The Ladder Cricket Club

An Open Letter from the Senior Batting Coach

Cricketers!

The thing is this. As you may know Adam has asked me to take the job of The Ladder’s Senior Batting Coach. I wasn’t sure at first: I am very busy. I mean, I was flattered obviously. True, I was last year’s top scorer in terms of total runs scored but all the same, what could I bring to the table? Well, after a lot of thought (it wasn’t just the money, although Adam was more than generous) I decided to take the job.

Having looked back over last season and subjected the results to a rigorous analytical examination, the following trends emerge:

1.           When we lose, we tend to lose because either a) we have not scored enough runs, b) even when we have scored enough runs, the opposition has scored more, and/or c) we have lost too many wickets.

2.           When we win, we win because either a) we score more runs than the opposition, or b) the opposition loses too many of their wickets prior to scoring more runs than we have.

3.           In the case of either winning or losing, the number of runs scored against the number of wickets lost is almost always an important, and occasionally the most important, factor that decides the outcome of the game.

None of this will, I’m sure, come as any surprise. But there’s more.

Apart from bowling, fielding and having a really tip-top mental attitude, batting is quite literally the only thing that wins games. But it’s not just batting: batting in itself does not win games. No. It is batting without getting out. According to the Laws of the Game (by which we are bound), it is only by not getting out that you, as a batsman, are legally entitled to go on batting, scoring runs, steadily amassing the kind of total that morally and psychologically castrates the opposition, unmans him, shames him, destroying his will to compete, to look his wife and children in the eye, even to sleep. This should be our aim.

In order to achieve this we have to do no less than to become:

Unstoppable Run-Scoring Machines

And to do this: we have to learn, to submit, to train. We have to be disciplined, we have to commit. We literally have to become, batting-wise, like Japanese soldiers on remote Pacific islands who do not know that the war is over (although, after nearly 70 years of no shooting whatsoever, they must be starting to wonder).

For this reason, I ask you to Make the Pledge.

Making the Pledge is a training mechanism designed to make it quite literally impossible to get out. Ever. You will literally never lose your wicket again. You will never again hear the sickening music of your wicket being broken. You will never again hear the word ‘owsthat spoken in your presence. Bowlers will fear you. Fielders will hate you. You will never offer a catch. You will never be given out LBW, nor will you ever have to walk. Hours after the game, even in the pitch dark, you will still be out there, in the middle, taking guard. Other players will esteem you. Children will admire you. When you are near, women will moisten slightly, in a good way.

Making the Pledge means that, for the entire period of training in the nets and for as much of the playing season as is humanly possible you will play only the following shots:

^1.                        The Forward Defence

^2.                        The Backward Defence

^3.                        The Leave

To every ball that is bowled at or towards you, of whatever quality, length, line and pace, you will select from the above list and the above list only, the most apposite stroke and play it. You will then resume your guard. Next ball, again, you will select either of the two defensive strokes or a firm leave outside off stump and thus will you proceed.

For the entire training period and for as much of the playing season as possible you will disdain the pull shot, the hook and the clip off the pads or toes to leg. You will abandon the sweep, the slog-sweep and the reverse sweep. You will cancel the cut. You will rise above the drive, be it to leg or off or through the covers. You will never even dream of striking a cricket ball anywhere but straight into the ground. Aerial shots of any kind will henceforward be the sole preserve of homosexuals and Frenchmen.

By the end of the training period, you will have changed. You will have become more. You will have become awesome. If you started out awesome, you will be something like 20% more awesome. You will be mighty, immoveable, a Force of Nature. And once the games start, you will never be out. We will win all our games by sickening margins, always by ten wickets and sometimes more. Won by ten wickets. Won by ten wickets and a hundred runs, two hundred runs, more. We will be awesome. People will refuse point-blank to play against us but in a good way.

So it is with this proud dream erect in my mind, I ask you, enjoin you, beseech you to join me. Make the Pledge! Defend or leave or die! No more of these aggressive, flamboyant or “run-scoring” shots. Forward defence, backward defence or leave. Do it for yourself, do it for The Ladder, do it for England. Join me!

Andy Arkell - Senior Batting Coach - The Ladder CC