Our summer club season just began last week. Now at the beginning of each season, I set myself some sort of goal. Two seasons ago, I began an experiment to reinvent myself as a front-line legspinner/tailend batsman. It failed miserably. Last season, I adopted Aloof Theory. While it was one of my better seasons, the whole nature of Aloof Theory is to not set goals so, well, it was all a bit wishy washy really.
So this season, I’m taking a leaf out of Get A Hundred and setting myself the goal of scoring a maiden club century. Already after one week, I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. This goal will be very difficult for three reasons.
Firstly, my knee has gone bad again. I had a knee operation in March and while I sailed through the winter season without a hitch, a week of jogging about a month ago has it as sore and aching as it was pre-op. So when I batted last weekend, I always ran the bare minimum speed required to not get run out. It was like Damien Martyn 2005 every ball. I could sense the frustration in the fielding side as I hovered out of my crease and they had to weigh up run-out opportunities versus overthrows. Spending several hours running backwards and forwards will not do wonders for my aging joints.
Secondly, all our matches are on turf pitches this summer. Usually my B grade team gets relegated to synthetic pitches. But this season, one of our teammates Pappy also happened to be on the scheduling committee and ensured we got to play on turf. Which is great – much more interesting than synthetic. Also harder to bat on. I have a bad record on turf. While I haven’t played on it many times, my highest score is 9. Yet to crack double figures, let alone triple!
Lastly, I just wonder whether I can score that many runs in a day. Get A Hundred isn’t satisfied with a club hundred. He’s set himself the goal of scoring it at a run-a-ball. I batted for 1 hour last weekend and scored 9 runs (my top score on turf, remember). Most of my scoring shots were behind the wicket – leg glances, late cuts, outside edges. Scratchy stuff. Somehow I’m going to have to develop some more scoring strokes. Perhaps start using a backlife. Maybe even follow through after I hit the ball.
So that’s the goal. Get a hundred. I’m off to play in 30 minutes – it’s the second half of a two dayer and I’m one wicket away from batting. I’m taking it one step at a time. First goal – crack double figures on turf. Then I’ll take stock from there. Maybe halfway through the season, I’ll downgrade it to Get a fifty.
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