Malcolm Gladwell theorised that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.

A long time ago I decided to try out lacrosse. I was told when you’re shooting you don’t load up with a back swing like you do when you’re about to throw a ball. It was almost instinct for me to pull my arm back so when the time came for me to take a shot at the goal I pulled my net back and the lacrosse ball fell on my head. That was the first and LAST time I picked up a lacrosse stick.

I’m a very impatient person (it’s a work in progress). I love trying new things but also like to understand/be good at those things quickly. If things don’t come naturally to me I question whether I’ll ever be capable of doing it. Following this I should’ve given up on cricket a hell of a long time ago…

The reason I actually decided to write this piece was because of a teammate of mine – who I personally think has developed so much as a player this year. She was telling me she didn’t believe she had the capacity to reach the standard she wished to be and I remembered that feeling exactly.

So that evening I went home, sent her my stats and thought about my own development.

Nothing to rave about, I was never a natural player (I was even apprehensive about putting up my stats for everyone to see) and I have a long way to go in terms of development and reaching my personal goals but I wanted to show what self-investment, hard work and some belief can do.

I used to bowl some questionable left-arm Chinaman. I was basically in the team as a fielder, filling a spot when needed. In 2017, something changed. I started to take things more seriously, I wanted to earn my place in that team and be the best I could be. I had been playing for a long time without any real hard work or investment into my cricket and yet kept asking myself why wasn’t I good enough?! Finally I took responsibility for my own development and embarked on a new journey.

During the 2017 season, I started to invest time in myself and my training, I’d always be doing throw-downs with teammates and I started working on my fielding and fitness. After the season finished, I found a coach and began working on more technical movements. I would go home, lay my cones out on the floor and shadow bat. I hung a ball in a sock from my bedroom door frame and annoyed my family no end with the constant hammering sound of bat on ball.

2018 season came with some progress no doubt, that hard work helped me reach a new high score, I spent time at the crease, held up an end and started developing my keeping. But it wasn’t enough. As much as I was spending time doing drills I was missing something, and that’s exactly when I met the person I needed to meet to take me that step further.

On 10th July 2018 I had my first coaching session with Tom Scollay, ex-Middlesex player and founder of CricketMentoring. I’d been following his content for a while and was SO excited to train with him. Tom asked me before the session to send him a message on what I wanted to work on. I decided today to re-read what I had said to him before going… My message read something like this: “I struggle to play anything full and quick on leg”, “I open the innings and fear getting out early so I don’t play naturally”, “I feel pressure“, “I feel responsible“…. It was a recurrent theme regarding a lack of belief and confidence and it pulled through everywhere. I had spent so much time trying to hone my technical skills I had neglected everything else. My development looked something like this:

I had worked hard on my technical skill and my fitness, I was mid training for a Tough Mudder and doing everything I could to work on the physical aspect of my development but I had overlooked a huge part of my game.

From just that 1 hour with Tom I knew I had to work on the mental side of my game if I wanted to develop further. I would chastise myself every time I missed a ball or mishit, I would get annoyed with myself for getting out and therefore not play my natural gamed. I had absolutely no idea the detrimental impact that was having on my progress.

At the beginning of 2019 I left to train at the Karnataka Institute of Cricket in Bangalore, India. Monday-Friday we would do fitness 9.30-10, one-to-ones 10-11, fielding at 3 and nets from 4-6 and at the same time I started Tom’s Peak Performance Programme. A 12-week programme covering habits, fears, confidence, concentration, conscious and sub-conscious training and many other topics. I spent time working on those spokes that I had neglected for so long, building affirmations and belief in myself, thinking about my goals and breaking down those fears and negative thoughts which I had sent to Tom just a few months before. This fed into my training, I began enjoying it more, I had the confidence to go and play men’s cricket this year and score my first 50 in women’s. That confidence flowed into my captaincy and taught me to not let my fear of making mistakes run me but to let myself make them and learn from them.

Now whether Malcolm Gladwell’s theory is true or not is neither here nor there. Some things may come quite naturally to people and some may have to put in 10x the amount of work for half the results, but the concept stands. The more you invest, the more you’ll get out of it. More often than not, the only person limiting your development is yourself. If you’d asked me back in 2017 if I’d ever score 50 I would have laughed and now, I’m focusing on a new three figure target.

Self-investment is an ongoing process, you never stop learning or developing. It take’s time and effort to grow. You can’t expect miracles overnight but if you take the time to invest in yourself not just physically but mentally too, you might be surprised by what you can really achieve…

On the 14th of September, Headstone Manor Cricket Club hosted our annual charity six-a-side fundraiser. This year we were raising funds for the Big Hug Foundation.

The day got off to a rocky start with an unexpected morning yoga class for the elderly taking place on the outfield of the main pitch. However we were soon back on track just  in time for the matches – slightly less calm than the yogis…

Six teams had entered from all parts of the UK with men and women joining forces to put on some spectacular cricket through the day. In our fifth game of the day we had our very own Rieya Patel pick up a hattrick! (In a 5 ball over no less) – setting the bar high for her debut at HMCC.

We had a BBQ managed by our resident BBQ specialists Dylan Assani and Waaris Deen with corn, chicken wings, halloumi and more burgers than we knew what to do with and with Jaymin Thakrar running the show we were well ahead of schedule so everyone got to sit together, eat and watch the toss for our showcase HMCC derby: The Tailenders v Manor’s Finest.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather and over 50 people including friends and family came down to support the teams and the cause. We were unbelievably lucky to have some delicious food provided by The Seven (which my dad is still raving about 2 weeks later), beer provided by Kingfisher and some CWC19 treats from the Bharat Army. An event like this could not be a success without the unbelievable support we received from these incredible people.

The finals took place at 5pm between Manor’s Finest and Six Fine Legs captained by Neel Patel and Saba Nasim. It was a spectacular game with Adnaan Shakur taking an award winning catch on the boundary and some controversial decisions from the umpire Bibi Dandool. The day came to a close with the home team, Manor’s Finest taking the win to end one of our best tournaments yet.

In total we raised over £2750 of which £1650  was raised on the day itself – double that of the previous year and more than any of us could have imagined…

On that note, I wanted to tell you a little about where the money is going:

Did you know 663 million people in the world live without clean water? That’s nearly 1 in 10 people worldwide.

Chamanapalli Village School in Hyderabad houses 126 children. Water from the bore well near the school is contaminated and so the children do not have access to clean drinking water during the day. The school is in an isolated area and each day the children (aged 6-11) walk several miles to fill a plastic bottle to take with them to school.

£2,038 = the cost of a water purification system for the school.

Our one day of fundraising was able to cover the entire cost of providing clean water to a school in Hyderabad. Your donations mean these children are no longer at risk of catching waterbourne diseases and can spend more time in class and less time collecting water.

The additional money raised will be put towards other projects including: A nutrition project, a vocational skills project for women and many others.

Thank you all and see you next year!

I thought I’d give them the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to write an article a long time ago about the woes of RCB but I was being painfully optimistic and kept putting it off. “A line up like that can’t carry on losing… and losing… and losing.” “It’s just a bad run, all teams go through it.” Yet here we are, match 34 of 56 with a star studded RCB having played 8 games and lost 7. Yet RCB fans are high as ever, ready and rooting for the express pace of Dale Steyn. Virat Kohli has created a high like no other, one that has kept RCB fans hooked.

I spent the last three months in Bangalore and I was lucky enough to see a few RCB games. The atmosphere was like nothing I had ever seen before. I’ve been to my fair share of World Cup games, Champions Trophy games, bilateral series’ in the UAE, England, Sri Lanka and even India. I’d seen the big rivalry of India v Pakistan but this was something else. It was electric. Chinnaswamy stadium was on fire, a sea of red engulfed the stadium. It was the 7th match, Royal Challengers Bangalore v Mumbai Indians and I could see no blue. Silence fell over the Stadium as Hardik Pandya hammered a six out of the stadium. He wasn’t their man. It didn’t matter what he had done for India, he was wearing the wrong shade of blue right now.

Then came AB De Villiers. A deafening roar errupted from the ground “ABD… ABD…”, louder than any I had heard before, like a clap of thunder “ABD… ABD…”, louder than MS Dhoni walking out just a few weeks before at the same stadium during the India v Australia series. What country was I in? Had I landed back in South Africa? Every ball, every run, every boundary, every maximum was fuel being added to the fire that was Chinnaswamy. Nothing else mattered. It was like a fix.

It was entirely forgotten that only the week before, RCB had been toppled over with 10/11 players not even reaching double figures.

Next came the Kolkata Knight Riders. Match 17 of the IPL. RCB were 4 losses in and yet to get their first points on the table but still a passionate fire blazed at Chinnaswamy. This was the day. RCB batted first and the sea of red burned bright in the Stadium. A 108 run partnership between Kohli and AB and the stadium was in a state of pure ecstasy.

205 on the board. It was going to be RCB’s first win… That was until Big Muscle Russell walked out. 42 of his 13-ball 48 came off maximums. A spectacle. He bludgeoned the ball straight back over the bowler each one going further than the previous. Silence in the stadium and the fans were once again put on a spiraling comedown.

A lot of questions are surrounding RCB right now with who is running the show. Is it Virat Kohli? Is it Ashish Nehra? One thing is for certain, the RCB fans are still hooked but how long will it last?

So for the past few months I’ve been working with a coach who has really helped me a lot with my game. Funny about the timing of these things but he was just talking to me last week about how cricket is a game of risk and reward. When making your decision about what shot to play or whether to play at all, consider whether the risk of getting out is greater than the reward you could get for playing that shot. Granted most games have a certain element of this but cricket is brutal. Once you’re out, you’re out. There are no second chances as a batsman so you have to play the odds if you hope to have a long and successful career. Considering this, it is beyond me why Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft ever even considered the concept of ball tampering. Was the risk of a ban or tainted reputation worth a series win in South Africa? Was the risk of casting a shadow over the whole nation and the game itself worth a win over the #2 ranked Test team?

Steve Smith and David Warner have brought into question every game that they have ever played. Every time Mitchell Starc has taken a wicket using reverse swing can be questioned. Did they really win the Ashes without cheating? Why would Smith put his own reputation at such risk when he was considered one of the four best batsmen in the world? What exactly was worth more than the risk of not just their reputations but the monetary value of captaining IPL franchises and BBL teams potentially being stripped away?

Were the rest of the team playing dumb? Did they not wonder why the ball was suddenly reversing? Did the bowlers not question the appearance of the ball? They surely must know the difference and be able to tell if a ball has been tampered with? And if the captain and vice-captain know then why doesn’t the coach? Had he instilled such fear and unyielding drive that losing was simply not an option? Or did they really have the arrogance to believe they wouldn’t be caught?

It’s a real shame when senior and respected players like Steve Smith allow the manipulation and use of young players to alter the game. What kind of example does this set for a team? For young players hoping to make it to the national side?

Normally I like to pose a question and come out with possible answers or solutions to the problem but for the life of me I cannot understand how they thought they could get away with this with umpires regularly checking the ball and the number of cameras around the ground and one question keeps sticking in my mind, how was the risk of all this greater than the reward?

I’ve had enough of reading about England’s tragedies and how they’ve lost the Ashes and how ironic it was that their only hope of holding onto the urn in the driest of cities was rain.

I’m having some deja vu as I write this, I’ve written about home advantage before on multiple occasions and I stand by the premise that home teams should be allowed to prepare pitches to their advantage. It’s not as though a perfect pitch could have won the Ashes single handedly regardless of which Aussie village cricket team turned up to play England. It’s an advantage that each team has a right to. However when you hear statistics such as Australia haven’t won an Ashes in England in 16 years, it does make you wonder is it really too much of an advantage? Or are there other factors at play…

A team that have the world #3 ranked Test batsman (Joe Root), the #1 ranked Test bowler (Jimmy Anderson), the #5 ranked Test all-rounder (Mo Ali, this could have also included #3 ranked Ben Stokes had he not been busy with other ‘matters’) and yet they still can’t even compete. Yes Steve Smith may be the top ranked batsman but Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc are not even in the top five Test bowlers. England even sit two spots above Australia in the ICC Team rankings and it was only last year that Australia embarrassingly  lost 3-0 to a rebuilding Sri Lanka side. So how is it that England were steam-rolled so badly?

One of the potential factors contributing to England’s poor performance down under is everyone comes to English county cricket to benefit from our outstanding county system. With Mohammed Amir playing for Essex, Kumar Sangakkara playing for Surrey, where do the English players go? The best players in the world come to England so it doesn’t make sense to go anywhere else. They have become very accustomed to facing bowlers on their own pitches, very few of the players participate in the IPL (granted it is an entirely different game) but they don’t get much practice on the types of pitches they have been playing on in Australia.

Another of England’s biggest issues if that they have no venom in their bowling right now. They have skill, technique and quality but they are just missing that extra bite. That speed and aggression that would have come with Ben Stokes. Stokes bowls on average a similar speed to Stuart Broad but somehow has an edge that Stuart is missing (that something probably didn’t help him in Bristol but would have done wonders down under).  England suffered a double blow as Steven Finn was ruled out from injury too. Players like Tymal Mills and Liam Plunkett have really upped England’s overall average pace in T20s but they are not Test bowlers. Having Mark Wood could have also really helped England especially somewhere like the WACA however I do think it’s been a great opportunity for young players like Tom Curran to make a name for themselves..

On the topic of bowlers, Moeen Ali. This is a point in itself. Moeen Ali reminds me of the old Ravindra Jadeja. For some reason he’s kept in the team regardless of his poor performances. He will have a long run of bad scores and as a one-off hit 50 and take a fifer before going back to single figure scores and full tosses. Using the now third ranked Test bowler is not helping my case but England have persisted with him long enough. It has come to the point where they are using Dawid Malan, their number 4 batsman who is barely a part-time bowler for Middlesex games let alone for England. Malan’s economy rate at the MCG has been much better than Ali’s and since he hasn’t produced any magic with the bat why are England persisting with someone who is so ineffective. He has been unable to hold up an end or dry up the runs like Nathan Lyon and has put even more pressure on the seam bowlers (as if they didn’t have enough work on their backs).

Lastly, England seem to be struggling with their mental game more than their physical. Vince, Stoneman and Malan all relatively new/unsettled players in the top 5 or the batting order which may have contributed to Alastair Cook looking as though he would rather stay in than score runs. Joe Root seems too burdened by captaincy and his inexperienced team and the fact that Cook hadn’t looked like himself until this innings here in Melbourne (the highest score and first man to carry his bat at the MCG). Even when England had gotten themselves into good positions they wasted their opportunities just as Sri Lanka had been doing against India with Johnny Bairstow coming in too low or rash shots from Ali. It seems as though once their concentration breaks they really struggle to get back into the zone. Even this innings, had Cook not been there to steady the ship, England could have been 150 odd runs behind instead of ahead. However with Cook finding his feet it could alleviate some pressure from Root and give the team the boost they need to potentially come away with the next two wins.

The Women’s World Cup Final. Possibly one of, if not the most heartbreaking matches I have ever been to – and I’ve been to my fair share of games. It came as a shock to me just how much my heart had invested in team India and their incredible rise from the qualifiers to the ICC WWC Final. Somewhere along the way from Smriti Mandhana’s opening century against the hosts to Harmanpreet Kaur’s 171* against the reigning champs they won me (and a whole nation) over.

It’s not that I specifically supported England as I’m sure you’ve seen my bias towards the men in blue and lack of article on the Champions Trophy Final. However I knew very little of the women in blue, I had never seen them play live and as a player myself in England I had seen friends develop into fantastic cricketers through the club and county system.

Naturally I admired the dedication to the game that I saw from the England Ladies, not only from the current players in their drive to succeed but also from ex-players like Charlotte Edwards and Isa Guha who had gone on to commentate and Lydia Greenway who put her expertise into developing the next generation of players though the ‘Cricket for Girls’ Academy. These names were household names to me. I had played BUCS cricket for Nottingham University against the likes of England opener Lauren Winfield and through default came to support England.

I started writing without an end goal but whilst thinking about why I had initially leaned towards supporting England and then changed, I wondered how people pick their teams?

What reason did I have to support a country that I had only visited twice? Is it genetic? Does supporting India run in my blood? If I pricked my finger would I genuinely bleed blue? My parents support India and I am 1000% sure my children would support India.

I was lucky enough to be born to watch the fabulous five of Indian cricket. A golden era of batting which included ‘The Little Master’ and ‘The Wall’.  A legacy that will live on forever and players that will be talked about from generation to generation. I felt part of that legacy. The same must have applied for those who lived through the magnificent swing duo or Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis or the unyielding West Indies pace quartet.

But what if someone didn’t have that connection to a team as I initially didn’t with the Indian ladies before the Women’s World Cup?

I started thinking about my second favourite team and when India weren’t playing what reasons I had for supporting one team over another. Up until two years ago it was Sri Lanka over everyone else and one man in particular was the reason. The man with 12,400 Test runs to his name and over 14,000 ODI runs. Kumar Sangakkara. The man I, and it appears also Smriti Mandhana, idolise. A pleasure to watch at the crease he makes batting look like second nature. As if it came as naturally to him as breathing. His cover drives flowed seamlessly as if they were a part of him. Since his retirement (and Mahela Jayawardenas) I found myself supporting South Africa and in particular AB de Villiers.

During the 2015 ICC World Cup Final at the MCG I found myself faced with two teams who I neither supported nor identified with and immediately found myself rooting for the underdogs, New Zealand. I had hoped for India to make it to that final as I had flown out to watch it but it wasn’t meant to be. New Zealand were coming in off the back of a game that was fit to be a final. Had the tournament ended after that emotional New Zealand v South Africa semi-final I couldn’t have argued. Both teams had poured their heart and soul into the game and you couldn’t have asked for a better game and for that reason I was rooting for them to win. Plus I always find myself rooting against the Aussies anyway. Maybe I am part British after all.

In simple terms, there’s no science behind it, no genes, no picking the best team by stats it’s a purely emotional decision and one that I only made a few weeks back for the women in blue, the under dogs led by the incredible Mithali Raj, but one that will last a lifetime.