A season of struggles
Cricket can be so cruel and leave you feeling so inadequate
This season started with much promise but now feels like it is unraveling as I struggle with form and fitness. The last two years have been solid for me, my best for many years. Coming out, settled friendships and a bit more self belief on the back of hard work gave me some confidence that this year would be a good year.
But it hasn’t gone to plan yet. My team has wild fluctuations of form but essentially are struggling to stay competitive at the moment. When your own game is not going well it feels doubly worse when the team is struggling too. You are part of the problem; you feel much less like part of the solution.
Three seasons ago I was asked by my captain whether I’d consider opening the batting. At the time my technique and temperament, when compared to others in the team, made me well suited to stepping up into the role. I jumped at the chance, I’d always wanted to open the batting as I’ve written about previously. In my first two seasons in the role I improved my game and offered a decent option at the top of the order. I forged many competitive opening partnerships with Ade and we often gave the team a chance with the platforms we built. This year though everything has changed. A mixture of injury, poor form and diminishing confidence has seen me muster just 57 runs across 9 innings. The first of these netted 30 runs so it really has faded away since.
I look back at the scorecards of some of my better innings in the last two seasons and I don’t recognise them. They look so foreign. They feel so distant. I know I scored those runs, I just don’t know how. Whenever the ball is in my arc, and it doesn’t seem that often at the moment, I have no fluency in my shots. They are disjointed, clumsy even. When you are out of form as an opening batsman what do you do? I want to contribute but right now I’m not helping at all. Do you go out and wait for the bad ball, hoping it comes and risk not making any at all? Or do you throw caution to the wind and attack the ball in a totally uncustomary manner — also risking making nothing at all? Either way the risks are the same, maybe a change in approach and philosophy is needed? I have been granted a place in this weeks team despite ample other options avaliable to the selectors. I need to take this chance.
The cruelty of the game is so pronounced. I know of no other game in the world where people are judged so much by individual statistics while playing a team game. If you are playing poorly but the team wins then you can be carried along, a chance to find form again. But if the team is struggling? Well that is a different feeling altogether. Feelings of inadequacy and isolation become very real. Internal pressure builds. And I’m sure it builds more and more the older I get too. I don’t know how long I can play at this level with injuries and younger players coming up. But I hope I can find the valve to release the pressure. Even if I have been getting out to good balls it doesn’t make the journey to the next match any easier.
I know that as a gay man these inadequacies run deep enough even if know they are irrational. Being told you aren’t good enough by the world around you for years on end does start to make internal sense when things go wrong. Others tell me I am good enough — maybe they are right, but how do I get back there? Caution to the wind may be the only route back?
