Saving a Single

For much of the time that you spend fielding you’ll probably find yourself in the ring saving or trying to save the single.

You may start in one of the catching positions and you may end up fielding on the boundary but for most of us ‘in on the one’ is where we’ll be. How often though do you really think about what that means, where you need to stand and how you’re going to go about it. 

In our book ‘Cricket: A Leading Edge for Captains’ we discuss this very thing and explore why do we even walk in with the bowler? 

I recently had the pleasure of watching the England Women’s team play in a warm-up match before their upcoming one-day series vs the West Indies (in early June.) You wouldn’t have known it was a friendly or warm-up match from their body language, attitude or application in the match. In the field every player in the ring walked in with purpose as if it was the World Cup Final, (which it could of course be a possibility for them later this summer.)

There was no aimless strolling in, not once did I see a case of the player having their weight on their heels. Each player would time their walk to when the bowler delivered the ball would gain some momentum and get into their own ‘set’ position so that they’d be completely ready should the ball be hit in their direction. Also, they would gauge their depth accordingly, not too close that the ball could be crunched past them and not too far away that the opponent could take an easy single. 

Regardless of your role within the team you can guarantee that you’ll spend more time fielding than batting or bowling so surely you owe it to the team to be as good a fielder as you can be. Nothing irritates the captain and bowler more than an easily taken single when the fielder has drifted off. Something that couldn’t be said about the women wearing the Three Lions this week. Whatever happens this summer, this super summer for both the Men and Women’s teams you can be assured that both teams will be super organised and prepared if what I watched in the sunshine yesterday is anything to go by. 

© Cricket World 2019