Leg Spin gutted

25th August

Gutted! In the intro to my other blog

www.greatberrycc.blogspot.com

I mentioned that in my opinion if you had the ability to turn your arm over and bring the other one down in the fulcrum action it wasn't that impossible to then develop the neccessary flick to produce a basic Leg Break (If you had any essence of desire to do so). I've seen this in our own younger seam bowlers at G&CCC every now and then as if to wind you up they'll throw a ball at you and put spin on it and they produce Leg Break balls that I would die to be able to do at this stage! Tonight this theory was further reinforced by the fact that one of the Great Berry kids - Andy who is a promising looking seam bowler said to me
"What is that you do to get it to spin"? And then he twisted his wrist round in the Googlie position.
"Christ no don't do that - that's fatal - look watch" and I showed him the theory behind producing the Leg Break and said "Never twist your hand round that far until you can do this one (The Leg Break) absoultely perfect". He seemed to take it on board and went up the other end and bowled his first attempt at a Leg Break and sure enough it spun a country mile - what's more it came down the wicket straight and middle and then spun away from a good length and could well produced a little edge to catch in the slips or even the wicket keeper with a dive. It as perfect and then he did it again and again and again and again. I then said "bowl it down the leg side and it should then turn in and hit the stumps"? Sure enough first ball his middle and leg! I'm absolutely gutted, what can I do to re-wire my brain so that it totally forgets the twisted wrist of the Googlie?

I said to him that his bowling was so good that he should come and play for G&CCC, he is by far the most enthusiastic of all the kids that go over to Valence Way and he's athletic as well. His mate said - yeah you love it this cricket Andy, you should do it. Andy then said yeah alright then. So what now? What I'll do in the first instance is extent the length of the wicket so that he bowls the full 22yards and see how he gets on with that and then take it from there.

I've just realised that if I can get him up to bowling the extra 4 yards and he's bowling Leg Breaks and the fact that he can bat - he's another potential player for the MPA 1st XI team against the Tilbury MCCC!

Other good news is that tonight on Bank Holiday Monday the groundsman was over Valence Way field rolling it! Yes - Rolling it. It didn't seem to make much of a difference, but he was doing it and he also cut the grass again! I also did a bit green keeping myself. On the practice wicket I did some repairs. I filled in all the footholes from my run up and also the ruts where the batsman stands as well. I then got a load of grass seed and sowed that and I'm now hoping for some rain to get it all going and bind it together.