On the brink of giving up

[MrSmilez]

Hey guys, i need some urgent advice. I am on the brink of giving up as nothing is going my way this season. I played my first match in the season around 2 months ago and my performance was anything but. I bowled one over, got hit for a few fours and bowled quite a number of wides and batted at No.11 which was disappointing. Recently, with my last match i didn't bowl at all and again batted at No. 11 and scored 3* from around 20-25 balls (And even after the match some guys said i should go up the order). And just today in a 35 over a side game, i didn't even get to bat and although i bowled a over i got hit for a few sixes and bowled several no-balls.

Now this is the problem: the guys at my club don't have enough respect and belief to put me up higher in the batting order and although my bowling is deteriorating i had no problems with it in the nets (I could go up to 110ks on any good day, and i also think i might have the yips). Now, i know i can bat at least either opening or down to 6 and the weird thing is they put guys above me who can't bat for their life no joke. Oh and the bowling, i know i can bowl twice the speed of what some other guys are capable of and yet they bring in 80k-90k medium bowlers to open our bowling which is embarrassing in its own right and the main reason why we have lost our last 2 games. The guys at the club are between 30-45 yrs of age and sometimes i think i have more maturity than them. These guys don't even train and me and my other mate are the only ones in the team who train in the off-season mainly as i have school.

I don't really know what to do anymore, i might just look for another club that actually has an ambition to win and succeed whether they win or lose. I'm a 16 yr old and currently school is not going to where i want it to and i figure since I'm good at cricket, maybe i can make something out of it (only been playing for around 7-9 months now). i want to eventually go up the ranks of grade cricket and possibly enter state and i don't think i can do it while i hang around these blokes. Now i know its everyone's dream to enter state and what not but its my ambition in life right now and by God i want to make it happen, but as of now i don't know anymore. So, what do you think i should do?

 

[SteveyD]

Right, you might hate me after a few things in this post, but anyway. It may look a bit negative, but read through it.

First up, We all start batting at number 11. So what, bowling is what cricket is all about xD You've been playing matches for 2 months and yet you're expecting to open both the batting and the bowling at a new club? Yet you claim you have more maturity than some middle aged guys, who have possibly been at the club for what, donkeys years? Or many clubs over that time, they know how it works. And then you go onto an internet forum slagging them off? Doesn't sound mature to me.
Secondly.
We all have terrible days, you write it off, you get on with it. Keep practising, keep practising on your own even. Get the line and length and the rest will follow. Pace is NOT everything, yes it helps, andsure you can bowl it 20 kph faster, but can you bowl it consistantly and accurately?

mini rant over, some questions you need to ask yourself.

1) Do you enjoy cricket ? If you dont enjoy it, then personally, I dont see why you should carry on.
2) Why are your grades going badly at school (Assuming thats what you mean when you say "school is not going to where i want it to")? Is it because of cricket? are there other influences?
3)Will another club be any different? Will another "better" club take you just like that, when they look at you and find that you've been playing cricket for 9 months, and only played for 2 months at a club before you quit it? They might look at you and say "Why did you leave?" Now if you can back your answers up well enough and show you didn't enjoy it and are ambitious then maybe you'll get lucky. The key in life, to get anywhere is to be able to justify decisions.
4) What is the backup plan If cricket doesn't get you anywhere? Will you be stuck in 10 years time with no qualifications, money etc?
Now, If you believe you can do it, and are willing to put the effort in, and It will be a lot of work, you need to decide and commit 100%. Who knows, you could turn out to be the next Mcgrath or whatever!

Hopefully at this point you've gone YES I can do this, but really, only YOU can make it happen.

 

[MrSmilez]

Yes, you're right stevey I'm not acting maturely. It was just the frustration of it all and i see your reasons why and no i don't hate you after that rant. Just because i could bowl greatly in the nets i thought that i'll be able to do it on the pitch which i now know was delusional on my part.

Yes, I enjoy cricket. Ever since i saw Hayden score that 380 on tv i wanted to play cricket but the fact that playing with a hard 156g ball put me off until a mate encouraged me to play last year.

My grades at school are poor. Probably due to the fact of a gaming obsession a few years back until recently which i've decided to stop.

Question 4 is what i've been thinking about at the beginning of the year. I dont know where i'll be in 10 years, stuck working in a supermarket? I dont know. I do believe that if i set myself something i'll be able to achieve it and i'm willing to do whatever it takes. Back to where you said i've only been playing for 2 months, you're right i need to commit and have faith and even if it takes 10 years i know i can make it. Micheal Hussey is a great influence for me as he only started playing for Australia in his late 30's and it shows me that if it does 10 years you can still achieve anything if you set yourself a goal. And if i do turn out be the next McGrath i'll know who to thank and YES i believe i can make it happen.

 

[breeno]

Get into Grade cricket as soon as possible. Ask if you can go down and train, or otherwise you might have to work your way up the ranks of a sub-grade (we call it sub-district in Vic), then once you have impressed try out with a grade club. If that is where you want to go, that's how you have to go about it.

However, on the school note. Do not neglect it. Performing well in cricket at the expense of other facets of your life probably won't help you and IMO, the pressure caused by school and the negative attitude you carry towards it may worsen your performance as pressure builds. All I'm saying is give schoolwork your best, no matter how you are going, because even State cricketers normally have some form of profession to fall back on. You need money to finance your cricketing endeavours.

A wise man once opened my eyes to this big wide world that we live in. Whilst what he said applied to schoolwork, it can apply to anything in our existence. He stated, "if I asked you guys if you could jump across this whole gym in one jump (gym is about 40 metres long), how many of you would be willing to give it a crack?" No one volunteered. He then plucked a small kid from the crowd and asked him to take a run up and jump as far as he can. The kid reluctantly did it, but he gave it his hall. He only jumped about 4 metres, still a huge 35 short of the whole gym. This man then divulged to us that this kid jumped 4m further than we had, he had gone closer to achieving his goal than all of us, simply because we carried a negative attitude.

The moral of that story is, set yourself high ambitions in all facets of life, whether it be doing you best to get 100% on a test, or taking 6 or 7 wickets a match. Even if you don't achieve these goals, but you put in your best effort into achieving them, you will have fulfilled your potential, and that's all anyone can ask of you.

/rant.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Have a look at Pencils blog here http://pencilcricket.blogspot.com/2011/02/mushroom-cloud-laying-motherfer.html

I said in response - but he monitors his comments and doesn't necessarily post them all.........

I don't know what to suggest other than chin up and keep plugging away. Tonight I had nets and when it came to batting I was bowled 4 times consecutively by a fast bowler and then 5 times consecutively by an off-spinner. At one point I looked up and all the seam bowlers that I'd sussed and was managing to block were suddenly replaced by 3 off-spinners and a leg spinner all trying to massage their own ego's. When it comes to batting I'm dog s**t bad, I'm about as good as a one legged bloke in a bum kicking competition, but I hang in there in the belief that at some point something will click and make sense and I may beat my long standing record of 7 runs scored in my first ever cricket match.
I suppose the answer must be in just being more active, doing a range of different sports perhaps? With kids I get dragged into doing all sorts of stuff I have no interest in, but I see it as opportunities to -
1. Maintain and develop fitness and stamina.
2. Improve and maintain eye to ball coordination.
3. Maintain and improve overall body coordination.
I end up playing Badminton, Basket Ball, football, swimming, Baseball, tennis and even skateboarding. For me it's dual purpose exercise in that I want my kids to be good at sports and to be agile, so I never deny them opportunities to do and try a whole range of things and at the same time it keeps me in the game.

I don't know if that'll be of any use to him, so was wondering if anyone else might be able to say something to him that might diffuse his disillusion?

 

[Spiderlounge]

Thanks for that Dave, I always find your comments helpful

I don't think I was disillusioned so much as frustrated. I'm certainly not in any danger of walking away. It's simply that the way our training sessions have been set up so far seems to be causing me a lot of frustration and embarrassment and it's getting in the way of me improving. I don't mind being bad at things because of a lack of talent, I'd mind if it was through lack off effort - I'm sure it's the same with your batting Dave. The major issue I'm having is that so far in our fielding sessions talent is rewarded but not effort, and I get the feeling some of the leading players in the club don't really understand the gulf between themselves and us at the bottom end, so conclude we must not be trying hard enough, which speaking for myself is just plain wrong and rather insulting. They'd do better to criticise the ones who haven't bothered pitching up, which is more than a few...

My immediate problem is that so far I'm in danger of having my confidence further eroded by this frustration, so if that continues I may have to give these sessions a miss, but then how do I improve? I do really want to work on my fielding, as if I want the rest to back me up when I'm bowling it's only fair to make sure I don't let them down myself.