the thing with league cricket is you cant score runs when your back in the hut, so as long as your at the crease the runs will come. I used to go out and play my shots early doors and look good for 5/6 overs and get out for 20 odd and then see a rubbish batter in the opposition scratch a ton all because he stayed there..... So now my main focus is not to get out
Sounds very familiar Canners! I have exactly the same problem and haven't really hated giving my wicket away, mostly through fears of being called a slow scorer. I tend to go out and try to dominate the bowling from an early time - sometimes it comes off but most of the time it doesn't.
I know I've got the technique to score a ton as I have done it before but I'm not scoring big runs anywhere near enough. I'm now going to go out with the intention of not getting out. Like you said, you can't score runs when you're back in the hutch!
1. Play the ball and nothing else. Don't care whos sending it down, its just a ball. Don't care it they have taken 100 first class wickets, or if they have just come up form the second team. Its the ball you play nothing else.
1.b. Don't play your self. Its the blowers job to get you out not yours! If you are thinking too much you can't play properly. When you cross the line, stop thinking about everything, no technical thing to work on, not what happen last week, etc, etc. for the first 3-5 over, its just the ball your thinking about (some times this has to change, depending on what's going on in the game, but you get the idea).
2. 50 overs is a long time to bat, so's 40, so's 30, even 20 is quite a long time. Brake your innings up in to 5 over chunks. Dont worry about how many you want to score by the time you out. Think, in the next five overs, I want to still be in and I just want to change the strike over. Next five. I'm feeling in/not in I'll try XYZ. (never try to many things)
3. Know your scoring areas. Left arm spin, right arm fast. I score here, here and here. Know where it is you score, and what shots are your scoring shots. If the ball comes where the 2 can combine your in business, if not, wait for a time when it does. - The longer you bat the easy this gets.
Well just a few tips, hope they help.
Ross
Sometimes it's easy to forget about these key points. Probably the 3 most valuable points I've read in a long time. I'll be putting this into practice tonight at nets and on Saturday. Thanks Ross