Here’s why you should never underestimate a single.

Sure, the six gets the headlines. The four is a bold statement. Doubles and triples are rare creatures. The single is more glorious than them all.

Is there anything more cheeky than dropping a good ball at your feet and calling through an easy run? I know there are few things more sublime than a hitting boundary followed by taking an easy pushed single to the man on the rope. The classiest of fives.

It’s wonderful because it demonstrates total control of the situation: The bowler puts a man out, you hit the ball through for one. The spinner moves a fielder from midwicket to square leg so you roll it into the gap.

It’s cricket as pure art.

But the single is about even more than subtle skill.

It’s infinitely better than a dot, yet easier to get than a boundary.

And the more dots you turn into ones, the more you win games of cricket because singles seem to have this halo effect where the more you score them, the more your score increases beyond them.

For example, last cricket season my club scored from 32% of the balls faced (50 over limited over games). On the games where less than 68% of ball were dots, the average score rose by 25 runs. Most of those 25 runs came in singles because the number of boundaries stayed about the same.

I’m not sure why this happens, but it clearly happens. My best guess goes back to the start of this article: The single means control of the game. When you are in control you feel confident to score more runs.

So, if you want an easy way to win more games, practice scoring more singles, then go about making it happen.