A few years ago, I wanted to write a book about this. Had a treatment together and everything. Try to speak to people known for gaudy runs of form (Broad, most obviously, but there are plenty in golf and darts and snooker) but also in areas such as standup comedy, where performers with decades in the business can be ‘on fire’ or ‘dying’ for extended periods of time without quite knowing why. I pub-pitched it to a mate who ran the sports list at a publisher. ‘I think you want to hold your horses on that one’: he knew the Brearley book was in the pipeline. But having read it, my idea was more what you write about here. Is it actually a thing? How does it relate to technique? To psychology? To statistical randomness?
"The dedicated armchair watcher, equipped with satellite coverage, has a lot of cricket to watch at the moment"
Not to mention rugby and football....
Better performance y'day from England, and delighted as a Lancy manqué to see Livingstone do what we know he can. Whilst reviling T20, I love the long form white ball game.
“Form” might also have something to do with a batsman’s technique. Sometimes - for whatever reason - a batsman can find himself stuck in the crease, missing the ball, swinging wildly, not quite getting the middle of the bat. A few months later, he might have revised his technique and found himself again in “good form,” and (presumably) higher scores.
A few years ago, I wanted to write a book about this. Had a treatment together and everything. Try to speak to people known for gaudy runs of form (Broad, most obviously, but there are plenty in golf and darts and snooker) but also in areas such as standup comedy, where performers with decades in the business can be ‘on fire’ or ‘dying’ for extended periods of time without quite knowing why. I pub-pitched it to a mate who ran the sports list at a publisher. ‘I think you want to hold your horses on that one’: he knew the Brearley book was in the pipeline. But having read it, my idea was more what you write about here. Is it actually a thing? How does it relate to technique? To psychology? To statistical randomness?
"The dedicated armchair watcher, equipped with satellite coverage, has a lot of cricket to watch at the moment"
Not to mention rugby and football....
Better performance y'day from England, and delighted as a Lancy manqué to see Livingstone do what we know he can. Whilst reviling T20, I love the long form white ball game.
“Form” might also have something to do with a batsman’s technique. Sometimes - for whatever reason - a batsman can find himself stuck in the crease, missing the ball, swinging wildly, not quite getting the middle of the bat. A few months later, he might have revised his technique and found himself again in “good form,” and (presumably) higher scores.