Even if you don’t understand the sport, cricket is a great metaphor for life.

Ball after ball after ball. Whatever they throw at you, you have to take it and make something of it.

Batting in cricket is a true test of positive thinking. It’s a true mind game and it’s all about temperament.

Sometimes batsmen stand out in the middle for whole days, sometimes even longer. In a currently ongoing test match between Pakistan and Australia, there were only 6 wickets in three and a bit days. It’s now changed somewhat, but 8 different people shared the batting for over three and a bit days of cricket.

For the majority of that time, the batsmen had to concentrate, and it’s up to the bowling team to unsettle them. That three and a bit days is a real testament to the men in the middle.

Cricket for me is a really interesting mind game. If your team is batting first, you really have to push yourself with a positive intent to put runs (points) on the board, but not too much that you lost your wicket (well, not always, depends on them game. I’m talking mainly test cricket). Positive intent goes a really long way.

Similarly, if you’re batting second, you have a target to meet, but you still have to concentrate on each ball and not get too far ahead of yourself.

To be a good batsman requires temperament. It requires that you don’t let yourself get ahead of the situation, that you focus on each ball one by one and you don’t let yourself wander off with the fairies.

By simply doing this, batsmen can really get under the skin of the bowlers, so bowlers have to be equally, if not more so, in tune with what it is they are doing. They also have to have temperament. Perhaps that’s why they call it the gentlemen’s game.

Either way, it’s an exercise in controlling your mindset, positive thinking, and being able to concentrate when it’s needed.

That for me, is cricket.