I stumbled on an academic paper last year called Batting and Memory by John Sutton. I didn’t understand much of it but the bits I did get resonated. One passage had me nodding, smiling and eventually laughing. “Many readers of this journal”, he wrote “will be intimately, agonizingly familiar with troublesome roles of thought in cricket batting. The intrusive rumination over my horrible shot last saturday; the bizarre, fluttering irrelevancies which seep through mind and body as the bowler runs up….. after one sweet cover drive, a temporary manic narcissism which perserveres skewing my.. response as the next ball arrives and draws me into another flash, a nick, the gut-wrenching lurch, the swamping disbelieving misery, the self-criticism, the rumination.. and so it goes.” You can hear John speak eloquently on his ideas in a broadcast below. It’s 2o mins long but worth the listen.
John told me a great sledge he got from a team after he’d scored a big hundred. ‘Back in 86 when I made a decent 154 and was walking off this guy in our side’ (always get the best sledges from your mates) says “So that your top score John?”
“Yup”
Team mate replies “It’ll probably stay that way”
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