I've built my batting reputation around being a reliable blocker who can slog a ball in his arc. It's not pretty, it's very limited, but I don't play lots of bad strokes.
I usually don't get to bat a lot, and most of my dismissals when I do bat tend to be due to being beaten by movement /variable bounce, or miscuing an aggressive stroke. So usually not something I regret.
I do have one dismissal I regret a lot tho. It was in my school's intra-school cricket league. This was in my final year. We had never had a proper cricket league before. The year prior we had a small tournament, and based on the success of that, me and my friends in the senior batch organised the league. It was played in this small area between all the academic buildings. Due to the limitation of space and time I think we were playing just 9 players a side, 15 overs an innings. Or something to that effect.
We had 4 'Houses', each a different color, which we were assigned to by the school arbitrarily and then had to compete for in intra-school events. Basically like Harry Potter except without a sorting hat. I was the captain of my House's team for the league. As luck would have it, our house had no good cricket talent, apart from in the lowest age groups. Some very talented kids there, but there was no way they could compete with the older, senior-heavy teams.
So I took this team of young underdogs under my wing and began coaching them. Literally organizing sessions after school where I could run drills with them. I had to miss the first game of the season, but the boys performed brilliantly and won the first game.
The second game we lost, but mainly down to a couple of seniors stinking it up. I decided to drop them from that point on. They were pissed that I was picking kids over them, but so be it. They were ****.
The third game was against the pre-series favorites. This house had historically sucked at all sports, but this year the school overcompensated, and they were loaded with like 80% of the kids who would have represented our school if we had a cricket team. They had dominated their first two games. Everyone though we would lose.
We lost the toss and were bowling first.
Back then I used to bowl medium pace. This year I had a bit of a Ryan Harris moment, and had suddenly found a few extra yards of pace, making me one of the fastest bowlers in the school. I managed to wheel through my 3 overs for 2 maidens, 1 run, and 1 wicket. The other kids bowled really well. We had restricted them to a very chaseable target - a target I wish I could remember.
Our batsmen went out to chase it down. I hid myself down the order because I felt I could pull of a repair job if needed, and because I wanted to show faith in the kids. So my youngsters go out there and battle against a very strong and experienced bowling attack, and got us closer and closer to the target. But we kept losing wickets.
I went in when the match was in the balance. All these guys, my class mates basically, began chirping at me. I wanted to play the match winning knock here that would take us home.
I started well. Found some runs. Blocked some out. One of their weaker bowlers came on - a bowler I had smashed around quite a bit when we had our pre-game practices - and I sensed an opportunity to hit a few boundaries and take us over the line.
He bowled a dolly of a delivery around offstump. A juicy half volley. My eyes lit up. I wanted to swing it over to the long on boundary, get the easy six. I had smashed these tons before. This was my go to shot. If it's in the arc, it's outta the park.
I swung. I got a feather of an edge. The keeper held on.
I was so distraught. I chucked my bat away as I walked off, and another of the young kids walked in. I was so mad at myself for throwing away the chance to pull of this huge upset, i walked out of the playing area and out in the back, basically moping around upset and cursing myself. Eventually I heard cheers from the ground and the dread set in, so I walked back to present myself and shake hands and be the good role model for the young kids that I was supposed to be.
We had won the match. One of the young guns smacked a bunch of boundaries, and the other one supported him, and they both had taken us both home.
The season ended shortly after. We were the only ones who beat this team. We finished 2nd out of the 4 house teams IIRC, with 2 wins out of 4 games (we lost a nailbiter after this one), way exceeding pre-season expectations. And we had the greatest upset of the series.
And I missed the winning moment because I was too busy moping for myself, and because I had the arrogance to think that my wicket was so important that my side couldn't win without me.
Have always regretted that.