How to survive the good net

It's the preserve of cricketers of any age, location and ability: a Thursday evening, a setting sun, and a practice wicket underdone.

So here I am, a nominal batsman on the wrong side of youth, three overs into a spell of ungainly part-time net bowling, awaiting a bat.

To the relief of just about everyone, a call finally comes for me to "put 'em on". I've done this dance a thousand times before, but the gruff command still elicits that short, electric bolt of adrenaline inside. Or is it nerves? I've never quite worked it out. That I've survived until this point should instil me with confidence that I will once more, but I've no time for rationality at this point.

"Sam, you're in the first net," I'm told. I'm not usually in the first net. The first net is where our best bowlers bowl. The first net is the "good net". I do my best impression of a casual saunter to the mess of cricket bags that lies 20 metres away, and manage to make an important mental note: the quickest bowler in our club is currently batting, so I am free from his thunderbolts for now.

There are almost innumerable aims when it comes to net batting. Maybe today I'll summon the courage to use my feet to the spinners. Perhaps I should try to unearth that on-drive that has forever eluded me. Ditto a pull shot. But to bastardise the flightiest of corporate language, these are nothing but "blue-sky" goals. My true aims are better defined by what I want not to happen.

Yes, when it comes to net batting, it's simple: don't get hit and don't get out.

I unzip my cricket kit with a familiar, concealed tremble of hands. They contradict an external composure as I rifle through my still-disorganised bag in the only way I know how - hastily. Left pad, right pad, where's my box?

"Last couple!" bellows our organiser as I fumble further for a thigh pad and helmet.

My eyes may be trained on my gear but my ears are elsewhere. I hear a distant grunt from an imposing quick in the nets, immediately followed by the thud of leather into flesh. It sounds like inside thigh. A chorus of "oohs" trails from the bowling cohort, and then a sound even more chilling that that: laughter. The auditory terror prompts me to re-tighten my gloves for the third time as my heart quickens appreciably.

My batting predecessor finally completes the third iteration of his "last one" and the net is mine. Not that I'm feeling much ownership of this space. Three sinewy top-grade quicks and a solitary spinner await as I take guard - something I do to simulate a match situation. It immediately feels ridiculous. The bowlers aren't fooled; my bat wafts at the first one as I contemplate the concrete in my feet. The ball springs from the back net with a vigour that suggests to me, for a moment, that it may roll all the way back to the bowler. It stops some way short of that. Our eyes meet as if to say "Who's fetching this thing?" I don't think twice. I get the ball, because for now I am the servant.

Minutes pass and I still cannot find the upward social mobility I desperately seek. Balls seem to cannon into a thick outside edge here, the splice of the bat there, or just fizz past me entirely. Like any seasoned cricketer I first turn to my internal compendium of excuses. Is it the wicket? Is it the fading light? Is it that our bowlers regularly bowl from 18 yards? Whatever it is, it's hard to find solace when I've forgotten how the middle of my bat feels. To make matters worse, this always seems to be the time when batsmen in the other nets start receiving praise for glorious front- and back-foot play. I can only guess they are on better wickets.

Even so, I've not been hit, and I'm not out.

With a hypothetical score of 3 from 17 deliveries, my personal stakes are raised. Our fastest bowler, previously batting, decides to join the first net. I calculate that we are halfway through our allotted batting time, so I'll face a maximum of four or five deliveries from him.

We face them more than anyone else, but there's always an oddity to competing against your team-mates. Together on the weekend, you appreciate their efforts from multiple angles - a view from mid-off, a view from gully, a view from the pavilion. Perhaps this is why it's so chastening to study the strained face of your club's fastest bowler front-on as he hurtles in to bowl at you. I feel paralysed by the sum of his physical aggression as I brace for the hard flash of red. He enters his delivery stride, I see something and I waft at that something again. Except, this time it strikes the middle of the bat, sending the ball careering through hypothetical cover-point. The ball rolls back off the net and settles at my feet as I look up to survey the scene.

I see an angry young muscular man who wants his ball immediately, so I oblige. I am still in mild shock. My bottom hand, the protagonist in my heroic victory seconds earlier, then became the villain. In returning the vanquished ball to my opponent, my underarm is so limp that it arrives on the half-volley, forcing him into an unwanted bend of the lower back and a higher level of coordination to retrieve the ball. It rolls past him and into the path of a bowler in the second net, who now stops his run-up with a deep groan.

My high-pitched "Sorry, mate" is received without acknowledgement.