The more I practice the luckier I get

There is a poll this week on our club website - www.sandyfordcc.org - to see who people think will win the infamous Duck Cup this year, and aside from the novelty choice I am runaway favourite!! Not without good cause obviously, I only just missed out on picking this up last year, and I already have more ducks this year than I picked up in the entirity of last season :*(

I'm still working away at it though, and there are signs of improvement. I was hitting the ball cleanly towards the end of last nights session, and my defence has soared from "non-existent" to "streaky". The only bowler who really gave me trouble was the first-teamer who took 7 for 25 two weeks ago. He's got a great action, where he sort of jogs in and suddenly the ball is on your feet! He was also swinging the ball with a slingy action from outside leg onto middle stump.

I'd a fair few lucky edges, where I just got the bat in the way at the last moment and it squirted off to third man or fine leg. But the way I see it, a few weeks ago the bat wouldn't have been there for the edge to come into it. I remember hearing a quote from some golfer saying - "The more I practice the luckier I get" [Gary Player according to Yahoo answers]. Which is to say I'm taking the credit for my streaky shots - better than no shot at all.

When I was bowling then, I was getting fairly tonked for a while, until I decided to just have fun and try a few different things, most of which, surprisingly, worked quite well. I even threw in an off-cutter, which I've never done before, and it moved off the pitch and through the gate - just missing the stumps somehow! I also threw in a few of my slower yorkers, (which work a bit like the SLOB that Manee found on Mavericks Cricket, but with a different action).

With regard to the duck-cup situation, it doesn't bother me nearly so much as it would have last year. At least this year I have the excuse that I'm a bowler :p. After last weekend, I now have as many wickets to my name as I have runs :D. My fielding has been sharp this year too, with 5 catches and a run out in 7 games. They say you should be good at 2 out of the 3 disciplines of Batting, Bowling and Fielding - so I'm relatively covered...

No cricket this weekend, as I'm off to Wexford - the Sunny South-East as it's known here - for a weekend's drinking with my college friends ... in fact, looking back at the last few weekends you'd think I was a big drinker, when nothing could be less true - normally I'll not be drinking at all, or if I do it's usually very tame as I'm a complete lightweight. Still though, one of these weekends I'll have to make up my sleep quota.