Net Practice Feb 3rd

Today’s net practice had a turn out of 8 of us

Thomas aka ‘Derek’
Rod the Aussie
Simon
Naughty
Badger
Alex
Richard
Dave

Having removed the pole from the nets we were able to pull them all the way out, which was an improvement from a safety point of view. The new stumps initially looked as though they’d handle being bowled at, but then Alex started throwing balls and they began to disintegrate on being hit at 100mph! Because of the low turn out we didn’t bother with a game in the second hour and we concentrated on bowling and batting and Richard did some wicket keeping. Things are now beginning to shape up a bit and the different roles within the team are becoming more obvious. At the after practice analysis with the team captain we discussed the roles and made some more changes albeit only slightl. First the batting order……

Opening Batsmen

Thomas and Mark – rationale because they go for it big time and hit big, Thomas in particular will go after any ball and smashes it irrespective of whether it’s being spun or is a fast one, his approach is a ‘Take no prisoners’ let ‘em have it approach. All of the bowlers agree to not having any strategy to get him out. Mark is similar and in the past games has always come out as having the highest scores.

No.3 Richard Sainsbury – Good solid approach, varied techniques and intelligent batsman, if Thomas and Mark get some runs on the board Richard will be good to follow up with a steadying approach slowly building on what Mark and Thomas have set but with the potential to hit 4’s and 6’s. We reckon Richard could stay in and score big over the longer period.

No.4 Rod the Aussie – Similar to Richard good steady approach, potentially a clever batsman that could hang in for a long period building the runs up.

No.5 Badger a safe bet with the ability to hit bigguns.

No.6 Alex not so adept at the 4’s and 6’s but could get the 1’ and 2’s and is fast between the stumps.

No. 7 Naughty, middle order yet to show his true form as a batting specialist but growing in confidence “I reckon we’ll do alright now, it’s all coming together…. I reckon we could have sports science”.

No. 8 Vacant – Tom? Left handed, rumoured to be handy with the bat – need to see him in action in order to move up the batting order?

No.9 Vacant – Steve Bone?
No.10 Simon – Bowler
No.11 Dave – Bowler

The other change is that Alex has stepped aside so Richard is now the only Wicket Keeper.

So the team looks like this now

Tom, Naughty, Mark and Steve – Specialist Batsmen
Richard (AR) – Specialist Wicket Keeper
Dave – Specialist Leg Spin Bowler
Thomas (AR) and Rod (AR) Specialist Fast swing bowlers
Simon (AR), Alex and Badger (AR) Specialist Fast Seam bowlers

Badger brought along a camera with a 15 minute video function and recorded some of the bowling, so hopefully there’ll be some footage that we can post on the blog and have Dave the ECB bloke comment on Thomas’s bowling action. Hopefully next practice session we’ll have a proper camera and record a lot more of the bowling done by all of us and we’ll all have a chance to see how we look.

Finance

After today’s attendance with 8 people paying we accrued an extra £10.00. The total now in the coffers is £40.00. Having said that I’ll get the invoice for the next two sessions fairly soon I reckon and we’ll need £140.00. To be honest I can’t afford to take £100 out of my savings and have it tied up until you all pay me back, so I’d appreciate it if anyone knows that they’ll be attending the next two sessions they pay up front. If you then don’t turn up I’ll refund you the money. If the core members of the team do this we should be able to cover the costs easily and the extra money contributed by the more sporadic participants over the weeks should mean that eventually we’ll have enough excess money to pay up front.