(York)Shire it anyway!

Despite their severe hangovers, the 12 visiting Yorkshiremen beat us soundly

It was a fun game though, especially since it was played in what was most likely the last drop of sun we're likely to see all year. We had a 36 over, 12 on 12 match, where everyone bowled 3 overs, and batsmen retired on 50. We also decided to bowl out the overs regardless of how many wickets fell, so that anyone who got out cheaply could have another go. Which is good ... knowing how crap it feels to drive down the country for an hour or two and then get out first ball - imagine what it's like flying to a different country and having it happen to you!

They had two batsmen in particular that took the game away from us, both of whom made 50s at a good strike rate. One of them drove a ball from me straight down the ground for 4, and next ball picked up my "sly" attempt at a slower ball - and cracked it back over my head for 6!!! B*****d

My first over only went for about 2 runs, and not a single ball of it was off line. 2nd over he took the attack to me with a couple of big shots in a row as above and it went for about 14 with a couple of wides and a no-ball . I managed to get things back under control a bit in the third over, to finish up with 22 runs off me overall - but no wickets

I didn't finish up with the most expensive spell though surprisingly. It turned out that the two lads were just getting warmed up with me, and really let loose after I came off - hitting one of our lads for 37 and another for 41!! Luckily they both got their 50s and were off - so some normality was restored.

They set us a target of about 180 (5 an over) which looks reasonable on paper, but we never really had the strength in the side to take that on. We got off to a decent start but soon enough there was a collapse and some spirited batting in the tail couldn't compensate.

For my own innings, I got about 6 runs more that normal - that's right, 6 runs! The biggest surprise of all though was that 4 of those runs came off one of the first balls I faced! It was a a slow long hop outside leg, and without thinking about it I managed to go down on one knee and sweep it away to the boundary in front of square leg. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that that was the first 4 I'd ever hit.

And I don't just mean in matches ... I mean ever! I can literally not think of a single other time - even in training - that I managed to hit a ball well enough for it to go. I'm normally too tensed up over protecting my wicket to attack a ball - but I guess the relaxed nature of the game let me do it. I was feeling pretty confident after it, and played a few other decent shots, picking up two singles - one driven well down the ground and under the bowler, and the other chipped over midwicket. A couple of other balls were struck OK too, but went too close to fielders.

All too soon though it all went to pot. I played across a ball that I thought was going down leg and it smacked into middle. To me it looked like it swung, but I asked the umpire afterwards and he said it didn't. I'm thinking it's some kind of mental block I have with a ball that comes in at a certain angle straight at me. Maybe I'm falling over it and it looks like it's moving away - but it's a ball that keeps bowling me. I'll have to have a think about it and start playing it with a straight bat next year.

For this year - all that is left to do is give my bat it's end of season makeover; pick up my Duck Cup at the club dinner; and start planning for next year. I'm going to wait a few weeks before making any sort of training plan, just to give my head a rest. I'm signing up for the level 1 coaching course in November - so it might make sense to coincide the start of my winter training with that. In the meantime I'll just rest up, and if the mood takes me, knock a tennis ball around at home.

New shoes!

So I have a game lined up this weekend!

I swear - this is the last one.

There are 12 lads coming over from Yorkshire (the county, not the club), so we've lined up a 12 on 12, 35 over match for Saturday. I played them last year too, and they seemed a nice bunch of lads, so it should be a good game. My resounding memory from last years game was being the hat-trick wicket for one of them :( Might get revenge this year >:D

I also have a new pair of spikes that I'm looking forward to trying out. Up until now I was using a pair of GM Catalyst rubber soled spikes, like these:
In the last month or two they've really started falling apart. The tongue on the right shoe is completely detached now, so the laces are all that are keeping it in place. And the lining on the sole inside is worn through in patches.
But yesterday I was off work, and was in town early enough to get into the shops for a change, so I picked up a new set with removable spikes in the end of season sale:
I bought a set of moulded spikes to screw into them too - but when I got them home I found out that there was a set provided with them :< Ah well, at least I'll have spares.

I had them on for a while yesterday evening, and they seem comfortable. Obviously the acid test will be bowling or fielding in them - so I'm looking forward to giving them a run-out tomorrow before I have to pack them away for the winter (more or less).

I also went into the garden at home for a bit of a practice - bouncing a tennis ball off the wall and playing it with a stump. The biggest problem I was having with this is that the ball was so bouncy that it forces you to play on the back foot a lot. Definitely after last winter I was so used to this that I played everything on the back foot at nets - which resulted in my being bowled a lot under the bat. I've tried a few things to get around this before - like taping up the ball; puncturing it and filling it with rice; using a hockey ball .... all with varying degrees of success.

But what I tried yesterday seems to be a simple solution that works quite well. Basically all I'm doing is pegging the ball at the bottom of the wall. 9 times out of 10 it comes skidding back low - which is generally how the wickets play here. It is usually bouncing more than once - but at least it gives me a viable way to practice a forward defensive. And it's something else to keep me occupied for the off-season.

Why do I do this?

AGM went well last night, the position of secretary is secured and no power-tools were needed :) There was a fairly poor turnout really, but it was still more than last year, so not too bad. There was a lot of talk of improving the facilities at our ground before next season, by putting a proper base under the mat and building concrete net bays - and a sum of money was set aside for this purpose.

It would be nice to have the net bays definitely. There have been plenty of times in the past two years where there's been a very low turnout at practice and too much of our time and energy has been spent running to collect the ball from all corners of the ground rather than focusing on the task at hand. Nets should go some way towards helping with that. I know practice games on the actual square have plenty of benefits too - from the point of view of developing awareness of the field and being able to set up realistic practice scenarios.

I was also accosted by a member of the club that had found his way on here and read some of this! He was disappointed that I hadn't mentioned his heroic 40 not out (carried his bat) in the 2nd game of the season. I've mentioned it a couple of times since then though, especially late in the season when it became apparent that our biggest issue in the 4ths was failing to use our overs. Definitely the only times we've posted a really decent score (anything over 100 at this level), it's been because one or two of the top order hung around around to get a hard fought 40 or 50. Then with the stability at that end a few others managed to chip in with 10s or 20s.

Anyway I explained to him the purpose of these blogs on sC (or BC now I suppose :D ). You never know, if he reads a couple of the other ones over there he might start his own next season :D I know personally I feel like it's helped me a lot. If nothing else, writing this stuff down in a way that has to be mildly comprehensible to others forces you to acknowledge what you're doing wrong - and what you're doing right. And it helps every now and then to skim through what's happened this year to try and spot patterns etc. And on top of this, comments from other people on sC helped to straighten out a few issues and put things in perspective. I may not be international standard (yet :p) but I'm a hell of a lot better that I was last year and at the start of this season, hopefully with some good work in the off season the trend will continue.

Addendum

As an addendum to the last post I've uploaded the pictures for the day (or at least the part of it that our president (pic below) was there)

el Presidenté

This chap was my batting partner for the day. As you can see he generally looks like he knows what he's doing a bit more than me. So unsurprisingly he got most of the runs.

Middle - BOG for the day

I've mentioned Stephen before - he only started playing this year and got a two wickets in his first game for us. He won the cup and was BOG for some very good bowling - some great batting - and a cool head in the field. When he was bowling to me I couldn't get him away for a single that would have got our batsman on strike. And then when he was batting he attacked at the right time (hit two 4s on long grass), and defended at the right time (blocked an over when they had a 5 run lead). Best of all was the run-out on the last ball that won the cup. The batsmen needed 3 to win (a tie would have still lost them the game). They ran the two quickly and turned for the 3rd as the ball was coming back in - Stephen picked it up and instead of throwing down the stumps, scrambled and dived into them to secure the win by about a foot!

As for myself - there's the Good(ish):

Leaving one down leg - got a few wides for that
The first on-drive I've managed to hit well
Backing up on the last ball of the over to secure a drop-and-run single

The Bad:

Completely missing one that I tried to hoist over midwicket - very lucky not to get bowled
A wideish ball that I played through cover. The result is OK, but the shot ain't so hot. Not a big enough step forward - and hitting the ball too far in front of myself.

And the Ugly:

I think I was trying to guide it into the gap at cover - but then realised it was too straight. Hence the most awkward and useless forward defensive ever!! (Somehow worked though)

Double-D Cups

The Double-D Cup competition is over and the title has been snatched from my grasp

The Double-D Cup

Basically we had our annual end-of-season double-wicket comp last Saturday, on what was the hottest day I've ever seen of a September. With the weather being so good I was expecting a big turnout, but surprisingly, only 12 actually made it!

Undaunted, we soldiered on with 6 teams of 2. While each pair were batting we all fielded and one of the other teams (chosen at random) bowled at them. Each pair batted 4 overs, and bowled 4 overs and their final score was runs scored - runs conceded. A wicket was -5 too.

It's not a particularly serious competition either, as it was being run in tandem with a BBQ and a few beers - and there was some fundraising going on in the form of "fines". These were handed out for all manner of infractions like "Impersonating a fielder" (for diving over a ball), "having a shoe fetish" (changing spikes numerous times), "Being afraid of a bra" (see pic above), among numerous other offenses. I was fined a few quid for dropping 4 catches! - and then fined again for having the nerve to take two later on!

Our president was there for about 20 minutes with his camera and timed it perfectly to coincide with my batting There are some dodgy looking shots among the pics, but I'm reasonably happy with how some of them look. This one particularly, as it's very rare that I get a ball to go on the on-side. You can also see how bloody long the grass was!

God knows what kinda shot this is

Incidentally, I didn't get a run for this as my partner didn't realise that the cameraman wasn't fielding!!

Later in the week I might stick up a few of the other pics so I can see where I'm going wrong.

AGM tonight, it looks like I'm running uncontested for Secretary - so I'll be busy for the next year!

Hindsight (not much 20-20 though)

I think it's about time I did my end-of-season review :( A word of warning, it's very numbery (yes, it's a word) and not all that interesting, especially if you've been following this season log generally, but I think it might be useful for a comparison at the end of next season.

I'd said at the start of the season that my aim this year was going to be to learn how to play, and that any wickets, catches and runs would be a bonus. On the whole I think I've managed that, as in I'm a better cricketer now than I was then. There's still a long way to go, to be sure, but it's not a bad start. So ...

Games:
23 of them in all, split up as: 12 for the 4ths; 6 for the 3rds; 4 for the 2nds; and 1 for the 1sts. 23 games in 22 weeks ain't bad I suppose, although surprisingly one of the lads managed 25 games! (He also has the most overs, the most wickets, the best bowling figures and the most maidens). I'd prefer if there were a few more 3rds games there, at the very least it would make more sense - 2nds should be stealing from the 3rds and 3rds from the 4ths .... but there were a few occasions that 2nds stole from 4ths?

Batting:
11 runs in total at an average of 1.00 and a strike rate of 13.56. This isn't as bad as I thought it would be considering I managed 6 ducks (2 of them golden), but the 5 not-outs seems to have counterbalanced this a bit. What can I say, I'm a true number 11. Believe it or not, this is better than last year, and I've increased my top score from 4 to 6 :D

Bowling:
Pretty happy with this overall. Picked up 26 wickets at an average of 11.76 and a SR of 17. The economy is the wrong side of 4 though (4.14) which would explain why I got so few overs (relative to the number of games played - 30% of the amount I could have bowled). And 62 of the 74 overs were for the 4th team (resulting in 23 of the wickets). Bizarrely I bowled twice as many overs for the 2nds as I did for the 3rds :? But then again, the 3rds had a very strong bowling line-up ... and the 2nds skipper was very much a "give everyone a go" type chap.

Fielding:
Again, happy with this. I was in the running for the catches cup for most of the season, and ended up taking 11 catches overall. The fact that I have as many runs as I do catches was the source of some merriment in the club; imagine what it was like before I scored the 6 runs! Last year, fielding was the only thing I had to justify my place on the team - so I was generally fairly enthusiastic at cutting out fours and the like. I still do this, but I'd like to be able to slide a bit - could be more effective. I'd also a couple of drops this year, two of which I should have taken, but overall, pretty good.

Next year? :
Obviously I'd like to be better able to bat. There have been some signs of light, but there's a long way to go. Currently my bowling is zero-swing line and length. It's good for cleaning up tails and takes wickets when the batsmen are pushing the rate - but otherwise pretty ineffective. If I can get a bit of movement or some more pace it might allow me to compete at the higher leagues too. With fielding, I need to get better under the high ball and learn to slide - or make sure I get to stay in the ring.

Hopefully Messrs Woolmer and Noakes will be able to help me with that. And there's always a chance that I might get off my ass and finally finish this bowling machine ... maybe.

Going Tepid Turkey

Actually, it's not all bad. There is still some cricket left in the year, not very much mind, but enough to avoid going cold turkey. Maybe we can call it tepid turkey?

Next weekend, for example, we have the Double-D cup - a double wicket competition within the club. I'm facing into this as defending champion, though as you can imagine it was mostly due to the person I was partnered with. Our winning total was 47, of which I think I scored 7! To be fair it was all just a bit of fun, I'd had 2 bottles of beer before batting (which might explain why I scored so many ), and the cup itself comes with a bra attached - which gets cut in half and the winning team have to wear a cup each on their heads

There's also the indoor cricket sessions on Thursdays. Again this is just a bit of fun - 8 lads knocking a tennis ball around, but it should keep me going for a while.

We also have a touring side coming over from England (Yorkshire I think) for a game in two weeks. Though at the moment their schedule seems to be - Arrive, drink, sleep (optional), drink, eat, drink, sleep (optional), drink, eat, cricket, drink, sleep (optional), drink, depart They're a fun bunch of lads too, should be a good weekend.

And then there are the various "end-of-season" type events. There's a delegation from the club going for a weekend in Bratislava (which I can't make unfortunately). There will also be the LCU (league governing body) official end of season dinner and prize-giving ceremony, where we'll be presented with our cups and league titles for the year. I wouldn't mind heading to that, not sure when it's on yet though. Not to mention the club AGM, I've a feeling this will be pretty much a love-in after the successful year!

Pick of the bunch though will have to be the club President's Dinner. All the intra-club awards are handed out for player of the year, and the catches cup, and sixes cup and the like. Nice fancy dinner too, and plenty of speeches (and maybe a song or two ;-) ). I'll be there to pick up the Duck Cup (hmm) I had hoped that I'd be picking up the catching cup too, having been in the shake-up for most of the year, but sadly I was overtaken and couldn't catch up (pun intended). I'd like to think that I'd be in the mix for the 4ths player of the year on account of my bowling, but I reckon my batting might be a deciding factor Besides, there are other lads there that would have taken more wickets than I did if they'd played more, and they already have more runs.

So even if most of the cricket-related activities this year aren't actually cricket, at least they're close. And for now that will have to do.