43 Days to go.......

Brilliant weather - back to back sunshine with blue skies, must have been 20 degrees? So warm I had my shirt off and have caught the sun.

A good 2 hour bowling session varying my length and different ways of bowling this flipper. Towards the end I was bowling really high loopy balls that were landing almost on the stumps - certainly between where the batsman would stand and the stumps - the kind that would end up being a full toss if the batsman could read the flight. But I'm thinking that's the kind of ball that's going to be knocked up in the air for a catch off of anyway that lacks any batting savvy? Then if a few of those are followed by a shorter delivery with underspin they might cause problems - something I need to try out.

I had a few goes at the leg break as well today and was hitting the stumps a few times with that and it was turning a little bit. The Wrong Un was okay as well so all in all a good session.

While I was over there I designated a wicket area for the practice session on Saturday. Having done that I measured out the boundary as well and the field is big enough with the exception of the boundary directly behind the batsman. I don't think we're going to be changing ends just for a practice so that seems fine to me. The boundary straight down the wicket ends exactly where you run out of field and the boundaries to the side at 90 degrees end at the edge of the football field with some spare beyond that. I've put markers down and over the next couple of days I'll do more. I'm going to sort out a piece of string that's the radius of the pitch and put in about 24 markers all around at equal spacing. On the day I've got 24 tent pegs and I'll stick 24 tesco bags in at the markers so it's pretty clear as to where the boundary will be and we'll just use straight lines bewteen each bag to indicate a boundary line?

The wicket is pretty flat already as is all of this field, but again either tomorrow or Saturday morning I'll get over there early and I'll mow half a wicket in front of the stumps so we've got nice short grass to bowl onto. I had a go on it today and it's nice and firm with a decent bit of bounce in it, so it should be fun. So come on lets have a half decent attendence please?

Hoepfully we'll have -

Me
Thomas
Mark
Alex
Simon
Badger
Nick?
Trevor?

And possibly my Brother in Law. I'll try and give a you all a call tomorrow and see who's likely to turn up. Simon - can you ring or text Nick and Trevor and see if they're up for it please?