It's not how you Start, it's how you Finish

It’s not how you Start, it’s how you Finish.

    I was given this advice a few decades ago after a faltering start to a tour on which I was distracted by a mislaid passport, connectivity issues resulting in a missed deadline for a newspaper report and a hotel room like an unrefrigerated insect morgue.

    The first match on commentary was a gibbering affair but the producer, the late, great Gawie Swart, reminded me that it was a seven-week tour of seven ODIs and three Tests and if I began the first game with self-reproachment and misery it would be a very long tour. For all of us. He made me think of everybody on the team, not just myself.

    Gawie’s advice has held me in good stead over the years and I’ve been reminded of it frequently by the various methods with which batsmen start their innings in T20 cricket. There is an increasingly isolated belief that ‘there is always time to play yourself in’. But what does that mean in practical terms? Batters who are happy to give away easy dot-balls early in their innings are either super-confident or in denial about the potential consequences of their approach.

    There are many examples of brilliant ‘finishers’ who were, and are still, comfortable with taking 10 singles from their first 15 or 20 balls in the belief that they will catch up later in the innings. And for many years they were right. But T20 cricket has changed so much, and continues to change at such a rapid pace, that the ‘slow but steady’ approach becomes an increasingly unacceptable risk.

    Is there any such thing as ‘catching up’? If a batter scores 10 from his first 15 balls and finishes with 70 from 40 but his team loses by three runs, what good did his catch-up do? If the batter had made 15 or 18 from his first 15 balls and continued with the same acceleration, the result would have been different.

    Almost three decades ago the late, great Bob Woolmer was, as always, ahead of his time when he said the ‘elimination of dot balls’ would be the most consistent, determining factor in 50-over cricket. It was before T20 cricket was born but the principle remains. “If we are fit enough and skilful enough to take a single off every ball, we score 300,” he said in an era when 300 was akin to 400 in today’s currency.

    Last Friday England scored 300 in boundaries alone against the Netherlands during their record total of 498-4 but there were still precious few dot-balls, and even fewer which were gently blocked or ‘given away’ meekly. Bowlers will always be allowed to bowl perfect yorkers and other smart deliveries to earn their team a scoreless delivery but the best batting teams in future will become so, at least partly, by striving to eliminate the ‘easy’ dot ball.

    Chasing a record target of 212 in the Proteas’ opening T20 International in Delhi, Rassie van der Dussen came to the crease at 61-2 at the end of the power-play and limped (apparently willingly) to 29 off 31 balls with the required rate climbing to over 14 runs per over despite David Miller scoring at two runs per ball at the other end. Van der Dussen then hit a straightforward catch to long on – and was dropped. He celebrated this moment of good fortune by taking 22 off the over and scoring an eye-watering 45 runs from the next 14 balls he faced. If the catch had been taken it would have left debutant Tristan Stubbs with an all but impossible task.

    At the T20 World Cup last year van der Dussen scored 22 off 27 balls chasing 84 to win against Bangladesh. It contributed to South Africa’s net run-rate dipping significantly below Australia’s and left them needing to beat England by an almost impossible 50 runs in their final game to reach the semis.  

    Van der Dussen was made man-of-the-match for his unbeaten 94 from 60 balls in that game and yet, at the end of the power-play he was a gentle 21* from 15 balls and a modest 35 not out from 28 balls after 10 overs. “Imagine what he might have scored if he’d shown a little more urgency early on,” a former national captain asked, of nobody in particular.

    I thoroughly enjoy, respect and appreciate van der Dussen both as a cricketer and a person and I suspect he might be irritated by my questioning of his game-plan. If he was ever aware of it. He may be a life-time member of the ‘that’s the way I play’ club. Which would be a shame because it seems he’s more than good enough to adapt and improve ‘the way’ he plays the game. For the good of the team.

    But as Gawie said all those years ago, the way you finish is what matters. But your team mates also matter along the way until you get there.