwards.

Using a bail to mark your guard
As modelled by: Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan.
Why you should do it: Because it sends a message: 'I take my technique very seriously'. The other affectation is not bothering with a guard at all, which sends a quite different message and is possibly the preferred option for those liable to get a first baller.

The gun reveal
As modelled by: Kevin Pietersen and, to lesser effect, Ian Bell. Simply a case of hitching up your shirt sleeves before the bowler runs in.
Why you should do it: It sends a message: 'I have big guns'. Or, 'I think I have big guns.'

The OCD
As modelled by: Jonathan Trott. Many variants exist but the key aspect is not being ready to receive the ball until at least 20 minutes after you've arrived at the wicket.
Why you should do it: Because you really want to annoy the opposition, and possibly your team mates. Because you're not likely to be out there very long and want to make the most of it.

The trench digger
As modelled by: Nasser Hussain. Whack the bat into the ground as hard as you can while waiting for the bowler to arrive.
Why you should do it: Because you're a very angry man indeed. Or using a bat belonging to someone you hate.

The hold-the-pose
As modelled by: Flaky West Indian dasher Keith Arthurton, most memorably. Play a beautiful extra-cover drive. As the ball skims across the outfield, hold your follow through, nonchalantly chewing your gum. Ignore the batsman at the other end desperately trying to call you through. Realise it's not going for four. Reluctantly jog a single and just about make your ground.
Why you should do it: It sends a message: 'I don't even need the runs.'

The mislaid gob
As modelled by: Rubbish bits-and-pieces England punter Mark Alleyne. Having been dismissed, spit at the ground in disgust at your shot. Forget you've still got your helmet on. Look like even more of a tit, because the nasty men at the BBC have decided to focus on the line of phlegm now dripping from the grille.
Why you should do it: You probably shouldn't.

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.

That extra yard of pace

In about 2003 the Crap Cricketer was slightly less crap than he is now. The people at the club he played at all rather liked his bowling, rather than his batting. The thing was - and it feels ridiculous to type this now - he was quite quick.

If you ask most cricketers what they want, it's that extra yard of pace. It's slightly tragic, because however much they train and attempt to refine their action, it's mostly a question of natural physique. The most you can increase your speed by is really a yard or two. If there was a way we could bowl 90mph just through training, there'd be a lot fewer batsmen out there.

Of course, in describing the Crap Cricketer's halcyon days we're not talking fast-fast. We're not even talking fast medium. We're talking medium by professional standards, somewhere in the mid-70mphs, a good pace for a club bowler and the basis for lesser bits-and-pieces professional journeyman. The Crap Cricketer would lope in, flat footed, off a 12-pace-run up;  then everything happened with a slingy shoulder action. Ping! On a hard enough pitch, he could bang it in and make the batsman smell de leather. If everything was in order, even on a slow track the keeper would take the good length ball with his gloves pointing to the sky. The words 'sharp' and 'nippy' were bandied about by club colleagues, perhaps a little recklessly.

Now the important point is that just because the Crap Cricketer reached the dizzy heights of Dimitri Mascarenhas on a bad day, he was still, by any reasonable measure, shit. He sprayed it around like Peter North after a six-month vow of celibacy. Long hop followed full toss followed long hop. He might grab you wickets, but if he went at 6 an over, he'd had a good spell.

Those days are long gone. Right now the Crap Cricketer would struggle to keep up with a quicker ball from Monty Panesar. Last season the keeper stood up to him on a particularly slow wicket. And you know what? The Crap Cricketer's cool with that.

It's hard to say where those crucial 10mph went. A strong commitment to boozing and smoking in adulthood must have accounted for at least five of them. But there's more to it: as the Crap Cricketer played increasingly worse levels of cricket, pace just didn't seem to be the done thing. That was kind of ok because he's always been attracted to the cerebral bit of the game. It takes a certain unreconstructed mentality to be fast. You have to be prepared to bowl like this at a man with no helmet on:

No, give the Crap Cricketer Praveen Kumar with the new ball or Martin Bicknell dismantling Jaques Rudolph at the Oval over Holding or Thomson any day.

Last season he nipped out two of the best batsmen playing London friendly cricket (hell yeah) with some proper bowling - the first with a lifter and slower ball one/two, the other with an inswinger from over the wicket followed by a leg cutter from round it. Getting a wicket these days is a lot more satisfying than slamming it down the other end and seeing what happens.

Of course it's no good when he bowls to someone properly good, because they've got all the time in the world to pick whatever variation he's trying, but that's fine because he hardly ever comes up against them these days. That said, it would have been nice if someone had pointed out that once your whole mindset changes, that's it for bowling fast. The Crap Cricketer couldn't send a quick ball down now even if he wanted to.

There are plenty of other players still striving for that extra yard of pace, and more fool them. Because they'll never win. They don't want much, they just want to get it down at same speed as Iain O'Brien. But what would Iain O'Brien like? As he's said on his blog, he'd absolutely love to bowl as quick as Shaun Tait. And what would Shaun Tait like? To get more than half his ludicrously pacy thunderbolts to land on the cut strip. Like the Crap Cricketer and several thousand other bog standard club players do every weekend. How many individuals in the world find that happy balance between nuance and extreme pace? Very, very few; that's how many. If they do, they're almost uniquely blessed.

Audit

With the new season rapidly approaching, it's time to look at last season and see what lessons can be taken from it. How did we get out in 2010?

The three card trick (pt 1).

 Bowler sent down five wides in a row, then bowled me with an inswinging yorker on middle stump.

Lesson: Just because they look rubbish, they might not be.

Plan of action: Block everything.

The selfless hari kari

(x2) Attempt to pick up run rate having scored slowly, tried to slog sweep off spinner for six, bowled middle stump.
(x3) Attempt to pick up run rate having scored slowly, try to slog seamer back over his head. Bowled middle stump.

Lesson: Fuck the team. No really. Because the next guy usually scores even slower. Or gets out first ball.

Plan of action: Stop trying to hit it for six. I hit six sixes last season and got out five times attempting to hit a six. In hindsight, not the greatest odds. Failing that, block everything.

The three card trick (pt2).

Saw tall, stacked bowler come charging in, assumed he'd be quick, played way too early at first ball, looped to cover.

Lesson: Just because they look good, they might not be. 

Plan of action: Block everything.

The cabbage patch retardo slash
Hungover to shit. Pitch behaving like an absolute bastard. Get hit a couple of times. Decide one's got my name on it and I've got to go after everything. End up caught behind cutting a full ball I should be driving and which is too wide to even do that.

Lesson: Ninety nine times out of a hundred on a horrible wicket you don't actually get out to the unplayable ball. Bad pitches are nasty things because they make you play ridiculous shots.

Plan of action: Don't make yourself available/try and hide yourself down the order if the pitch looks dodgy. If you do end up batting, block everything.

The Celebrity Wicket
Facing a famous celebrity in a posh game I've been roped in for. He's elderly, and utterly terrible. I'm 70* and already smacked him for 15 in the over. Not really sure if another boundary is quite the done thing. Accidentally/on purpose hit one up in the air. 'Oh well bowled, did me in the flight.'

Lesson: The British class system is alive and well.

Plan of action: Block most of them.

The Unplayable Ball

Not worth thinking about.

- In 1997 a bowler made the ball dart 2ft off the pitch, and hit off stump.
- In 2008 a bowler landed a perfect outswinger on middle stump which bounced just enough to take the edge and even though I played it with soft hands it just carried to slip, who took a great catch by his laces.

By my reckoning that leaves 697 or so innings where I got out because I did something wrong. And I probably should have got further forward to those two.