Russel Arnold: Glad to have my form back
Russel Arnold - 31 July 2001
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Russel Arnold
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What a relief it is to have finally played a substantial innings after an
indifferent run during the ARY Gold Cup in Sharjah and the Coca Cola Cup in
Sri Lanka. Since making an unbeaten 39 against England in Dambulla I hadn't
been getting runs for the team and that had been very depressing.
Somewhere along the line I knew that I would emerge from my poor form, but
self-doubt can creep into your game. I wondered for a while as to whether I
should be doing anything different, because I was playing in my normal
manner and going nowhere.
In the end I decided against making any wholesale changes to my game;
reasoning that it had worked for me before and would do so again.
Nevertheless, I have been trying to become a little more compact and a
little sharper with my shot making.
Apart from that I tried to build up my self-belief. Dav Whatmore gave me
plenty of encouragement and I used video footage of past innings to get me
in the right frame of mind. It's a tool I'm fond of using. Not so much for
technical, but for mental reasons. If you watch yourself scoring runs you
can recreate the feeling of doing well and carry those positive emotions
into the next game.
The omens did not look good though when I went into bat last Wednesday after
the Kiwis had reduced us to 27 for four. We had no frontline batsmen to come
and were chasing 236, which remains the highest score in the tournament. On
the positive side I at least had plenty of time to play myself in and build
an innings properly.
When I met in Marvan Atapattu in the middle we agreed that we simply had to
stay together and couldn't take any unnecessary risks. Even after the 25
over point we didn't set any targets, because we knew that we needed to get
within striking distance before we lost any further wickets.
Eventually we aimed for a target of 80 runs in the last ten overs, which was
possible if we still had men to come. In fact, we had a to chase a little
less, despite the loss of Marvan in the 35th over.
In the end we won the game easily thanks to a terrific innings from Suresh
Perera. He remained positive throughout and played some brilliant strokes.
The key though was his shot selection. He was not recklessly swinging his
bat, but carefully selecting which balls to hit. He eased the pressure on me
and we rattled along in the last five overs, scoring 40 runs with nine balls
to spare.
That victory gave the team a real confidence boost. We had had our backs
against the wall, but for the second game in succession we had pulled
through to win. We realised that we still hadn't performed to our potential,
but knew that when we clicked we would be very hard to defeat.
The disappointing defeat by India though highlighted the fact that there was
still plenty to work to do and will prevent any complacency over the up
coming games.
We lost our way in that match after a fine opening stand between Romesh and
Sanath. However, having started so well and being well aware of the batting
talent in the Indian side, even without Ganguly, we made the mistake of
pushing for too high a target.
Instead of batting normally, scoring at around four runs per over, which
would have given us a decent score, we went for the big shots. These were
difficult to play, especially for the incoming batsmen, because it took a
while to gauge the pace of the wicket. The pitch may have been a better one,
but a par score was still closer to 220 than 250.
India also deserves credit too, however, as they did bowl well after the
first 15 overs. The bowlers took the pace off the ball and were very
accurate. They created the pressure that forced us into making vital
mistakes. Then, when they batted, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid, showed us
just how dangerous they can be. With Laxman staying on and Ganguly coming
back we have to be very careful.
The tournament now moves on to the Sinhalese Sports Club for the third round
of matches and we remain confident. Our mistakes against India cost us the
game and we know that if we play to our potential we will. At the moment
though we are not performing as a team, in fact our form has been patchy,
especially in the batting, which is yet to fire on all cylinders. Hopefully,
the extra pace of the SSC wicket will prove to be the catalyst we need.
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