29/218 a lonesome affair Batting is a lonesome affair especially when you're struggling. It makes you feel insecure, incapable, and unworthy when you're finding it hard to score runs. Sometimes it's so bad you feel that your own people might lose faith in you and that's the worst fear for me as a batsman. I remember a friendly game from more than a decade ago. I was a very young boy in a completely different place among a bunch of players who were pretty alien to me. I was nervous simply because I didn't know them. But I thought I'd still score some runs but my technique wasn't sustainable for such feat. The bowler coming at me seemed intimidating. I didn't score. Walking into another foreign ground some nine years ago I felt insecure. I thought I had no muscle to clear the big boundary there. I played a couple defensive shots before I got run out. I wonder what would I do there if I didn't get out. See, introverted insecure boy in school was reflected in the ground also. A couple years later after some work on my body and mindset I was at the same ground again. This time I went all out at them but I was too authoritative. I played this scoop shot not too long after I came to the crease. And then I found myself reverse sweeping a spinner! But it didn't last too long as I attempted a huge bat swing trying to smash their fast bowler to the midwicket boundary. With the stumps on the ground I was done for overcompensating.
