What is more difficult: Remembering to breath or remembering to leave?

[Son Of Coco]

Personally, I find remembering to leave a lot more difficult. As a tail-ender (albeit an extremely skillful one) when I'm new to the crease I find myself wanting to get bat on ball more frequently than Elton John.

It's a bit like being at a nightclub at 3am when the ugly lights come on and you find what would've been an obvious leave at 11pm now naked in your room and threatening to ricochet off the edges of your bat.

Despite my ridiculous metaphors, I would actually like a serious answer to this question. The art of the leave is an important one in cricket and, when done well, can frustrate the hell out of the bowler (see NZ vs McGrath a few years back).

If you're a batsman, how do you hone your skills in this area?

Those of you that find remembering to breath difficult, please explain further.

(Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I perhaps foolishly thought the answers following might address the 'remembering to leave' part more than the breathing. I also thought borrowing a popular thread title might get me more than 10 replies, thus breaking a personal record.)

 

[Jarquis]

Haha, I'm almost the exact opposite when I start. Anything decent outside offstump I'm just not prepared to play at early on. Just wait for the bad ball, or a ball in one of my areas and then I'm off and running.

Have never really understood the desire of some people to just fling the bat at everything when you're new to the crease. It's when you're most susceptible to getting out so there's not really a need to decrease your chances further by fishing at balls you don't need to early doors.

 

[weldone]

Ha ha, fun read that was. You are really a son of a .........., well, coco (don't know what that means though but needless to say how much I care)

The first thing a batsman needs to achieve to leave appropriate balls early on is to know where his off-stump is. Not leaving the balls he should leave might be dangerous, but leaving the ball he shouldn't will definitely be...errr...fatal. So, a clear idea about the location and height of his off-stump is a must.

However, what seems to me an even bigger challenge is remembering to leave the appropriate balls when you are, say, not out at 30 runs or so. Suddenly, the batsman gains confidence and gets slightly carried away with a few boundaries (or, sometimes singles or even middle-of-the-bat dot balls). This, multiplied by the fact that the slip cordon sometimes gets thinner after you make some runs, tempts you to go for it almost every time.

And when you are, say, not out for 100 runs or so, you won't even care to move your feet before chasing a wide ball, and why should you? (unless you are a Sachin or Ponting or Dravid or Kallis etc etc)

And if you are a Sehwag, then, well, nothing matters at all dude.

 

[benchmark00]

YouTube - The Corrs - Breathless

 

[Son Of Coco]

I tend to leave the obvious, but more when they're too wide. I don't fling the bat at everything, but tend to want to get bat on ball if it's around off when I could probably leave more often than not.

Am usually tentative early on, so it's more poking at the ball than having a go. The latter being a better option usually if you're going to stuff around near off-stump in my opinion (if you're a tail-ender).

I'd also like to add that having confidence in your off-stump would fit nicely into my nightclub metaphor.