5 Tree field update

Went over today with Ben and Joe with the prospect of them getting really bored whilst I practiced bowling. So in order to limit the chance of that happening I loaded the car up with footballs, scooters and the 2 bikes on a bike rack on the back of the car which had to be fitted, so geting all that together on it's own took the best part of 20 minutes.

As soon as we got there out of nowhere they wanted to play cricket and were asking for all their gear! Gutted! All I had was a Kookaburra plastic type windball and a full size bat. Needless to say we all percevered with the big bat and had a bit of fun. Ben's bowling was good and Joes too both hitting the stumps a few times.

I then a had a practice on my own which went okay - concentrating on Top-spinners, Flippers and wrong uns. It went okay - again I have to make comparisons with last year and in that regard it was a good practice. I desperately need other people to be involved in these practices and again I was hoping to see some of the local blokes and still there wasn't any sign of any of them. I'm looking forward to the Easter as if the weather breaks and it's fine that may bring them out on to the field? Again in the short term I might try and get some of the MPA boys involved?

I measured the boundary as well today and it looks as though the perimeter is approx just about right, maybe a bit short 60 yards instead of the usual 65 yards and it'll definitely be an oval shape with the longer boundaries behind the batsman and the bowler. I've started to mark the boundary out already having marked all the 1/4 markings. I've also obtained some pipe to use as boundary markers in the same way that GCCC use and there's the potential for using 32 of these, but in the short term I'll mark the boundary in the same way as I do the actual wicket.

I realised today what with Ben and Joe wanting to play cricket I need to have more of my gear with me when I go over there, so I'll have to take 2 bags of gear with me to cover all eventualities. It might be an idea to make some kind of wheeled device to drag it all from the car to the field being as it's so bloody heavy and there's a lot of it!

I've been increasing my exercises recently and modifying some of them. The Plank for instance I'm now doing for 30 seconds as a normal and then lifting alternate legs for 30 seconds. Other than that the stretching bands behind the head, press ups and upper body stuff is all increasing. How this will affect my bowling I'm not sure, I always feel like I have a propensity to bowl too long and getting stronger might exacerbate this even further? I'll have to see what happens.