“Play with freedom” is a relatively new term that has taken the environment of cricket. Now, there is certain line of players whom the coaches and captains trust and give them the authority to play with freedom. You must have heard it in prees conferences these days, something like “we want our guys to play with freedom”.
But what does really means to play with freedom? Is it a resulted oriented mindset where the batter, playing with freedom, knows what what kind of score and strike rate he has to match. On the flip side, what if the freedom, being misunderstood, brings failure to an innings. There is a really a fine margin so there is no freedom in terms of choices a batter makes.
Play With Freedom
Asia Cup starts from August 30. The participant teams have adopted a new approch which is no much conventional but because of the result it produces, it is gaining popularity. Well, it can be said that the conventional approach was to stress about the game, and sometimes when you stress out, thinking about details and circumstances, things quickly slip away from your hands.
Here comes the play with freedom mindset. In actuality, playing with freedom has nothing to do with undermining your opponents. In any sports, an opponent is worthy of recognition. So in a purist sense, playing with freedom is all about “expressing yourself”. It might not explain everything so let’s get deeper into the details.
Playing with freedom can be misunderstood with putting down cautiousness and take the unorthodox route, be predetermined about everything and play high risk cricket because freedom of playing like that brings freedom to fail. However, things are actually different in reality.
First of all, the real reason behind following this methodology of playing with freedom is to play with your natural game. It doesn’t have to be attacking cricket throughout the innings. A player must be free from the impression that he has to play a certain brand of cricket of keep his place solid in the team.
Actually, playing with freedom determines a player’s real ability to handle the game and most importantly, being from irrelevant things brings clarity in choices of a batter. To be free is “whatever you do, do it firmly”. Do not get infested by this second thought where you are not making decisions about your game.
Natural Game vs Adaptation
At some point, this question comes about following your natural game or adapting the team’s method. Cricket is a team sport but ball by ball, it is all about a single player. So, making adjustments is always a key to success but not at the cost of leaving behind your natural game.
A player must always look forward to adapting to the need of pitch and game situation. That’s the way one can produce a flourishing innings, one can not play with braided and restrained mindset at all. You are pioneer of your own innings, that’s how an innings in manifested.
