Sunday

This is the line I'm working on which probably looks mental and it is I know, but I've produce balls that have done this, so I'm going to see how consistent I can get them to do it. The thing is it's a delivery that I'm not going to get away with much because once you've done it, the batsman is going to be aware of the fact that if you pitch the ball right out there in the rough he's got to expect that it's going to come back in? Radical stuff but seemingly possible!

Lets hope today if I get over FTF and the rain holds out I might meet up with Ali again and I can try some of this out on him?

It wasn't to be. It's now nearly 5pm and it's rained on and off all day since midday - real April weather! The gutting thing is this morning it was sunny warm and dry and it's followed the pattern of the last few days and each day I've been doing stuff in the morning with the intention that later in the day I'd get myself on to a field for some practice. But instead in between the last batch of showers I've been outside bowling at a wall from short distances following the advice of Peter Philpott trying to throw leg breaks and I've made a break through. Over a short distance I found that I could get the ball to spin into off, so I've just been doing it continuously gradually extending the distance, admittedly it's not spinning anything like my weird ball, but it's a proper 2 thumbs up 2 thumbs down leg spin ball which is satisfying. I've been able to move back a few yards and I'm bowling properly over a distance of about 11 yards and getting it to turn. Again I'm finding that it's not happening naturally and that I have to think about it - I have to think "Turn the door knob" action otherwise instinctively I just spin the ball into a Top Spinner. But it's coming together and for me this is very positive. I'll keep at it and see if it gets any better I may even go over to one of the baseball courts that I frequented in the depths of winter and have a go there as there's a lot more space later?

This is the stage I'm at with the real leg break progress, not a lot of turn but a bit and it's consistent and I'm getting a fairly good line. So I'm pretty pleased with my progress since buying the Peter Philpott book and I'm no-where near finished with it yet. What I like about his advice is that if you falter or stall - he says take a couple of steps backwards and go back to the basics and re-learn it all again. One of the things I am doing again which I haven't been doing is walking around perpetually with a ball in my hand spinning it flicking my wrist. Again I did this last year but what with my wife and their friends and my In-laws looking at me as though I was social outcast because of it I felt maybe I was being a bit obsessesive, but good old Pete says it's something you've got to do and I'm with him on that and now I can say "But peter says I've got to"!!!