Practice session

The rain continued to hold off today, meaning that here in Essex it hasn't rained for probably more than 2 weeks, so the ground is drying out nicely. So as per last weekend Thomas and I managed to get out on the field for an hour or so at 3pm hoping that we might be joined by the bloke from a couple of weeks back. Turns out that we didn't see him.

The weather was blustery and grey but a reasonable 12-13 degrees. We both had a bowl and a bat. I tried to take on board some of the stuff the blokes on simplycricket.net had advised me to change - bring my arm up higher and sort my run-in out. The initial impression I got from making these changes was that my bowling seemed faster and relatively accurate as in the first 4 overs I think I bowled Thomas out. He then seemed to get used to me and then was hitting me all over the place and only much later with a really low and fast flipper did I manage to get a ball past him.

I'm not sure whether it's because I'm just not that fit at the moment, but my bowling did seem to deterioate after about the 6th or 7th over and I resorted to all sorts of tactics without giving it much thought. I tried the Leg Breaks again - they were too full and not turning and it just felt like I was trying too hard whereas the Wrong Uns come out love little with very little effort. I've come away from todays session thinking maybe I should just concentrate on 3 different deliveries - The Top Spinner, The Wrong Un and the Flipper (Which turns from leg to off like a leg break). I think the majority of the wickets were taken by mixing up the speed and length of the Top-spinner, so if I then add to that the occassional Wrong Un and Flipper will that work for me? More than anything I need to have more people involved with the practices, so that I can put these theories into practice and then do the thing where the batsman plays as though it's a game (Has to score x amount of runs off an over).

I think though overall I have improved - I bowl nowhere near as many wides as I used to and I vary the delivery speed and length.