Friday, May 11, 2007

8 Days to go.........






A couple of screw ups first.

1. There wont be any net practice tomorrow as the school is using the hall and the caretaker did tell me about it and I just forgot. So the next and last net practice is Saturday 19th May the day before the match.

2. Rod Jeanes wont be playing in the game against the Aussies and Kiwi's so we need 2 more players - The 11th Man to replace Rod and a 12th Man in the event that someone doesn't turn up on the day. Suggestions and volunteers required.

Practice - Saturday 11th May

I'll try and ring round to everyone and let you all know that the net practice has been cancelled and that we will be out on Great Berry Open Space and under the threat of rain. We're not going to be playing a game more than likely setting up the stumps somehow maybe 2 - 3 lots of stumps and all having 15 minutes of batting practice rotating while everyone else bowls and collects the balls. Everyone needs to be clear on the idea of defending the stumps and your legs until the ball goes wide and then having a go at it. This is probably our weakest point in that some of us think it's just a case of whacking it. Hopefully it wont rain. The forecast is rain over night but between 10.00 and 13.00hrs it's cloudy/bright....




This is the chart for 10.00hrs on Sat 11th May. So we may get lucky.





Other than that me and Richard went over to Welstead tonight to have a look and it looks okay. The wickets a bit green for me but the rest of you will do okay. The outfield looks a bit irregular in shape and I'm not sure what they'll be designating the boundary on the day, I'll have to ask Gavin what they normally do there.

The bar will be open till 8.30 and then we're out it's normally shut at 6pm on a Sunday but Gillian at Welstead is getting the bar staff to stay longer.

I've done some pictures and post them on here later. The pitch isn't as small as I thought it would be and it's probably similar in size to our pitch at Great Berry and similarly there are some short boundaries and long ones (Unfortunately for me the long ones are in my favourite hitting zones.

I've heard that Sports Science have been taking the mick out of my obsessive desire to get this right particularly the etiquette aspects. I think I've got the food bit sorted now for the game on Sunday, but now Gillian at Welstead has thrown a spanner in the works for the friday matches. It seems she doesn't get there till 7.30 to open the gates to the field - but Dean has got the code and the keys to the field and the changing rooms so hopefully we'll all be able to pile over there at 5.00 pm approx and he'll open up and we can start. Gillian also said that on evening games it's unlikely that there'll be a food requirement - I'll have to check with Gavin....


Having checked out the food/tea situation it looks like we're going to call on volunteers to knock up some food. We need sandwiches, cakes, sausage rolls, quiche, a bit of salad and orange/barley squash to be sorted. The tea is going to be provided by Welstead as it's the only way that they're going to make any money out of us unless of course the match finishes early and money is spent in the bar.


Harrowdrive have good link tonight if you subscribe. There's a podcast between David Hinchcliffe and some bloke called Pat Legge who's a coach. Have a listen to it while you're doing something else, it's interesting and there's some good points that may help how we play and possibly train. There's some excellent points made about commitment and the attitude of English players at all levels compared with the Aussies.
Play Better Cricket - Harrowdrive.com
Cricket coaching podcast

2 comments:

  1. I'm getting very excited for you here too.

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  2. We had a good practice today (Sat May 12th) I've not written the blog yet as I've been sorting out the photo's of the shirts so that they all go out and buy the right one! But we all had a few sessions each 15 minutes at a time facing different bowlers. We all seem to be okay once we get past the first 5 minutes, it's those first couple of overs I suppose while you're getting your eye in. Maybe we should face a few balls in the outfield before we play or something? Because of amount of batting I've been doing with our new bloke Nakul in the evenings, I've gained a lot more confidence and I'm playing different strokes as well and moving my feet a lot and coming down the wicket at the bowlers and unsettling them. So yeah it's getting very exciting and I can't wait, I just hope I can hang in there to score 20 - 25 runs and make a decent contribution to the score.

    I'm going to look at the long range weather forecast on www.magicseaweed.com to see if it looks okay.

    Keep on reading David it's good to have your support.

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