Sticky Wicket: The Yips

Whilst the ICC Champions Trophy trudges dull-ly along with scant chance of seeing any sort of exciting gamesplay, I thought I start a feature that looked at the quirkier side of cricket. It might turn out as a sort of cricketing glossary. Similar to the feature that Channel4 used to run, before they stupidly gave up the rights lost the cricket, the name of which I’ve forgotten*. That said, it was a much better feature than Sky’s Willow and Stumpy a godawful animated pool of cricketing sputum.

So in this inaugural edition, I’m covering a peculiar affliction that doesn’t apply only to cricket: The Yips. In a general sense, the yips can be considered as a mental meltdown, that renders you totally incapable of performing some function that you otherwise would have no problem doing. Symptoms of the yips are often uncontrollable spasms (particularly true in golf) or worse, simply forgetting how to do something altogether, such as bowlers completely losing the ability to let go of the bowl at the right moment (or at all) during their delivery stride. Case in point: Gavin Hamilton.

Needless to say, it’s a bizarre, troublesome, and frankly, downright embarassing affliction that, in some cases, can be career ending. I also feel it’s a fairly watertight excuse as to why I had such a crap season this year – I was suffering from The Yips.

* Jargon Buster