If you’re a batsman in the game of cricket, then you should always be aiming to bat for a long time and play a match winning innings. Match winning innings’ can be played in variety of different styles, but more often than not they’re played by batsmen who like to bat conservatively and accumulate runs while soaking up plenty of deliveries from the bowlers. Certain batsmen specialise in playing very long innings’ like this, and over time they will get a reputation for it. I’ve been watching cricket for years and in that time I’ve seen plenty of players like this. I’m thinking of guys like Alastair Cook, Rahul Dravid, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Jacques Kallis. All of them were absolute masters of the long innings and they are great role models for players of all ages to copy.
If you want to be a batsman that is known for playing those mammoth, game-changing innings, then you will need to make sure that you have the mental strength as well as the batting skill required to bat for a long time. The longer you can bat for, the more you will be able to wear down the bowlers, and the more scoring opportunities you’ll get as a result. All cricket teams need a batsman like this, and hopefully in this post I’ll be able to give you a few tips that will help you to become that player for your team!
So, what do you need to do to bat for a longer time in cricket?
- Watch the Ball Like a Hawk
- Extend the Length of Your Practice Sessions
- Don’t Dwell on Your Mistakes
- Find a Way to Re-focus Your Mind in Between Deliveries
- Take Some Time to Get Comfortable With Conditions
- Display Positive Footwork
- Compress Your Innings into Smaller, More Achievable Milestones
- Make Sure You’re Properly Hydrated
- Aim to Not Be Dismissed During Practice Sessions
- Take Pride in Playing Defensively
- Work on Your Cardiovascular Fitness
I’ll now walk you through each of these tips individually so you know exactly what each of these mean!
Watch The Ball Like A Hawk
If you’re going to play a long innings, you’ll need to make sure that you’re watching the ball intently throughout your entire stay at the crease. Certain batsmen find it easy to stay focused on the ball early in their innings, but as time goes on they will lose concentration and stop watching the ball as closely. If you allow this to happen it’s highly likely that you’re going to make a mistake and get yourself dismissed.
In my opinion, you should be using your practice session to get yourself into good batting habits. One of the main habits you should be trying to establish is watching the ball all the way from the end of the bowlers run up until it makes contact with your bat. Batsmen do this because it’s much easier to hit a ball that you are looking at directly, rather than a ball that you lose sight of halfway down the pitch. If you watch every ball that you face in this way, you will find that you can display more positive foot movement as you will be able to pick the length of the ball early. You will also find it much easier to move your head towards the line of the ball, and have your weight over the top of the ball as you strike it. All of these technical details are vital for a successful batting technique.
One of the methods that I used to teach myself to watch the ball better was to use a bit of verbal repetition as the bowler is running in to bowl. As they are around half way through their run up, I will mutter ‘watch the ball’ to myself a couple of times. This ensures that my mind is focused on what I need to be doing once the ball has been delivered. This simple bit of verbal repetition helped me to stay much more focused on watching the ball during practice and during real cricket matches. Once I had gotten accustomed to doing this in the nets, I found it easy to start doing it during games.
The method above was just one of the ones that you can use to watch the ball better when you’re batting. If you want to read my full guide on the subject, then click here! Watching the ball properly really is one of the most fundamental parts of batting, and remaining focused on it can help you stay at the crease for longer!
Extend the Length of Your Practice Sessions
This one is pretty simple, but you’d be amazed at how many cricketers overlook this simple tip! The basic theory is this; if you want to bat for longer during a cricket match, you have to make sure you’re comfortable with batting that long in your practice sessions.
A lot of younger batsmen or senior batsmen who play cricket at the amateur level will only face around 60 balls per practice session. This equates to facing 10 overs of bowling. But what if you want to bat all the way through a 50 over game? If you were to do that, there’s a high chance you’d face a minimum of 150 deliveries (25 overs). Therefore, if you have the time available, you should try to spend a few hours in the nets and face a minimum of 150 deliveries. It would be even better if these deliveries came from a variety of different bowlers!
If you’re a young professional or you’re a player that plays in cricket matches that last multiple days, you should be trying to test yourself even more by engaging in practice sessions that last for around 300 deliveries. Going through practice sessions like this helps to train your mind to concentrate for these long periods, and helps to prepare you for any long innings’ you will play in the future. International batsmen take the same approach! Steve Smith of Australia is one of the greatest modern test match batsmen and he will regularly face hundreds of balls at a time during his net sessions. It is what helps him to feel most prepared to bat during a game – he feels like he has every angle covered.
If I had to sum up my approach to cricket practice, I would say that I always try to make it as close to realistic as possible. Whatever you want to achieve during a cricket match, you should practice doing during your net sessions. That’s why I believe one of the keys to batting longer during a game is being able to bat longer in the nets!
Don’t Dwell On Your Mistakes
Batsmen who excel at playing very long innings’ will usually all have one thing in common, and that is their incredible amount of mental strength. This high level of mental strength allows them to put any doubts that they have about their technique out of their mind, and also allows them to avoid dwelling on any mistakes they have made during their innings.
For example, let’s say you’ve been at the crease for around 30 minutes, and then the bowler delivers a relatively wide ball that you attack and get an outside edge on. The outside edge falls just short of the slip fielder, meaning that you had a lucky escape! If this happens, you will know that you’ve played a bad shot and got lucky, but it is the way you respond to mistakes like this that will show your character as a batsman.
The best batsmen that are great at batting for a long time can quickly put this mistake out of their mind and move on to the next ball. Batsmen who aren’t as skilled in the art of the long innings will allow mistakes like these to take over their mind, so much so that they are still thinking about it when the next ball is delivered. This is a bad position to be in! When facing a delivery from a bowler, the only thing we want our mind to be focused on is reacting to the ball that is in front of us. If you’re still thinking about the mistake you made with your previous shot, this may affect your judgement of the next ball.
Another thing that causes doubt in the mind of lots of batsmen is if they see the ball behave strangely as it hits the pitch. As some pitches deteriorate over time they will crack, and dry patches will appear. If the ball hits a crack, it could cause it to bounce very low or very high, and it could also cause it to jag away from/in towards the batsman sharply. This is what makes batting on worn pitches so difficult! Batsmen who are likely to be able to play a substantial innings on a pitch like this are the ones that can quickly forget about their mistakes and move past the previous ball. To put it simply, you need to treat every single delivery as a separate event. The most important ball you will face is always the next ball! Remembering this during your innings will allow you to remain focused on what is important.
Find a Way to Re-focus Your Mind in Between Deliveries
This tip is kind of linked to the last one, but basically there are certain techniques that batsmen will use to remain in their ‘zone’ throughout the course of their innings. These simple techniques are usually used in between deliveries, and they allow the batsman to forget about what has just occurred and re-focus their mind.
Some batsmen will simply walk away from their wicket a little, and have a look around the ground. Others will hum a little tune to themselves. Some like to walk down the pitch and have a chat with their batting partner or tap on the pitch a little with their bat, and some batsmen like to mark out their guard with their boots and fiddle with their equipment. Batsmen who use techniques like this are incredibly difficult to get out of their comfort zone. One of the best examples of this that I’ve seen is Jacques Kallis – he would always seem so calm at the crease!
As for you, you should use whatever method makes you feel most at ease. Techniques like this help you to put the last ball behind you, and also allows you to zone out in case any of the opposing team are trying to sledge you and get inside your head. Batsmen who engage with this type of behaviour from the opposing team will waste a lot of mental energy thinking about these things, and that is something I think we should try to avoid if possible!
Take Some Time to Get Comfortable With Conditions
When a wicket falls and it’s our turn to walk out to bat, it’s incredibly important that we take our time to adjust to the conditions and the way that the individual bowlers are bowling. If we walk out and try to play very aggressively from our first ball, we are more likely to misjudge our shots and make mistakes as we don’t know how the ball is behaving. A gradual introduction in to your innings will be much more beneficial.
If you have the time available, I would always recommend taking your first 12 balls to get a good look at the pitch and the bowler. You can take longer if you wish, but I think 12 deliveries is a decent amount. During these 12 deliveries, you should try to leave the ball if possible, or look to play defensively. However, if you receive an obviously terrible ball, like a drag down way outside off stump, you should be aiming to hit it for 4! No batsman wants to miss those kinds of opportunities!
You should be using your first 12 deliveries to get information about how high the ball is bouncing, how fast the bowler is bowling, how much swing there is through the air, and if there is any seam movement from the pitch. When facing spin bowlers, you should be assessing the amount of spin, the flight and speed of the ball, and the different variations they are bowling. All of these pieces of information are vital, and they will help to dictate how you are going to play your innings. For example, if there is no swing, no movement off the pitch and the bowler is bowling medium pace, you may wish to play in a very aggressive manner. If the bowler is bowling fast with plenty of swing, you will probably want to adopt a more cautious approach!
Once you have taken this time to get comfortable with conditions, you will be presented with a number of advantages:
- Your feet will have started moving better – sometimes it takes a while for us to get our feet moving accurately and precisely, but after you’ve adjusted to the bounce of the pitch and the pace of the ball you should be more comfortable
- A lot of your nervous energy will disappear – Our nerves are usually highest when we walk out to bat. After we’ve gotten through a few overs, we should be feeling much better
- You will be familiar with the bowlers’ actions – A lot of our anxieties when it comes to batting in amateur cricket are due to the fact we don’t know what to expect from each bowler. After facing each bowler for a few deliveries, you should have adjusted to their action and the way they bowl.
Obviously, sometimes you won’t be able to take 12 deliveries to get yourself in. If you walk out to bat with your team needing 70 runs off the last 30 balls in order to win the game, you will have to play more aggressively from the beginning. However, if you do have the time available to get yourself in, I always think it’s a good idea. It’s a great way to negotiate the early part of your innings and hopefully propel yourself to a long stay at the crease.
Display Positive Footwork
If you don’t have positive footwork when batting, you’re going to struggle to play a long innings. If you’re wondering what I mean by ‘positive footwork’, then allow me to explain!
Positive footwork basically means that we should be moving our feet depending on where the ball pitches. If the ball is on a good/full length, we should be moving our front foot forwards down the pitch, getting our head over the ball and striking it. If the ball is back of a length or shorter than this, you should be pushing yourself backwards on to your back foot, standing tall, and playing a back foot shot. Moving our feet in this way gets us closer to the ball, and gets our body in the best possible positions to play our shots.
Problems start to occur when our feet do not move towards the line of the ball, or down the pitch to meet the ball. Some batsmen display no foot movement at all, instead remaining planted on the crease. When this happens, our body will not be as close to the ball as it needs to be, which leads to us prodding at the ball with our bat. Playing with the bat far away from our body makes it more likely that we will edge the ball or miscue our shots, which puts us at greater risk of being dismissed!
If you want to improve your footwork against fast bowlers and spinners, I’d recommend reading my in-depth guide to mastering your batting footwork by clicking here! That guide includes a lot of tips and drills that you can use to work on that side of your game in practice. If you can learn to move your feet positively to get your head and your weight over the ball, you will make yourself much more likely to play good quality cricket shots and stay at the crease for longer.
Compress Your Innings Into Smaller, More Achievable Milestones
When you’re starting your innings on 0 runs, it can seem like a huge task to make it all the way to 100. Scoring a century is incredibly difficult and takes lots of hard work, and it will require you to stay at the crease for a long time and face plenty of deliveries.
Some players will find it much easier to score big runs if they segregate their innings into smaller sections. For example, if you think about scoring the next 10 runs, rather than thinking about scoring the full century in one block, it can make the innings seem more realistic. Plenty of players doubt that they have the ability to score a century, but not many players will doubt their ability to score 10 runs! This is why compressing your innings into smaller milestones is so effective – by focusing on scoring 10 runs at a time, we can lessen the pressure on ourselves and make things seem simpler.
Once you have scored 10, this will give you a little morale boost and a sense that you have achieved something. However, you must remember that a lot of hard work is still to be done. If you work hard and make it to 10 runs and then begin to play loosely, you are just as likely to be dismissed. Instead, once you have scored 10, act as if you are starting from 0 runs all over again, and work hard to score your next 10 runs. If you can employ this kind of focus while you are batting, you will be much better equipped to bat for longer periods of time.
Make Sure You’re Properly Hydrated
When engaging in physical activity, it’s always important to ensure that your body is properly hydrated. It’s especially important when it comes to batting for a long time in a game of cricket. Long innings’ can be incredibly tough on the body! I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen batsmen go through tough periods of cramp, and this is especially likely to happen if you’re playing cricket in hot countries like India or Pakistan.
Muscle cramps are basically involuntary contractions of muscles in our body, and they can be extremely uncomfortable. They make it much more difficult to use the affected muscle, which can make batting very hard, especially if the affected muscle is in our lower body.
Although the causes of cramp can never be 100% known, dehydration can definitely increase the likelihood that it will happen to you. Therefore, I would advise that you make sure you’re drinking plenty of water every day. Start with the base guideline of around 500ml per hour if you’re playing in a cricket match. If you’re batting for multiple hours, or the weather is hotter than usual, or you’re an older individual, you may need to consume more water to avoid cramp.
Other measures you can take to avoid cramp are:
- Eat some potassium rich foods. Bananas are a good example of this.
- Drink a sports drink alongside your water. This helps to replace vital electrolytes within your body
- Stretch the vital areas of your body prior to batting, and do the same once you have finished your innings.
Batting can also cause players to sweat in large amounts, which means they lose a lot of bodily fluids. It is vital that we replenish these as we are engaging in physical activity to keep our performance levels high. As batsmen, if we get out, we want this to be due to the bowler actually getting us out. The last thing we want is to have to walk off the field due to an easily avoidable thing like cramp! Make sure your body is well hydrated and this will allow you to remain focused on batting and scoring runs.
Aim to Not Be Dismissed During Practice Sessions
Another great way to prepare yourself to bat for long periods is to try to not be dismissed during your practice sessions. If you can go through a lengthy practice session and face a variety of bowlers without losing your wicket or playing too many false shots, then this will put you in a great position to do the same thing during a real cricket match.
Try to make sure that you practice batting for at least one hour per week, and set yourself the task of not being dismissed. Ideally, you should be trying to practice for multiple hours per week, but if that’s not achievable, 1 hour will be enough. During these sessions, you should be batting exactly as you would during a real cricket match, taking it just as seriously. Many batsmen I know will never approach their net sessions with the same intensity that they approach a real innings, and I see that as a problem. Yes, practice is good for experimentation, but every now and again I believe we should aim to practice batting for a long time and preserving our wicket. This is the best possible preparation for playing long a long innings!
Take Pride In Playing Defensively
The players who are more skilled at batting for long periods of time will take as much pride in their defensive shots as they do in their attacking shots. If you want to bat for a long time, you may need to adjust your mindset slightly and stop judging the success of your shots on how many runs they get you. Some batsmen are only satisfied with a cricket shot if they see the ball flying to the boundary, however, the hardest batsmen to dismiss can get a lot of satisfaction out of playing a solid forward defensive shot too!
Both the attacking and defensive side of batting in cricket are equally as important, yet the defensive side is often overlooked. A lot of modern batsmen will use every single one of their net sessions to practice smashing the ball to the boundary and hitting the ball powerfully. This is definitely an important form of practice in the modern game, but in order to make yourself a more complete player that is capable of playing the long innings as well as the shorter, aggressive innings, you’ll need to spend some net sessions working on your defensive game.
There are three main components to a strong defensive game:
- The forward defensive shot
- The backward defensive shot
- The leave
If you want to learn how to play defensively, why not dedicate some of your net sessions to playing defensively, and tell yourself that you can only use these three options when responding to the ball? If you can negotiate an entire practice session playing in this way, you will have set yourself up very nicely to do the same thing during an actual cricket match. When we’re batting in a 50 over match or a match that lasts multiple days, it’s highly likely that the opposition team will have a bowler that makes batting hard for us. Against that bowler, you may wish to play defensively and see them off, before trying to score more runs against the other weaker bowlers. Adjusting your approach like this during the course of a match can help you play that match winning innings for your team.
Work on Your Cardiovascular Fitness
A good level of cardiovascular fitness is incredibly important for all kinds of different physical activities, and it will definitely help you out if you’re aiming to stay at the crease for long periods of time. Cardiovascular fitness helps to improve the efficiency of your heart, your lungs and your blood vessels, and keeps your body performing at a higher level for longer periods of time.
If you’re aiming to score a century, it’s likely that a decent proportion of those runs are going to be gained by running between the wickets for singles, two’s and three’s. If you’re a batsman who finds it incredibly hard to run between the wickets, then you’re going to struggle to be able to put together a large score. I remember watching Alastair Cook bat for 14 hours against Pakistan, and to put it simply, there’s no way you can play this kind of innings without having a great level of cardiovascular fitness. This is why all the batsmen who are trying to reach the elite levels of the game need to be engaging in cardiovascular training.
For batting, the first form of training I would always recommend is interval training. An Interval training session will often look something like this:
- A warm up/stretching routine
- Sprint for 50m
- Rest for 1 minute
- Repeat steps 2 & 3 another 5 – 10 times
- Cool down/stretching routine
Steps 2 & 3 can be repeated as many times as you like, depending on your abilities and the desired intensity of your training. Interval training is great because it mimics the sort of activity a batsman will experience in a cricket match. Batsmen will often go through long periods where they will not be running, and then they will suddenly have to launch into a sprint and run three runs very quickly. If a batsman runs 3, they will cover an approximate distance of 60 metres, so when training you should keep your maximum distances somewhere around this mark.
Going through training sessions like this once a week or once every two weeks can seriously improve your cardiovascular capabilities, and should help your body to cope with longer stays at the crease a lot better. If our body fatigues quickly, this can lead to us being lazy with our movements and our shots, and puts us at a higher risk of being dismissed. Don’t let this happen to you!
Conclusion
All of these tips will help you to bat for a longer time in cricket. Batting longer is just as much about your mental skill as it is about your physical batting skills. Some batsmen just find it easier than others!
Like with most aspects of batting, if you want to improve the length of time you spend at the crease you need to practice, and practice hard. Try to dedicate as much of your time as possible to batting against bowlers in the nets, and also try to do some practice at home. You can read my guide on how to practice batting at home by clicking here if you’re unsure of what to do!
Getting multiple hours of practice per week will help to get you in a good batting rhythm and will allow you to get totally comfortable with your technique. This makes it easier for you to bat in cricket matches! Additionally, try to represent as many cricket teams as possible and play as many games as you can. Net practice is great, but there really is no substitute for actual time spent out in the middle batting in pressure situations!
I hope these tips have given you some inspiration to work on your game, and until next time, good luck!