Herding Cats Page 13
Batsmen operate on instinct, spend hours in the nets practising shots and building muscle memory. Making them think can be a good thing and can interfere with their unconscious decision-making. Your bowlers are not the highly tuned athletes that are seen in the IPL, however, and many will struggle with the idea of bowling short spells. They will all talk of rhythm, as if they would bowl the perfect over if you left them on long enough. No bowler likes being taken off and we all say “just one more” to our captain. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But he’ll resent you if the gambit doesn’t work.
Rather than bringing on your best bowler just before the interval, why not throw the ball to the worst? We have all seen excellent batsmen fall to bad bowling, having weathered much more testing stuff. The low full toss, the looping leg-break that doesn’t turn – no one practises against these. There is no bowling machine setting for truly awful bowling. This is a surprise weapon in the amateur captain’s arsenal, and just sometimes it’ll get you that wicket. Once the batsman has gone, the bowler can come off. He’s done his job.
I have seen these bowlers like this scythe through an opposition. In one game the purveyor of lobs took five wickets, dismissing a number of competent batsmen. I had invited a friend from India to play at a lovely ground in Somerset. Diggy is a player of considerable class with many fine hundreds to his name. He knew that English conditions were different but not that different. Facing a bowler like that is not something he expected to happen in the 21st century. It was as if a time portal had opened up and this bowler walked out of the Victorian age. Like the rest of us, my friend surrendered his wicket cheaply.
Taking the Field
It is safe to say that relatively few great leaders of men are lurking in the world of village cricket. They are mostly too busy shouting in the boardroom, or perhaps writing books and teaching classes on leadership. Most of us who captain amateur cricket teams would hesitate to describe ourselves as natural leaders. I have never read The Art of War nor can I recite speeches from Any Given Sunday or Henry V. I’ve barely given a team talk in my life. Those that I attempted fell embarrassingly flat, as my team-mates looked on sympathetically. If there’s a tougher crowd for a speechmaker than a group of writers, I’ve yet to encounter it. But the skippers will secretly pride themselves on their grasp of strategy and tactics. This manifests itself most in field placings. If you ever want to compliment a skipper, tell him that he positioned his players perfectly. This is the aspect of the game a captain needs to master above all else. It’s the area in which you will find yourself most exposed.
What else can a fielding team expect of its leader? And what should he ask of them?
Firstly, you have to start with your own fielding. It’s nigh-on impossible to have any authority if you are the worst in the field in the side. Fielding is the part of cricket that few love. When even high-profile international cricketers talk of how much they hated it, what hope does the amateur captain have of rousing his troops in the field? And yet it is the easiest discipline in which you and your team-mates can improve. Bowling and batting require particular physical attributes if you are to excel, whereas a bit of practice can do wonders with catching and ground fielding. (It is harder to bring back those throwing arms from the dead.) But there is a terrible contradiction – while few of your players will show even the slightest inclination to improve their fielding through practice, all will have views on how you can improve your field settings. They believe there is a kind of positional alchemy – a golden mean – that will make up for their deficiencies and cowardice when the ball is coming hard towards them.
There is a huge element of luck in setting a field, particularly at a level of the game where the bowler doesn’t always know where he’s going to put the ball and the batsman is pleased to find the middle of the bat. You should also factor in the fielder’s ability to wander up to 20 yards from where you positioned him over the course of the afternoon. Marcus Berkmann defined this phenomenon perfectly as “stonedrift” – as if some gigantic natural force gathered up this human moraine and left it at deep extra cover. But despite all of this there are some rules that it is wise to follow.
In poker there is a well-known maxim that if you can’t spot the sucker at the table within the first hour, it’s you. This doesn’t apply in cricket. You can have a whole team of duffers in the field. Everyone has a theory about the best place to hide a bad fielder. But that’s assuming there’s only one. What happens when they outnumber the good fielders? How do you make the most of your sole good fielder? You can’t put him at slip as you might in a stronger team. You’ll find yourself wanting to move him after every ball to where it’s just gone. But every fielder is different and this applies to the weaker ones most of all. Some of your side will be able to run, others catch, and, if you’re lucky, a few can do both. Very few will be able to throw. The idea of a team-mate effortlessly hurling the ball, flat and fast, into the keeper’s hands is one that the amateur captain should swiftly put out of his mind. Your job is to identify your team’s fielding strengths and weaknesses and place them in a position to maximise the former and minimise the latter. Which is harder than it sounds. Lastly, you have to keep them interested somehow for the whole innings. A team-mate used to play for a side that struggled terribly in the field. A couple of the players couldn’t face the prospect of a long stint in the field without stimulants and took ecstasy during the tea interval. This became apparent some overs later and they were banished into the deep.
What field should a fast bowler have at the start of an innings?
The first question is where do you start with your field setting? Your opening bowlers are ready. One is marking out his run-up, the other drifting down to third man or fine leg. The keeper is working out how far back he needs to stand. The captain traditionally either stands next to him at first slip or at mid-off. This time what works in the professional game works for you, too. In both positions you can see if the ball is moving and how the batsman is reacting to each delivery. At mid-off you can talk to the bowler and devise some sort of strategy. At slip you get the keeper’s input. Both positions involve the ball coming to you at speed. If you don’t set an example in stopping the hard-hit ball, don’t be surprised if others dive out of the way.
Now you have to position the eight remaining players. Do you place your worst fielder first or your best one? If you always do the same thing, your team will soon work it out. Let us start with the worst fielder. You have several options. The first and traditional one is to put him at mid-on. The on-drive is one of the hardest shots to play well and so the ball is usually not going to be hit as hard as it would be elsewhere in the ring. So if your worst player is reasonably mobile, this isn’t a bad option. The most immobile fielder is usually stationed at first slip, because he can’t run and he did once take a catch there a decade ago. Some captains like to position their weakest fielder behind the bat, at either third man or fine leg, and so you see this poor man scurrying from one end of the ground to the other at the end of every over. It is kinder if a weaker fielder alternates third man with mid-on at each end. But there is a lot to be said for having someone who can throw down at third man or fine leg. A great many run outs come from shots hit behind square, where the non-striker is supposed to call for the run and a player with a hard, fast throw can capitalise on any confusion. And it gives your bowler a chance to rest.
An alternative is to hide the bad player in plain sight. The Russians have a word, maskirovka, to describe the concept of military deception, building armies of dummy tanks and concealing defences to make your enemy think you’re strong where you’re weak and weak where you’re strong. In the same way, you need to convince the batsmen that there is no vulnerability in your fielding circle, that all of your players can catch and throw. Station your worst fielder at short extra cover or silly mid-off, in sunglasses, so the opposition can’t see the fear in his eyes. Every over in which they don’t work him out is a small triumph.
The positions of gully and slip allow you some creativity. Few bowlers at this level have the pace and accuracy to require that you place your best fielders there – though a lively pitch could change that. I would also argue that they are the most overused positions in Sunday cricket. Only the best bowlers should have a slip and even then only for their first spell. But it is quite usual to see first slip stay there all game, as the rest of the field does its best to limit the runs. I remember asking Richard to go to gully in a game on tour in which we were being run ragged. I still remember the tone of scorn in which he said “You want a gully? Now?” He was right, of course. Most of the time in those situations you want one nimble fielder quite close in on each side, and the rest of the field spread to stop boundaries. The positions of square leg and midwicket can involve turning to fetch the bad ball from the boundary, but both should be alert for the mishit to leg – there is nothing that lifts a team more than a screamer taken from a full-blooded shot.
Lastly, we come to the wicketkeeper, who is the most important player in your team after the captain. Like you, he sets the tone for your team’s performance, being involved in every ball. If he is good with the gloves, the whole team will respond accordingly. If you are a quiet captain, he takes on even more importance. He will provide the constant verbal encouragement to the bowlers and fielders that will keep the side going in those stagnant overs when nothing much is happening. He can lift your side with a virtuoso piece of glovemanship. In The Jubilee Book of Cricket Prince Ranjitsinhji wrote that, when choosing a keeper, catches were paramount, then stumpings, run outs and finally byes. This is why even at our level you see the keeper standing up to a batsman who has taken guard outside the crease. He wants to attack, though he will probably fail to take most of the balls cleanly. Only our most regular keeper, Will, is able to do this well. He is one of the first names on the team sheet and as good behind the stumps as anyone I’ve seen at our level. At least once a season a non-keeper has to take the gloves and only then do we see what we’re missing.
How attacking should we be?
Let’s start with the first over and assume your opening bowler swings the ball away from the right-handed batsman with reasonable accuracy. You might want to move your best fielders from cover and point and put them in the slips. You will want two mobile fielders on the on-side, at wide mid-on and fine leg. They aren’t there to take any catches, just tidy up after the mishits to leg and any bad balls. Michael Clarke was known for his funky fields and there is a lot to be said for a short extra cover at an early stage of a game, as the batsman gets accustomed to the pace of the bowler and the pitch. A catch is likely to come just in front of the bat, from a mistimed shot as the batsman gets accustomed to the pace of the pitch – or the opening bowler, whose long run-up gives the lie to the delivery to follow. You can populate the covers with your weaker fielders, hoping that quantity will be a quality. But one of them should be able to throw, there being nothing sadder than the sight of a fielder overhauling the ball near the boundary, unable to propel it further than ten yards. It’s quite possible in these cases for the batsmen to run more than four.
As you move around for the second over, you turn to your other opener, who bowls stump to stump, bringing the ball into the right-hander. Now you might want your best fielders at midwicket and square leg. Your least mobile player can return to first slip, where he’s less likely to be exposed than in the previous over. While the ball is swinging you’re attacking and you might consider a close catcher on the leg side. This being amateur cricket, it is unlikely that you’ll have anyone with the superb reflexes and courage needed at short leg but it’s amazing how distracting a presence in the batsman’s eyeline can be. Gully is not so important now and you might even take out cover, to encourage the batsman to drive and be bowled through the gate.
During these overs you’ll be fine-tuning your field. The reasons for this are manifold. Firstly, very few fielders understand how close to the bat they should be. A degree of self-knowledge is needed here. Can the batsmen take a single with a gentle push in your direction? Almost invariably. But it is important for you to delay the moment they realise that for as long as possible. The best ways of doing this are to ensure that your players are properly dressed for cricket – we all know there’s a single to the man in the wrong shoes. Secondly, no player should throw the ball in anger, until absolutely necessary, unless they actually have an arm. Our team can be divided into three groups. The first cannot throw at all: a gentle underarm is the best they can manage, and this occasionally goes straight up in the air as they release it too late in the excitement. The second category can throw to a limited degree, but they require a run-up of three or four paces before they can let the ball go, by which time the batsmen have reached the other end and are considering another. The last category includes the competent fielder who can pick the ball up cleanly and get it into the keeper without too much trouble. These fielders should throw the ball in at every available opportunity, so the batsmen can see there’s no run there. Explaining this to your players is one of the harder parts of captaincy. How do you tell someone tactfully that under no circumstances should they let anyone see just how bad they are?
Do you want a 6-3 or a 5-4 field?
No matter what the level of competence in your team, when setting a field everything depends on the bowler. Can he do what you want him to? Will he keep to a particular line and length? He’ll have to if you are to have six fielders on the off and only three on the leg. How many bad balls will there be in the over? We’ve all heard the maxim that you set a field for the bowler’s best delivery. At a higher level of cricket it’s the right thing to do. Then you’re assuming that he’ll bowl a bad ball every other over. On a Sunday, this is likely to happen more frequently. With some bowlers, there may be more bad balls than good. One in three deliveries is likely to be carted. So you want to offer a bit of protection for these boundary balls. You may even set the field for their worst delivery. The other question is about your fielders. Three young, fit players can be a lot more effective than five less mobile ones. Just as an in-out field is often the best strategy at this level of cricket, so it is important to alternate fielders by ability. You want to keep the weaker ones apart, if you possibly can. Some fielders are so poor they might as well not be there. All they end up doing is returning the ball to the bowler afterwards and they struggle with that.
Relatively few bowlers at our level can bowl successfully to a 6-3 field. The margin for error is slim, particularly when the batsmen have unorthodox techniques and will shovel or inside-edge balls to leg. But it’s what is done on TV, and so bowlers persist. The better players often forget what works at this level and bowl fast, short and wide to an offside field that hopes the ball won’t come to them. Playing against the V&A Cricket Club, we faced a decent quick, who came in off a long run. We were playing at Stonor, a lovely ground with rabbits burrowing on the outfield and a good uncovered pitch, rock-hard after a month of sunshine. The bowler had a theatrical follow-through and lingered between deliveries, to make his disdain clear to the batsman and restore order to his hair. It was no surprise to find that he was an actor in between roles. We had been told beforehand that we’d struggle to bowl more than 12 overs an hour rather than our more typical 15, since balls would disappear into thicke
ts and take time to recover. But what really slowed us down was the bowler’s fiddling with his field and his tousled locks. Few of his balls threatened the stumps. Most sailed high and wide. It looked great but wasn’t that effective. The ageing cordon grassed a few chances, as I suspect often happens, and the edges sped for four. But there is something intoxicating when a following wind and bouncy track combine and allow you to generate more pace than ever before. We’ve all fallen victim to this, as that young Narcissus did that day.
How deep should they be for particular batsmen?
When positioning fielders, there’s a widely held theory that they should be either tight on the single or right on the boundary. Usually this is a sound policy. But a weak fielder, if left isolated on the boundary, might fail to stop half the balls that come to them and will take so long to return the others that the batsmen have run three. So you bring them into the infield and send out another man out to replace them. Now the weak fielder dives over the ball. The batsmen run the first quickly (as you should) and turn, to find there’s time for the second, as the infielder picks himself up and the outfielder comes in. They make it easily. It happens more than it should and so you hear Sunday captains all over the country shouting that they should stop the two.