The Feel Of A Cricket Ball
Details like weight, roughness, and size are familiar by those who’ve played.
The sense is unfamiliar to those who haven’t.
You might’ve held a cricket ball once and think you know the feeling;
but you don’t.
The reason being:
You haven’t held it as something once feared.
Cricket players have.
There’s a comfort in tossing the ball back and forth to no longer fear it. That same comfort is what allows the player to welcome the ball with open arms when it’s hit towards them at 165 km/h.
Players understand nuances of the cricket ball in ways non-players don’t. And why should they? Non-players haven’t been in positions to fear a cricket ball.
On the other hand, a player knows what it’s like standing in a heated field staying on guard in case the ball comes flying at them. They attempt to know where it’ll bounce next and chase it rather than passively wait.
Not all people who play cricket are players of it either.
Knowing the feel of a cricket ball requires having skin in the game. If no risk is incurred, you’re not a player of that game. The same can be said about any aspect of life.
Grab life by the balls? Players are those with ball in hand, where its stitching has imprinted their palms at every angle.
To put it simply:
If you haven’t practiced your bowling cadence in an empty aisle of a supermarket, you don’t know the feel of a cricket ball.
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