Good Length Delivery

Dedicated to Chandler Bing's latest show GoOn. Its not F.R.I.E.N.D.S good, but then nothing will be.  

GoOn uses sports to make sense of life. As has been attempted here.

A "good length delivery" is a type of delivery in cricket that pitches at a distance from the batsman that makes it difficult to score runs. Furthermore, such a delivery is difficult for the batsman to judge whether to play on the back-foot or on the front-foot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_length_ball

Every person who has padded up, picked up the bat and walked up to the pitch knows about the lure and the terror of the Good length delivery. Good length deliveries in the world of cricket is rare. Few come by.You get to play fewer still. An it's an honor if you get one.

A good length delivery is essentially one that makes you wonder. Do you go for it? Or you just stand back in your crease, And watch that delivery cruise by. And you wonder was I capable enough to tackle that.

You see the ball and you are made to think, Should you make an effort go on the front-foot and try driving it for a boundary.And possibly losing your wicket.  Or you just stay in my crease, safe and sound. Thankful of the fact that you got to see a beautiful delivery and wait until a loose one comes around.

And then you are reminded of the last time you tried your hand at the Good length delivery. You had waited, observed, planned and then took a bold foot forward to bring the bat just in time to meet the ball.You had expected the ball to race to the boundary, what you got was the opponent cheering and your wickets castled. And then a long tiresome walk back to the pavilion. 

And failing, will not be heroic. You will be tossed on the top of a pile of castled batsmen. Openers, tail-enders, pinch-hinters, middle order bats. You find them all in the heap. So on top of being a failure, you get to be a cliche too.

You get scared.

But the lure is strong. You want to try your shot. Not because you have to. Not because you will not get any more scoring opportunities, you have few and you will more. But because you want to.

And you "think", Fuck Let me go have a cigarette. Atleast, for now.