cricket with balls

Where I learned my cricket, runs in the book was the most important thing you could do.

It didn’t matter if your runs were scooped to the leg side, slashed on the onside, in fours or singles, taken from good shots or from accidental shots.

The phrase, “that’s what it says in the book” was used on constant rotation.

It was hard not to think about that when watching Junaid Siddique bat at Lord’s.

The boy is a bunch of nerves when he bats, he seems to open the face or edge almost everything.

Against quick bowlers he seems to have no scoring options other than edges.

When facing spin he is slightly better, but he still looks like going out at any time.

There is no time when he looks in control of what he is doing.

Even though England never bowled well enough to get him out, he still never managed to convince.

At the age of 22 averages less than 25 in First Class cricket in Bangladesh (which must take some work) and he makes batting look like the single hardest endeavor in human history.

Yet I’ve seen him make a test hundred when his side needed it.

And yesterday he made a test fifty.  At Lord’s.  Yet again when his side needed it.

I would say that if Junaid were playing top level club cricket in England, Australia, South Africa or India he would just be a handy batsman at this point in his life.

It is hard to judge if he will ever make a competent test batsmen, but right now he is not of test match class.

That said, I can imagine the old men at my club, drinking their beer, mocking the opposition, grumbling about some soft older player and supporting this kid who is out of his depth.

Someone would suggest to these old guys that that this innings was full of edges, bad shots and just looked ugly, they use all of his unconvincingness to make their points.  And they wouldn’t be wrong.

But I know those old guys would have just pointed anyone who bagged Junaid to the scorer’s table.