Proof that team building causes DOMS

So we had our second training session last Thursday evening. The format was very similar to the previous week, but we turned up 30 minutes earlier to get in the warm-up without eating into the time we had for the hall space.

The session itself went very well. My bowling was faster than last week and is consistently landing in the right area – which resulted in the stumps getting over a few times. Which was nice!

My batting also improved. I was trying to work on following the ball right out of the bowler’s hand. So I concentrated on that and didn’t try to whack the ball – just get forward and get the bat right behind it. This is one thing I’ve noticed a lot of people find hard to do in nets; they think – “Limited Time + Non-game situation = Hit everything as hard as possible”.

In the fielding section of the hall we set up a few games of a mini-indoor cricket. Teams of four, where everyone bowls off one step and every pair bats four overs. This wasn’t great from a fielding point of view though, as we were using a practice hockey ball – not ideal. The ball was the same weight as a cricket ball – but was made of rubber and so came off the bat too fast to have a hope of catching. It didn’t help that it was the same colour as the walls :S My legs are still covered in bruises from last gasp efforts to try and stop the bloody thing from pinging past me. I reckon we should use something different next week.

The only problem from the evening was that it resulted in my first case of DOMS in about a year. One of the guys decided that he was going to lead a warm-up and we were all going to follow him. To be fair it wasn’t too bad, but I’ve been using my own warm-up for a long time now and it’s never failed me yet. I suppose it didn’t help that I didn’t cool down properly after the session – as I had a very important night of drinking to attend :-D

This week no such amateur errors will be made! I’ll be turning up earlier and doing my own warm-up, then if he want’s us to get all pally again I’ll have no problems.