No cricket today, the game had been cancelled yesterday and then guess what happens - there's no rain at all today and it's been pretty sunny albeit windy. Been over to the wicket to how it's recovering from it's very close cut and to repair some of the scuff from the footballers yesterday. The practice wicket is fast disappearing into the rest of the grass and the only difference that'll be obvious soon will be that it just looks a lot more lush than the rest of the grass around it.
I didn't get it together today to sort out the roller and thinking about it I don't think I'd roll it now anyway, I'd leave it now till the back end of the winter - perhaps March. The only thing I might do now is get some weedkiller and kill the weeds which I've identified as being Plantain which is an interesting plant. The leaves are a good substitute for Doc leaves in the event that you get stung by nettles, but they're also good for insect bites too which is useful to know because the field is over-run with Midges in the summer to the point where it's uncomfortable to be there at times. The plant may also have anti-biotic properties see http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/plantain.htm The stuff to get rid of it though is relatively cheap but nasty and you spray it direct onto the plant and it works better when the leaves are in full growth, the larger and flatter the leaves the better the weed killer works, so that's another reason to hold off or stop the mowing in order that I can kill these weeds off ready for next season. It wasn't as expensive as I'd imagined either at about £3.50 to do the job.
Later in the afternoon I went over to the field and had a bit of a bowl and did okay, reverted to bowling flippers and wrong uns. I tried a few Leg Breaks but they just come out as straight balls or wrong uns. The flippers all went really well I manage to get them down the off side 95% of the time and they were all turning away from the bat like a leg break and then when I wanted to I'd bowl a googly and that then turned really well into the stumps. Wish I could bowl like that in a game! Maybe next year?
With the wicket in the middle being a bit short (For the kids) I was still gagging to see whether the grass cuttings bucket would work in practice so after my bowling session I went back after with the mower and extended the wicket by a couple of yards at one and yes it worked perfectly and again I was so impressed with this mower - the efficiency of the cut and the closeness of the cut is absolutely amazing I can't wait till next year when I'll be able to cut it this short all summer and get it really up to scratch. I was even looking at the grass parrallel the wicket at the moment with a view to having two wickets side by side so that one can recover whilst the other is being used - that's definitely a possibilty. What I now need to do as a part of the de-commissioning of the wicket is somehow mark it so that I can keep an eye on it over the winter and repair any big bits of damage as they happen and obviously be able to return to the exact spot next year and mow it knowing full well that it will be free of plantain and relatively flat.
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