GOING FOR IT?
‘It is only on rare occasions that I feel free to come in and go for it from the first ball. Edgbaston in 1985 against Australia was one of those, and I will never forget my first ball six off Craig McDermott.
‘At 572 for 4, we were not exactly struggling, and Mike Gatting hardly needed to tell me to get on with it. But that situation was just as much a one-off as the one at Headingley four years earlier when we were 133 for 7 in the second innings, still 94 runs behind Australia. ’
It’s all a matter of courage and self-belief, with a touch of arrogance thrown in. My aggression does not come from just going in to wallop the bowling. Look back and see how many of my big scores have come when the side has been in trouble, and my initial approach had to be different.
Unless I receive some rubbish bowling to start with, I play normally for a bit longer than usual before I set out to destroy. Then I sort out their most dangerous bowler, and attack him sensibly to see if I can get him off. In those circumstances, a captain often panics and whips the bowler off, which is wrong on two counts. He just might get me out, and anyway he is still posing the same threat to my partners.
Mike Gatting did well in the 1987 World Cup on at least two occasions in this regard. Both times Eddie Hemmings was the bowler, and in matches against West Indies and India, Viv Richards and Kapil Dev had smashed him for boundaries. But Gatting kept faith, and so did Eddie, and he got both men out with well-flighted deliveries, when England were facing defeat in matches which they went on unexpectedly to win.
Such a big part of the game is who can dominate who, and no batsmen should ever settle for just going through the motions when they bat. Things rarely happen – they have to be made to, with so much depending on the match situation. If the runs are not coming, don’t get bogged down – push and sprint a few singles. More likely than not, the fielders will come in and then there is a better chance of hitting a four.
A POSITIVE ATTITUDE
What seems to inhibit a lot of players is if their first attacking stroke costs them their wicket. That never bothers me, because I am never afraid of the consequences if things go wrong. Fear has no part to play in my game. I’ve seen too many players start off in a team, either at county or Test level, with the sole thought of surviving to stay in the side.
Attacking the bowling like this can unsettle the opposition and panic their captain into rash decisions. If it causes good bowlers to be taken off it can benefit others in your team as well as yourself.
My attitude is different. I go out there and tell myself, ‘I’ve got here because of the way I play – so why change it?’
Another thing, once some batsmen get on top and start the roller coaster going, it is just as though they are afraid of how fast they might go, and they jump off. I remember sitting with Viv on the balcony at Taunton a few years ago, watching our Somerset team’s approach to a fairly easy Sunday League victory target of around four runs per over. Once a four had been hit, even if the same delivery came along next ball, a different stroke was played. The attitude was ‘We’ve got our four this over, why take chances?’
A DIFFICULT INNINGS
‘Occasionally, circumstances call for the elimination of any risk, and although I find this sort of innings the hardest of all to play, I still bring all my aggression to bear, as the best way of disciplining myself Like, for example, my innings on the last day of the Oval Test against Pakistan in 1987, when we were totally up against it, and I knew I had to stay there with Mike Gatting all day. Runs did not matter – it was just a matter of survival against their attack under the pressure of having fielders all round the bat all day, after they got that massive first innings total of 708.
‘The only hope I had was to wind myself up, so that I could impose myself on them, even though it would be in a different way from usual. I said to myself: “Right, cut out all the chances of getting out, and don’t play a shot.”
‘It was one of the most untypical innings of my life, but I actually enjoyed it more and more as the day wore on because the Pakistan side was getting increasingly frustrated with me. I concentrated on leaving alone as many balls as possible, and those I had to play, I did with bat and pad locked together – and it worked like a charm.
‘We saved the game, thanks to that 150 from Mike at the other end, which shows what can be done with the right approach. In its own way I am just as proud of that effort – my slowest ever Test 50 – as I am of some of the blockbusters.’
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,
