So, as I said previously - it's been a relatively quiet week cricket-wise. Tuesday nets were cancelled as our 1sts had a game - which was then rained off :( Luckily, I'd dragged myself off the couch on Monday evening and down to the pitch to do some bowling by myself so there was no loss in terms of practice time. This bowling went quite well - with at least one out of every 6 actually hitting the stumps. And as I got into it, I was bowling faster without losing accuracy - which was nice.
I did hit a bit of a wobble mid-session though, where I bowled one wide and then started to overthink - resulting in more wides X( But at that stage I just went back to basics and it came good again before the end. I really need to get my hands on a camcorder so I can see my action - it feels OK, but I'm probably doing loads of stuff that's slowing me down.
On Thursday, I'd a good long bat, and things are still on the up in that regard. At the start of the season, my problem was that I was playing back to everything - so I fixed that by going forward to everything (which is obviously a problem in itself). But last night was the first time that I was able to pick some of the balls to go forward or back to. And at the moment, I have 5 shots that I'm reasonably happy playing - in that I can sometimes play them without having to think about it or premeditate it. The two I've always been fairly happy about are the cover drive and the late cut - which obviously leaves a bit of a gap for the straight ball or anything down leg! I could also manage a sweep - but only against spinners, and only if the ball was overpitched or really short.
Now, however, I've picked up the forward defensive - and somewhere along the way the leg glance snuck in there. I think it's because after learning the defensive stroke, I play the ball better with a straight bat - and the leg glance is basically just that with a twist of the wrists. And as I've said before - now that I'm less likely to get bowled by a nothing ball I'm more confident with the other shots. I'm still not at the stage where I can pick gaps, or even hit it to the boundary (though with shortish boundaries and a good outfield you never know) - but it's progress.
Quick update on the bowling machine - I've hit a bit of a roadblock in that I have the mechanical element sorted, but still haven't got wheels. To be fair I haven't really looked all that hard. It's a bank holiday here again this weekend, so hopefully I'll get a chance to go to a few hardware stores or something to see if I can find anything suitable.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, May 19, 2008
On a Minefield
Another double-header weekend for me ... with a 4ths game on Saturday and a 3rds away (faaar away) game on Sunday. I also had a hectic bit of socialising to do around this, so as you can imagine I'm a wee bit knackered today :)
Anyway, on Saturday we won the toss and batted first (which is the standard response of course) and were all out in the penultimate over for 131 (40 over game). Again, this isn't generally a sufficient total in 40 overs, but we have some good bowlers this year and I for one had faith ;)
For my own batting - another duck :( but at least it was a new mode of dismissal with a caught behind rather than bowled. I was facing a spinner with a wierd action, and playing at balls well outside the off stump. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that he wasn't turning the bloody thing at all and I could have been leaving them all - or whacking them. Ah well, live and learn.
For their innings I was fielding at backward square leg and gully and pulled off some good stops, one of which led to us running out their opener who was going well. After that we got wickets fairly regularly to keep the game under control. I came on just before drinks and took a wicket with my first ball :D Again, it did nothing - just straight at the stumps on a length. The batsman just played way too early and tried to slog it because it was so slow :)
I got to bowl my 10 overs straight through which was a first for me, ending up with 10-2-26-3 (O-M-R-W). I had a chance for another few, with a good LBW turned down; a tough C+B that I just got a fingertip to; a catch from the number 11 put down and a slower (than usual) ball getting through and just over off stump. Another good thing was that I was seaming the ball into the stumps regularly - meaning that they couldn't afford to leave anything close outside off. As my pace picks up I think this will give me a chance of slip catches.
So we won well, bowling them out for 87. Obviously I was well happy with my 3 wickets and a good economy.
On Sunday then, we had a game about 80km away from home - which meant getting up early(ish) after being out fairly late the night before. As it turned out, the captain had over-estimated the traffic, and we were there an hour early :(
As the game went, I didn't get to bat or bowl - but I didn't mind too much as I was fielding in the covers and so was involved in the game a lot more than last week. We were fielding first having lost the toss - and the game seemed to be getting out of our grasp a few times with them having a few big hitters sticking at the crease and whacking boundaries through the leg side. To be fair, our bowlers put too many on leg - which gave them the freedom to do this. But in the end, we managed to restrict them to just 139 in the 40 overs. I was happy with my fielding again, with one catch and numerous stops - which were made difficult by the state of the outfield which was literally a rugby pitch :o One of our guys was fielding on the boundary behind square leg and on two occasions misjuged a ball that passed him for 4. One of these was all along the ground - so he got into a textbook long barrier - only for the ball to suddenly jump about a metre in the air, right over his head and out for 4!! It looked like it had hit a landmine or something!
We knocked off the runs for the loss of 2 wickets - with one of our openers getting his 53 not out in the last over. We're a club that normally chase totals badly - so it made a nice change to get this so easily. Although their bowling was pretty bad, with ~30 extras and far too much slow bowling that just sat up outside off waiting to be hit. It says a lot that both their wickets were caught in the deep.
So a good weekend for our 3rd and 4th teams, but unfortunately both our 1sts and 2nds were beaten in their games.
Anyway, on Saturday we won the toss and batted first (which is the standard response of course) and were all out in the penultimate over for 131 (40 over game). Again, this isn't generally a sufficient total in 40 overs, but we have some good bowlers this year and I for one had faith ;)
For my own batting - another duck :( but at least it was a new mode of dismissal with a caught behind rather than bowled. I was facing a spinner with a wierd action, and playing at balls well outside the off stump. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that he wasn't turning the bloody thing at all and I could have been leaving them all - or whacking them. Ah well, live and learn.
For their innings I was fielding at backward square leg and gully and pulled off some good stops, one of which led to us running out their opener who was going well. After that we got wickets fairly regularly to keep the game under control. I came on just before drinks and took a wicket with my first ball :D Again, it did nothing - just straight at the stumps on a length. The batsman just played way too early and tried to slog it because it was so slow :)
I got to bowl my 10 overs straight through which was a first for me, ending up with 10-2-26-3 (O-M-R-W). I had a chance for another few, with a good LBW turned down; a tough C+B that I just got a fingertip to; a catch from the number 11 put down and a slower (than usual) ball getting through and just over off stump. Another good thing was that I was seaming the ball into the stumps regularly - meaning that they couldn't afford to leave anything close outside off. As my pace picks up I think this will give me a chance of slip catches.
So we won well, bowling them out for 87. Obviously I was well happy with my 3 wickets and a good economy.
On Sunday then, we had a game about 80km away from home - which meant getting up early(ish) after being out fairly late the night before. As it turned out, the captain had over-estimated the traffic, and we were there an hour early :(
As the game went, I didn't get to bat or bowl - but I didn't mind too much as I was fielding in the covers and so was involved in the game a lot more than last week. We were fielding first having lost the toss - and the game seemed to be getting out of our grasp a few times with them having a few big hitters sticking at the crease and whacking boundaries through the leg side. To be fair, our bowlers put too many on leg - which gave them the freedom to do this. But in the end, we managed to restrict them to just 139 in the 40 overs. I was happy with my fielding again, with one catch and numerous stops - which were made difficult by the state of the outfield which was literally a rugby pitch :o One of our guys was fielding on the boundary behind square leg and on two occasions misjuged a ball that passed him for 4. One of these was all along the ground - so he got into a textbook long barrier - only for the ball to suddenly jump about a metre in the air, right over his head and out for 4!! It looked like it had hit a landmine or something!
We knocked off the runs for the loss of 2 wickets - with one of our openers getting his 53 not out in the last over. We're a club that normally chase totals badly - so it made a nice change to get this so easily. Although their bowling was pretty bad, with ~30 extras and far too much slow bowling that just sat up outside off waiting to be hit. It says a lot that both their wickets were caught in the deep.
So a good weekend for our 3rd and 4th teams, but unfortunately both our 1sts and 2nds were beaten in their games.
Friday, May 16, 2008
A good workman always blames his tools
A week of lows and highs so far cricketwise! Tuesdays nets didn't go particularly well, and again we'd a shortage of players, so there was a fair bit of running during the fielding drills. But early on I was just knackered! I'm not too bad with burst activity usually, I've done some work to try and improve my recovery time during the winter and that has helped - so I was able to get my breath back quick enough. But the problem was, my legs just felt too heavy for the whole session! When I was bowling it was all far too slow and the batsmen were cracking it away to all corners for fun.
On the plus side though, my batting really has improved hugely in the last few weeks. Now that I'm confident enough that I'm likely to keep out the straight one I feel that I can afford to go after a ball that's off the stumps. I'd a few nice drives and an intentional late cut past slip :) I'm still not likely to be getting my first century any time soon - but if I can beat my previous best of 4 this weekend I'll be happy. Hell, if I can get 1 run with a shot I was trying to play it'll be an improvement!!
After the session I had a bit of a think about why I was so tired so quickly. Partially, it was because I didn't get my full quota of sleep at the weekend due to highly important drinking commitments, and I was still playing catch-up. But mostly it was because I hadn't eaten well that day. Due to the time training is at, I don't usually have a chance to have dinner between work and nets - so the only meal I'd had during the day was at 12.30.
So Thursday, I made sure I had an extra sandwich to eat after work - and it made a huge amount of difference!! I was much livelier during the session, and both my batting and bowling were better for it!
As I've mentioned before, my bowling isn't spectacular in that I don't get the ball to do much. Occasionally it seams, and sometimes it swings a bit - but for the most part it's just straight down the line slow line-and-length stuff. It's surprisingly effective against batsmen that aren't 100% concentrating, as they have to put more work into timing the ball to get it to go anywhere. Initially, one of the batsmen was coming after me and having some success at hitting over the field - but then he mistimed one that fell just short of mid-off - and suddenly the cat was among the pigeons. He was unsettled and got caught the next ball, followed by getting run out the ball after. For the rest of my spell I think there was only 1 run off the bat (the rest being byes), and I picked up another few wickets, and we ran them out another few times. It's funny how simple consistent bowling can create enough pressure to make people do silly things ::)
My batting was good again too - although (no offense to the guys) the bowling wasn't up to much. One of the bowlers was unable to put one down straight, and the other was putting them outside leg and slower than mine :o - so I felt comfortable enough sweeping a few, and even played my first leg-glance (a la the Bob Woolmer video). When I was coming off the club captain asked me "Is that a new bat Ed?" (I've had it since August) - so I must have made a good impression on the onlookers :) It's funny how people assume that new equipment must be responsible for a jump in form :D
I'm currently lined up for two games this weekend, so we'll see if this run of relatively good form carries onto the pitch - fingers crossed...
On the plus side though, my batting really has improved hugely in the last few weeks. Now that I'm confident enough that I'm likely to keep out the straight one I feel that I can afford to go after a ball that's off the stumps. I'd a few nice drives and an intentional late cut past slip :) I'm still not likely to be getting my first century any time soon - but if I can beat my previous best of 4 this weekend I'll be happy. Hell, if I can get 1 run with a shot I was trying to play it'll be an improvement!!
After the session I had a bit of a think about why I was so tired so quickly. Partially, it was because I didn't get my full quota of sleep at the weekend due to highly important drinking commitments, and I was still playing catch-up. But mostly it was because I hadn't eaten well that day. Due to the time training is at, I don't usually have a chance to have dinner between work and nets - so the only meal I'd had during the day was at 12.30.
So Thursday, I made sure I had an extra sandwich to eat after work - and it made a huge amount of difference!! I was much livelier during the session, and both my batting and bowling were better for it!
As I've mentioned before, my bowling isn't spectacular in that I don't get the ball to do much. Occasionally it seams, and sometimes it swings a bit - but for the most part it's just straight down the line slow line-and-length stuff. It's surprisingly effective against batsmen that aren't 100% concentrating, as they have to put more work into timing the ball to get it to go anywhere. Initially, one of the batsmen was coming after me and having some success at hitting over the field - but then he mistimed one that fell just short of mid-off - and suddenly the cat was among the pigeons. He was unsettled and got caught the next ball, followed by getting run out the ball after. For the rest of my spell I think there was only 1 run off the bat (the rest being byes), and I picked up another few wickets, and we ran them out another few times. It's funny how simple consistent bowling can create enough pressure to make people do silly things ::)
My batting was good again too - although (no offense to the guys) the bowling wasn't up to much. One of the bowlers was unable to put one down straight, and the other was putting them outside leg and slower than mine :o - so I felt comfortable enough sweeping a few, and even played my first leg-glance (a la the Bob Woolmer video). When I was coming off the club captain asked me "Is that a new bat Ed?" (I've had it since August) - so I must have made a good impression on the onlookers :) It's funny how people assume that new equipment must be responsible for a jump in form :D
I'm currently lined up for two games this weekend, so we'll see if this run of relatively good form carries onto the pitch - fingers crossed...
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Ringers all round
A bit of a stressful match to end a frustrating week in cricket!! Tuesday's and Thursday's nets went OK but they were lacking something. Then Friday night we had our Taverners match, which was OK - but it felt a bit stage managed to make sure it was close. I bowled OK - but I felt the whole time that I couldn't bowl on the stumps - so my head just wasn't in it, and there was no excitment about winning the match.
And then on Saturday we had a 4ths match away to North Kildare. I wasn't in the best form in the morning, and my mood wasn't improved by finding out I'd forgotten to close the sunroof of the car Friday night and it had spilled rain overnight :<
So anyway, I was looking forward to a fun day's cricket to shake me out of a slump. We didn't know what to expect from the team we were facing - but I was a little bit worried by the fact that I recognised a good number of them from a game our 1st team played there last season - what were they doing here in a game about 7 divisions below that one?? To be fair though, we'd a stronger side than normal too, with a couple of guys that usually play for the 2nds turning out for us.
We lost the toss and for some reason they put us in to bat!? We didn't do too bad, certainly better than last week, scoring something in the region if 130. I wasn't at all sure that it would do - but it did give us something to defend. My own performance with the bat was a major improvement over recent games, I still only scored the one run, but I faced 10 deliveries and was able to keep the straight ones off the stumps. Normally the first straight one is enough to do for me, whether I try to defend it or not! So it was a major boost to have my forward defensive shot actually working (to some degree). The ball that got me was a straight one that I thought was going to miss leg stump - so I played across it, missed it completely, and it clipped leg. But at least I was out because I played the wrong shot rather than because I wasn't able to play the right shot!
Second innings then, we opened with two of our "Ringers" who didn't have much success and were getting hit for runs way too regularly. However, the captain seemed dead set against changing anything. There were 4s being hit stright down the ground at least once per over and he didn't move mid off or mid on. Eventually one of the bowlers found his line and instigated a mini collapse with 3 wickets coming in an over (C+B, run out and bowled).
A few overs later then the captain brought on the first change bowlers - who are usually our openers. They bowled without success for a while - with the batsmen never looking in danger and plenty of runs still going straight down the ground. At this stage I was dying for an over or two, I was fielding at fine leg and point and had very little to do ... all in all I only fielded about 10 balls with a few good stops at point and a successful chase to the boundary to save 4 - so it was frustrating to watch the game leaking away and not being in a position to do anything about it!!
At drinks I overheard the vice captain suggesting a bowling change, but the captain still seemed set against it - opting to continue with the conservative approach he'd followed up to that point. At this stage the game was finely balanced with the score on 80 for 5. There were too many overs left, so bowling them out was the only option. Eventually with the score on ~100 for 6 the captain was convinced to try a fifth bowler, but unfortunately he didn't make the breakthrough in his 4 overs (came close to LBW quite a few times but no luck) and so back came our openers!
First ball, bowled! So 15 runs to spare with 3 wickets to take, it was all getting a bit tense. Our (ringer) bowler was by far the fastest in the game, but not all that accurate. They were able to work singles easily enough by just putting the bat in the way and letting the pace of the ball get it past the field. Another wicket for our pace man made it 11 to win with 2 wickets left. Then our other opener struck with a ball that was hit a mile into the air over the bowlers head and was very well taken after a sprint by mid-on towards the boundary. Three balls later I had a fine view from fine leg of their number 11 playing all around a ball and getting bowled!!! Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!!
Obviously I'm glad we won, but I think we could have made it a lot easier on ourselves. A few more attacking fielding changes and a more frequent rotation of the bowling could have seen them out for less, as they were allowed to get far too comfortable due to a field that was defensive from the off. And we were bowling heavy so the skipper had plenty of options that he didn't use. Personally I was disappointed not to get a chance to bowl at them, having come off the back of two games where I finished with the best bowling figures. I don't know if my bowling would have had any impact - but it would have been nice to have a go. I'm sure the other unused bowlers would echo the sentiment.
Not to worry, there's always next week :)
A few overs later then the captain brought on the first change bowlers - who are usually our openers. They bowled without success for a while - with the batsmen never looking in danger and plenty of runs still going straight down the ground. At this stage I was dying for an over or two, I was fielding at fine leg and point and had very little to do ... all in all I only fielded about 10 balls with a few good stops at point and a successful chase to the boundary to save 4 - so it was frustrating to watch the game leaking away and not being in a position to do anything about it!!
At drinks I overheard the vice captain suggesting a bowling change, but the captain still seemed set against it - opting to continue with the conservative approach he'd followed up to that point. At this stage the game was finely balanced with the score on 80 for 5. There were too many overs left, so bowling them out was the only option. Eventually with the score on ~100 for 6 the captain was convinced to try a fifth bowler, but unfortunately he didn't make the breakthrough in his 4 overs (came close to LBW quite a few times but no luck) and so back came our openers!
First ball, bowled! So 15 runs to spare with 3 wickets to take, it was all getting a bit tense. Our (ringer) bowler was by far the fastest in the game, but not all that accurate. They were able to work singles easily enough by just putting the bat in the way and letting the pace of the ball get it past the field. Another wicket for our pace man made it 11 to win with 2 wickets left. Then our other opener struck with a ball that was hit a mile into the air over the bowlers head and was very well taken after a sprint by mid-on towards the boundary. Three balls later I had a fine view from fine leg of their number 11 playing all around a ball and getting bowled!!! Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!!
Obviously I'm glad we won, but I think we could have made it a lot easier on ourselves. A few more attacking fielding changes and a more frequent rotation of the bowling could have seen them out for less, as they were allowed to get far too comfortable due to a field that was defensive from the off. And we were bowling heavy so the skipper had plenty of options that he didn't use. Personally I was disappointed not to get a chance to bowl at them, having come off the back of two games where I finished with the best bowling figures. I don't know if my bowling would have had any impact - but it would have been nice to have a go. I'm sure the other unused bowlers would echo the sentiment.
Not to worry, there's always next week :)
Friday, May 9, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Repetitive Runs and Random Rants
A (relatively) quick training update ... We had our usual outdoor net session last night - what with it being tuesday and all. Myself and Stephen were there relatively early - so we decided that after the weekend's collapse we'd start doing throwdowns straight at the stumps and just work on keeping the bloody thing out!!!
I have two woeful habits of a) not moving my feet and b) not leaning into the shot enough - among plenty of other things I'm not doing right I'm sure ::) These two major errors conspire to make sure that a) I'm not in line with the ball and b) There's a clear foot of room under the bat for me to get bowled through :(
So after working on this for a while I was happier that I'm improving a little bit, which is better than nothing. To be fair - I'm not bad at putting a ball away if it's outside off-stump - so if I can learn to keep the stright ones out it leaves the door open for my average to get into the realm of natural numbers again.
After that we did some running drills - and it reminded me why I don't partake in endurance sports! Basically the game was for the coach to hit the ball out towards the fielders - then the batsmen have to judge whether a run is on and employ proper calling etc to take it before the ball comes back to the keeper. This was straightforward for the first few - good communication between myself and the other man - but the problem was, as soon as the run was finished, he was hitting the ball out again! So we ended up just sprinting from wicket to wicket over and over - which was crap! I couldn't breathe after about 15 runs - which isn't conducive to good calling and so defeats the purpose somewhat! I reckon the drill would work slightly better if there were two pairs of batsmen so that there could be a bit of recovery time in between runs.
I've spent a while today trying to get players together for a taverners game this Friday - why does nobody answer bloody texts!!! And while I'm having a Random Rant (tm) I realised at lunch today that people who put salt on their food without tasting it really bug me. How can you possibly know that the food you're eating needs salt if you haven't tasted it!!! I saw this behaviour being referred to before as auto-condimenting :) - can't remember where I heard that but I like it.
I have two woeful habits of a) not moving my feet and b) not leaning into the shot enough - among plenty of other things I'm not doing right I'm sure ::) These two major errors conspire to make sure that a) I'm not in line with the ball and b) There's a clear foot of room under the bat for me to get bowled through :(
So after working on this for a while I was happier that I'm improving a little bit, which is better than nothing. To be fair - I'm not bad at putting a ball away if it's outside off-stump - so if I can learn to keep the stright ones out it leaves the door open for my average to get into the realm of natural numbers again.
After that we did some running drills - and it reminded me why I don't partake in endurance sports! Basically the game was for the coach to hit the ball out towards the fielders - then the batsmen have to judge whether a run is on and employ proper calling etc to take it before the ball comes back to the keeper. This was straightforward for the first few - good communication between myself and the other man - but the problem was, as soon as the run was finished, he was hitting the ball out again! So we ended up just sprinting from wicket to wicket over and over - which was crap! I couldn't breathe after about 15 runs - which isn't conducive to good calling and so defeats the purpose somewhat! I reckon the drill would work slightly better if there were two pairs of batsmen so that there could be a bit of recovery time in between runs.
I've spent a while today trying to get players together for a taverners game this Friday - why does nobody answer bloody texts!!! And while I'm having a Random Rant (tm) I realised at lunch today that people who put salt on their food without tasting it really bug me. How can you possibly know that the food you're eating needs salt if you haven't tasted it!!! I saw this behaviour being referred to before as auto-condimenting :) - can't remember where I heard that but I like it.
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