COACHING : Pride Before a Fall: A Lesson in How to Play Cricket With Your Head

When you play a team you’ve beaten before you relax. You have figured them out.

You don’t need special strategies you can play the cookie-cutter way: win the toss and bat first. It’s in the bag.

Or is it?

I was the captain of my college team for about a year. During this time we played matches against teams over and over again. On one day we were set to play an away game against a team we knew well. We had played them twice and had emerged victorious on both occasions.

I knew well that their pitch was placid with lot of runs to offer. This time around the climatic conditions were overcast. Being ridden by over confidence I looked passed them. Despite indications by some team mates, I decided to stick to the plan. Bat first.

In the back of my head I knew that the ball will swing and seam but I knew we had beaten them twice by batting first, why change the previously successful strategy?

I won the toss and batted.

I fancied a big score that day. I don’t know how I couldn’t see what was coming. Naturally in the conditions the ball started moving early on. After being tied down we lost our opener and I had to walk in.

I remember I was nervous. My stomach was in knots. I had realised this wasn’t the same pitch as last time. I was kicking myself. If I had taken a moment to read the pitch and conditions, my team and I wouldn’t have been on back foot.   

With these mixed thoughts of uncertainty and disbelief in my abilities as a batsman and leader I walked out. After being all over the place for a while I got dismissed, only scoring three runs.

My team collapsed like a pack of cards, posting only 109 in a 35 over game.

You must know as a cricketer that when you are mentally shaken, all gets lost. We were similarly hopeless in the field as well and were beaten by nine wickets.

When congratulating the other captain I told him that his side completely outplayed us and were better on that day. But in my heart I believed only if I had calculated the situation rightly, things would’ve been very different.

Fortunately, this was a learning curve for me as I want it to be one for you.

From that day onwards we planned about each game as it came. We analysed the playing conditions before the start, varied our strategies and played by our heads, not only with bats and balls.