Eyes on the ball

 Was speaking the other day to a coach with an eye for detail. He was telling me about a young cricketer whose career he has been following since he worked with him briefly a couple years ago. He has noticed that the batsman, still on the fringes of the national senior team, has been scoring less and less runs since his breakout year at youth level.

He watched the young man a bit, and noticed that he repeatedly hit the ball square of the wicket, never straight, and that his feet didn’t really get to the pitch of  the ball. Upon inquiry, he found out that the youngster actually worked with a coach. But those sessions were limited ones.

Sooner rather than later however, this batsman will likely get more games at senior level, and may even become a regular.

Yesterday, as I read some of West Indies Test captain Denesh Ramdin’s post defeat comments in South Africa, I was reminded of that conversation, especially when he said: “We have young players who did well and can hopefully take a lot of experience from the series and learn from the South Africans how to go about it”, referring to Kraigg Brathwaite, Shannon Gabriel, Leon Johnson, and Jermaine Blackwood.

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