I've had several interesting conversations with different people and trawled around the local cricket team websites all with a longer term approach to what I'm going to be doing at the end of this season. No matter what happens I'll still be playing cricket and I'll continue to try and bowl leg spin in practice situations as I'm determined to get it right.

Boffa had pointed out that he thought I was far better at batting and than bowling (3rd highest score against the Aussies and Kiwis and not out on Friday despite being No.6) so at this mornings practice over at 'The Rec' I approached it slightly differently sort of having gained confidence after surviving the onslaught from the bowlers on Friday. I was quite pleased with how I batted but no-one was bowling this morning particularly well, so that may have helped? So I'm settling in as my role of as a batsman and looking forward to maintaining my position at around No.6 despite the arrival of Chris, Alex & Jack.

With regards to the team I've been looking at the make-up of lower XI teams in the area and noticed that as in the case of Grays & Chadwell cricket team they have 38 players in that team. So every Sunday that they play and they field 11 men plus a No.12 they have the choice of 38 players to call upon. So that begs the question how do you get a regular match if you're really up for playing?

I now realise in order to do what I'm trying to do effectively our team needs to be made up of as many players as possible in a similar way as the Grays & Chadwell. Perhaps have 22 - 25 players who are interested at all sorts of levels. But then the issue of how does the side create income in order to finance payment of net sessions, pooled equipment, teas and general running of the team. Most teams charge a yearly fee of around £100 but they also get other benefits of being in the team - the main one being the social aspects. That then takes a lot of organisation and I'm not willing to go that far. I like the idea of a big team and in a perfect world 75% of the team would turn up for nets all winter and pay all the necessary fees asked of them and it would be great. But in the real world it's not going to happen because as the team gets bigger the team members are sourced from a much wider field and the control that I'm able to exercise over them is far less and the need for a captain and a manager and other roles becomes a necessity. So therein lies the problem.

• Have a small team that will always be severely weakened by the players not able to commit themselves for games, but it's kept informal and personal.
• Have a large team guaranteeing that you're always able to field a good side, but have to create positions within the club to run it.

In the short term we try and avoid teams that include serious cricket players and look to play people of a similar standard to us in order that it's a game and that we have a slight chance of winning. We try and get Suhail on board and aim to play on Sundays so that more people are able to be involved. To this end I'll be looking to play the Aussies and Kiwis again soon but with some of our new players involved as well. Boffa has said he might be able to knock together a team as well and they'll be up for a 40 over sunday match as well - they're all either blokes in their early 40's and one or two 16 years olds and they're similar to us in ability - but they will want to wind desperately.

The only downside is - if these matches are to be played at Welstead it's going to cost £120 for the venue + teas. I'm up for it who else is.

Then once this season is over we'll have some kind of AGM and see where do we go from here?