We'd the second session of the coaching course today - and I'm bloody wrecked after it!! We warmed up with a game quite like stumpball, but the objective was to complete 10 passes to score a point. I couldn't breathe after it, which I was a bit surprised by. I'm not super-fit or anything like it, but I can normally run about for 5 minutes without hyperventilating. I've since developed a bit of a chesty cough though - so I reckon that goes some way to explain it, must have been coming on since before today.
We covered a bit of fielding (intercepting and retrieving), a bit of wicketkeeping and a few back foot shots. We also did the run-up and bound - which was a complete head-wreck! I think the problem is that the bowling action is fairly complicated, with different parts of the body doing different things - and in order to match it to the technical model, you have to try and hold all the different parts in your head at the same time!
We finished the session off with the "full hit to leg". Basically it's a cross batted shot to a full toss about waist high on leg stump. Front foot towards the ball - down on the back knee - and smash the ball to the leg side boundary! Feels great when it works, but there is a danger with it, if you don't pick the right ball top edges are nigh on inevitable. Last season, this is pretty much the shot I used to get my boundary (yes singular!), off a very long hop by a leg spinner. It's also quite close to the shot that I got caught off in a cup match to a full toss :/ Win some lose some I suppose!!
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Mystery of Timing
Just had my last session of work related indoor cricket! A record showing of three turned up strangely, so we just had a single wicket competion. Two overs batting in the innings - one against each of the other two bowling. In the time we had we managed to get in three of these games, so not too bad, six overs of batting, six overs of fielding (read running around like a headless chicken), and six overs of bowling.
I was keen to try out a few of the bits and pieces from the coaching course. Obviously, I've been doing a bit myself - knocking a ball against a wall to practice driving, and a bit of one-step bowling. But I was surprised, nay shocked!, by how well I did today. In the 6 overs, I managed to score 47 runs, (and get out twice, but I'll forget about that until we've done the forward defense ;) ). In the bowling, I was trying to include the hip-drive, by pushing the front knee through - this resulted in a quicker ball every time I remembered to do it! Picked up a few wickets clean bowled with this, along with a reflex C&B off a slower ball.
The big difference in the batting, I think, was that I was more relaxed since I had an idea what I was trying to do - and that I was using the "backswing and step". These both contributed to a more fluid, straight, and powerful shot. It was a bit bizarre, in that I felt like I was hitting the ball with less effort and still getting it to race away to the back wall :/ I guess that's how timing works :)
I did hit a bump in one of my middle overs where I was trying to force the ball away, and reverted to swings and misses; edges going in the air; and driving the ball straight into the ground. But I recognised the issue, made myself relax - just watch the ball - and react ... and things came good!
Hopefully with a good winter re-inforcing the basics I can go out next year and do some damage. Priority going to beating this years average of 1 :D
I was keen to try out a few of the bits and pieces from the coaching course. Obviously, I've been doing a bit myself - knocking a ball against a wall to practice driving, and a bit of one-step bowling. But I was surprised, nay shocked!, by how well I did today. In the 6 overs, I managed to score 47 runs, (and get out twice, but I'll forget about that until we've done the forward defense ;) ). In the bowling, I was trying to include the hip-drive, by pushing the front knee through - this resulted in a quicker ball every time I remembered to do it! Picked up a few wickets clean bowled with this, along with a reflex C&B off a slower ball.
The big difference in the batting, I think, was that I was more relaxed since I had an idea what I was trying to do - and that I was using the "backswing and step". These both contributed to a more fluid, straight, and powerful shot. It was a bit bizarre, in that I felt like I was hitting the ball with less effort and still getting it to race away to the back wall :/ I guess that's how timing works :)
I did hit a bump in one of my middle overs where I was trying to force the ball away, and reverted to swings and misses; edges going in the air; and driving the ball straight into the ground. But I recognised the issue, made myself relax - just watch the ball - and react ... and things came good!
Hopefully with a good winter re-inforcing the basics I can go out next year and do some damage. Priority going to beating this years average of 1 :D
Monday, November 3, 2008
Coaching Course - session 1
We had our first session of the Level 1 Coaching Course last Saturday. It went pretty well really, I thought before the start of it that the other lads on the course would have a huge advantage because they were likely to have way more experience - but as it turned out, that really didn't matter much! It's nearly an disadvantage in some ways, I'm quite happy to accept that doing things by the book is better than the way I'm doing it. One or two of the others were more inclined to say things like "Well I've been doing it like this for years and ...". At the end of the day, everyone probably does have their own adaptations to suit the techniques to themselves - but when you're teaching a newbie - it's probably best to show them the universally "right" way, and let them start playing around with it themselves. Certainly better than teaching them the quirk that works for you, even when you don't really know why!
The impression I've got after the first day is that the "secret" to being a coach is not necessarily how much you know, but how you get the information across. And the greatest weapon you have for achieving this? Preparation! If you're showing a bunch of kids the pull shot, you'd better be damn sure you know in advance how every part of the session should work (with room for flexibility if needed). There's no point starting the session, and every few minutes interrupting yourself to add a point you forgot - or having to figure out how to demonstrate the skill on the fly. All you'd be doing is undermining yourself - and getting a group of kids to listen to you is hard enough anyway.
It's also good to know that there are lots of the basics that I haven't been doing right (or at all). I'd hate to think that I have been using good technique and still can't bat - that might suggest that I'm just rubbish ;)
Also - well done to the Irish team that managed to win the Intercontinental cup for the third time in a row! They recovered from a pretty poor first innings performance to win by 9 wickets in the 2nd innings, Cusack getting a deserved man of the match award for a gutsy 95* in the first innings to get the Irish close enough to make the result an option.
The impression I've got after the first day is that the "secret" to being a coach is not necessarily how much you know, but how you get the information across. And the greatest weapon you have for achieving this? Preparation! If you're showing a bunch of kids the pull shot, you'd better be damn sure you know in advance how every part of the session should work (with room for flexibility if needed). There's no point starting the session, and every few minutes interrupting yourself to add a point you forgot - or having to figure out how to demonstrate the skill on the fly. All you'd be doing is undermining yourself - and getting a group of kids to listen to you is hard enough anyway.
It's also good to know that there are lots of the basics that I haven't been doing right (or at all). I'd hate to think that I have been using good technique and still can't bat - that might suggest that I'm just rubbish ;)
Also - well done to the Irish team that managed to win the Intercontinental cup for the third time in a row! They recovered from a pretty poor first innings performance to win by 9 wickets in the 2nd innings, Cusack getting a deserved man of the match award for a gutsy 95* in the first innings to get the Irish close enough to make the result an option.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Been "Knocked for Six"?
I've made no secret of the fact that the Irish as a people don't really "get" cricket for the most part. I think this is changing though, as the national team are making ripples and getting mentioned in the news, more and more people are coming around to it.
One thing that always fascinates me though, is the amount of cricket related terminology that has found it's way into everyday usage - even when people have no clue what it means!
You could say, they'd be "stumped" by it .... ahaha :*)
The amount of times I've heard people saying, right "off the bat", they've been "bowled over", or "caught out" on a "sticky wicket". I've heard people say when an elderly relative had died that he'd "had a good innings". I even heard someone on the radio the other day that a particularly prolific musician had a "good batting average". Apparently, "hat-trick" also originated in Cricket - and now it's been plagiarised by every other Tom, Dick and Harry sport.
This was brought home to me at the weekend, when I spotted an article in our local paper. It was about a member of a Gaelic football club that had taken charge of the scorebox for his 1000th game. The picture accompanying this was of him waving out of the box with "1000 not out" written out on the score display.
At first I thought I might be imagining this - I do have a tendency to imagine I've seen something crickety all the time, I think it's called obsession. But no, this time it was real. This hard-core GAA fan was using a cricket term.
It doesn't surprise me that there are terms from cricket out there in common use .... you don't spend hundreds of years in the psyche of an empire without seeping into the language. And in fact it's a two-way process, plenty of terms from other walks of life have drifted into cricketing parlance. What does surprise me is that people understand the terms - without having any grasp on the origin. I guess it just shows you how powerful cricket is - it can even get inside the heads of non-believers ;D
One thing that always fascinates me though, is the amount of cricket related terminology that has found it's way into everyday usage - even when people have no clue what it means!
You could say, they'd be "stumped" by it .... ahaha :*)
The amount of times I've heard people saying, right "off the bat", they've been "bowled over", or "caught out" on a "sticky wicket". I've heard people say when an elderly relative had died that he'd "had a good innings". I even heard someone on the radio the other day that a particularly prolific musician had a "good batting average". Apparently, "hat-trick" also originated in Cricket - and now it's been plagiarised by every other Tom, Dick and Harry sport.
This was brought home to me at the weekend, when I spotted an article in our local paper. It was about a member of a Gaelic football club that had taken charge of the scorebox for his 1000th game. The picture accompanying this was of him waving out of the box with "1000 not out" written out on the score display.
At first I thought I might be imagining this - I do have a tendency to imagine I've seen something crickety all the time, I think it's called obsession. But no, this time it was real. This hard-core GAA fan was using a cricket term.
It doesn't surprise me that there are terms from cricket out there in common use .... you don't spend hundreds of years in the psyche of an empire without seeping into the language. And in fact it's a two-way process, plenty of terms from other walks of life have drifted into cricketing parlance. What does surprise me is that people understand the terms - without having any grasp on the origin. I guess it just shows you how powerful cricket is - it can even get inside the heads of non-believers ;D
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Duck Cup is MINE!
We'd our end of season dinner Friday night, was great craic. 50 odd people turned up, which is more than last year I think. At that dinner one of our founder members provided the highlight of the night by singing a lament he had composed! Lamenting the fact that Sandyford had never won a cup in it's first 23 years. I was looking forward to the sequel this year now that we have 2 cups under the belt - but unfortunately he wasn't able to make it. Apparently being on the wrong continent is sufficient reason not to attend the club dinner ;-p I'm sure he was as disappointed as the rest of us, it being the first one he's missed.
After the dinner the awards for the season were presented. I was looking forward to picking up my Duck Cup - and my impatience was obviously showing, as it was the first award of the evening.
Duck Cup!
As you can see in the picture - it's LITERALLY a Duck Cup :D I picked it up amid mild heckling (Good-natured of course), and had just sat down before I was called up again! This time for 4th team player of the year! Yeah, I know - a real award! :D Despite averaging 1.25 for them with the bat, I'd also managed 23 wickets at 10 each, so that was pretty sweet!
To top it off, I was also given one of the league medals from the 2nds campaign - which I was completely blown away by! I didn't think I'd contributed enough to the Inter B campaign to deserve one of the medals, but sure, if the skipper thinks so who am I to argue :D I played with them 4 times, and was due to play another that were rained off. And there were another one or two games that I was down for but replaced late on - so I suppose, it's a medal for being dependable ::)
There's a ridiculous picture of me on the front page of our club site now too - behind a table-load of awards. They're not all mine, and I wasn't planning on stealing them - I swear!
After the dinner the awards for the season were presented. I was looking forward to picking up my Duck Cup - and my impatience was obviously showing, as it was the first award of the evening.
Duck Cup!As you can see in the picture - it's LITERALLY a Duck Cup :D I picked it up amid mild heckling (Good-natured of course), and had just sat down before I was called up again! This time for 4th team player of the year! Yeah, I know - a real award! :D Despite averaging 1.25 for them with the bat, I'd also managed 23 wickets at 10 each, so that was pretty sweet!
To top it off, I was also given one of the league medals from the 2nds campaign - which I was completely blown away by! I didn't think I'd contributed enough to the Inter B campaign to deserve one of the medals, but sure, if the skipper thinks so who am I to argue :D I played with them 4 times, and was due to play another that were rained off. And there were another one or two games that I was down for but replaced late on - so I suppose, it's a medal for being dependable ::)
There's a ridiculous picture of me on the front page of our club site now too - behind a table-load of awards. They're not all mine, and I wasn't planning on stealing them - I swear!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Specialist Tryer
Had indoor on Thursday with work - quite sedate in comparison with the Friday evening version, but still good. There's no running involved during the batting - so scoring is controlled by hitting the walls or getting the ball past lines on the floor. For the most part it's good to practice hitting gaps - but I have nowhere near that level of control for the most part. Still, managed to put on about 4 an over, which is OK with me. The winning player was going at 14 an over, so no hope of competing with that! And I didn't get out for a change :)
I bowled well though, probably got hit for the least runs and took the most wickets. At one stage I was on a hat-trick - but as has happened every time I've been on a hat-trick - I bowled a wide :( Fielded pretty well off my own bowling too, saving a few runs. But I did let a chance past me. To be fair, it was past me before I realised it was a chance - but some days those chances stick.
I saw something on a forum earlier about all-rounders that made me think. Technically an all-rounder is someone who could be picked in the team based entirely on either batting or bowling. In club cricket there are plenty of these guys. They're the ones that open the bowling and the batting every week and pretty much single-handedly win the game. But there are plenty of others that consider themselves all-rounders - because they are equally mediocre at both batting and bowling. Which isn't what the tag represents at all! I don't really know what you'd call these players. A "specialist tryer" perhaps :)
It also got me thinking about all-rounders in international cricket. It's fairly undeniable (I'm open to argument on this) at this stage that the standard of world cricket has improved a lot in the past number of years/decades (as it has in all sports really, records are constantly being broken). The expected standard of batting and bowling is way above what it once was - so does this mean that there are less genuine all-rounders these days? And instead is there more pressure for all players to be at least capable in their non-chosen skill. Almost every batsman these days bowls a bit of part-time spin. And it seems to almost be a droppable offence for a bowler to be unable to hold up an end.
Anyway, just something I've been thinking about. The only thing I know about all-rounders is that I'm unlikely to be one any time soon :D
I bowled well though, probably got hit for the least runs and took the most wickets. At one stage I was on a hat-trick - but as has happened every time I've been on a hat-trick - I bowled a wide :( Fielded pretty well off my own bowling too, saving a few runs. But I did let a chance past me. To be fair, it was past me before I realised it was a chance - but some days those chances stick.
I saw something on a forum earlier about all-rounders that made me think. Technically an all-rounder is someone who could be picked in the team based entirely on either batting or bowling. In club cricket there are plenty of these guys. They're the ones that open the bowling and the batting every week and pretty much single-handedly win the game. But there are plenty of others that consider themselves all-rounders - because they are equally mediocre at both batting and bowling. Which isn't what the tag represents at all! I don't really know what you'd call these players. A "specialist tryer" perhaps :)
It also got me thinking about all-rounders in international cricket. It's fairly undeniable (I'm open to argument on this) at this stage that the standard of world cricket has improved a lot in the past number of years/decades (as it has in all sports really, records are constantly being broken). The expected standard of batting and bowling is way above what it once was - so does this mean that there are less genuine all-rounders these days? And instead is there more pressure for all players to be at least capable in their non-chosen skill. Almost every batsman these days bowls a bit of part-time spin. And it seems to almost be a droppable offence for a bowler to be unable to hold up an end.
Anyway, just something I've been thinking about. The only thing I know about all-rounders is that I'm unlikely to be one any time soon :D
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Quick Update
Not much going on these days really cricketwise! I'd another indoor session last Friday (missed Thursday - work too busy). Went really well, I took 5 or 6 catches and effected a few run-outs - but I suppose the hectic nature of the game means that it throws up a ridiculous amount of chances. I've also managed to get in a couple of practices with a stump and tennis ball. I'm thinking that the indoor batting has improved my reflexes. It certainly feels like I have more time to get in line with the ball in the past few weeks, which is nice!
We've our end of season dinner coming up next Friday, which I'm looking forward to. Will be nice to see the guys from the club again. And of course I've got to pick up my Duck Cup :D. And then the following week I'm starting the level 1 coaching course. One of the other guys from the club has signed up for it now too, so if all else fails at least I'll have someone to talk to :-) He's taken on the captaincy of the 4ths next year, so I reckon I'll be playing for him a good bit. Should be beneficial that both of us have the basics covered ;-)
We've our end of season dinner coming up next Friday, which I'm looking forward to. Will be nice to see the guys from the club again. And of course I've got to pick up my Duck Cup :D. And then the following week I'm starting the level 1 coaching course. One of the other guys from the club has signed up for it now too, so if all else fails at least I'll have someone to talk to :-) He's taken on the captaincy of the 4ths next year, so I reckon I'll be playing for him a good bit. Should be beneficial that both of us have the basics covered ;-)
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