Thursday's Double Dose

I was hoping the warm spell we were having here was going to continue for this weekend - but it's looking a bit grim out there at the moment. Met Eireann - the Irish weather service is forecasting it to be relatively warm (14-19 degrees) but a bit wet :( I reckon we'll still manage to knock a few games out of the weekend though, as long as it's not spilling we should be OK.

So yesterday I had another double dose of cricket, with a work related indoor game at lunchtime; and then outdoor training in the evening. The indoor game went fine - I'd only 1 wide and hit the stumps twice. These games are starting to get a bit competitive, now that we're all over the initial politeness you get when you first meet a group of people. There was a bit of an argument over one of the lads bowling bouncers - it was in Hindi though so I have no idea what the outcome was :?

My batting has improved after Tuesday's session, and I'm reasonably confident that I can keep out a straight ball this weekend. Obviously I need a load more practice, but hopefully I can stop being bowled by a slow straight nothing-ball. If I can make the bowler work for my wicket I'll be a lot happier.

Thursday evening then was outdoor training. We spent the first 30 minutes getting the pitch ready for this weekend by rolling the mat and marking the lines and stuff. Then a bit of a warmup and a game of stumpball saw us all ready for action. We'd a few drills to practice throwing down stumps and ground fielding before we went near the crease.

But then the rest of the session was a bit strange - I'm not sure why, there was just a funny feeling in the air. I think it was because we spent so long on the fielding drills , and it was clear that there wasn't enough time for everyone to have a bat, and on top of this - when the first guys were padded up we did a running drill that didn't involve hitting the ball for the first 10 minutes! Considering there were around 14 people there - it seemed to me that an ideal use of the time would be to have a little double wicket competition - 2 people batting; 2 people bowling from the same end; a keeper; and the rest in the field. Then give targets to the batsmen and bowlers and see what happens. As it was, nobody seemed overly engaged in the drill and it was frustrating getting bored in the field :<

At least my bowling was OK - the batsman tried to smack the first one I put down, but it hit the seam and he put it straight up into the air. It would have been an easy catch for me, but the keeper came out and called for it - and then didn't make it *grr*! To be fair though - the batsman shouldered him out of the way, so we might have had a shout for obstructing the field - though I don't know how that would go down in a club game with non-neutral umpires. I picked up another couple of wickets in any event, and nothing off me went to the boundary - so that ain't too bad.

I've managed to get a team together for this taverners game this evening, so as long as the weather holds up it's all systems go.