Having a successful club season doesn’t just happen by luck.

This is a guest article from Laurie Ward

In modern cricket-speak, losing captains are quick to say “we will take the positives from this game” when they have been played off the park.

But do they really? Or is it just fluff for the media?

In reality the team and coach will look at what went wrong in the cold light of day and then work hard to put things right.

The show retains its shorter format this week as we look in detail at the question of how to deal with a bad captain.

This article is part 2 of a 2 part series. To go to part 1 click here

Breaking a big partnership is hard work. Maybe you have already tried the previous 4 things and you are still struggling to get a wicket.

This article is part 1 of a 2 part series. To go to part 2 click here

Is there anything more demoralising on the cricket field than the opposition building a big partnership?

It seems no matter what anyone tries, 2 batsman have got themselves set and are going about the business of scoring runs with scant regard for the 11 men trying their hardest to break their grip.

Batting first gives you control. It's the attacking way and its how cricket 'should be played'.

At least that's what the senior pros at my club and TV commentators say.

Except that you are also much more likely to lose.

At least, that's according to Economics Professor V. Bhaskar who studied the results of every daytime One Day International match and concluded that teams who win the toss and bat only win 44% of matches.

Someone once said the only things you regret are the things you didn't do.

That's certainly true when it comes to captaincy, as Mike Brearley told PitchVision Academy when he noticed a mistake the Bangladesh captain would go on to regret.

Every schoolboy cricketer worth his salt makes sure he learns the names of all the fielding positions with a torch under the covers after lights out.

But just like the alphabet, knowing the letters is only the start. If you want to be able to write you have to know how to use the letters to make words and sentences and paragraphs.

In the same way, if you want to know field settings you have to know when to use positions. Field settings are the

I recently played in an afternoon declaration club cricket game where the scores were:

• Team A: 237-5 (50 overs)
• Team B: 170-6 (50 overs)

I'm sure you have played in games with similar scores, and were similarly fed up by the end of the match.

You might say that Team B's bowlers were just not good enough to roll a half decent batting side over.

Everyone agrees: You can't set a field for bad bowling.

Like a lot of one-line advice, it's more of a guideline because there are always exceptions. It's the cricketing equivalent of "I before E, except after C".