I've had a good day today on both the bowling and batting front. As I mentioned - this morning I got up and was flicking the ball across the kitchen in the manner that I mentioned in the earlier entry and was getting a lot of deviation and seemingly very easy to control and very accurate. I took the ball to work and was sitting at my desk and realised I hadn't accounted for the fact that when I took the images I'd photographed my left hand and hadn't flipped the image over to look like my right hand! I've corrected that now.

This evening again I was looking at the potential for this delivery and it looks very promising, it looks like it my be a lot more affective than my Gipper in many ways, but putting it into practice will be when I'll see whether the theory meets the expectations and it looks as though I might be able to explore it's potential tomorrow?

Not having done anything physical all week I was gagging to do something after a hard week at work. I checked with Simon and he's up for a session next weekend, so this evening I thought I'd better go and book the court in order that we secure a place. This then gave me an excuse to go looking for a batting wall see http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-need-your-feedback-on-this.html so, not wanting to draw too much attention to myself I thought I'd look for somewhere that sports already exist. I had a look at a couple of places at Gloucester Park but the place that I thought might come up trumps did. In the corner of Glouscester Park on the edge of the Cricket pitch is a little used under-pass and it's amazingly well lit and it's just over 7 yards wide and about 70' long. It's clean, bright and flat and absolutely perfect. One exit leads out onto a small parkland area where there's been several assualts on women over the years and the other exit leads on to a cricket pitch. It's doesn't really connect anywhere to anywhere else and it is almost redundant. (See the ariel shot here you can see where the underpass crosses beneath the road) I'd put my bat in the car with a ball so had a go for about 20 minutes or so.


Just as I arrived there, over on the artificial football pitches a bunch of blokes were just finishing up and one of them came through the tunnel and he was the only person I saw down there. So it's not like anyone is going to see me and I can just get on with it - it's brilliant! So another place I'm utilising for free and getting some potentially good practice in.

On the way there I went over to Laindon Community Centre and booked one of the courts for tomorrow morning 9.00 - 10.00 and I'll probably use that tomorrow on my own trying out this new bowling variation and get some batting practice in as well. Although tonight it went so well in the underpass that I was thinking I don't know whether I'll bother tomorrow? At the moment I probably will as it'll be interesting to see how much of a difference standing a lot further back from the wall will make and because of the bowling opportunity. While I was there I also booked the court for next week 1-2pm (sat) for Me, Simon, Badger and Alex.

Going back to the underpass - How useful it is to be able to knock the ball up against a wall like this I don't know? I know it's good that there's another wall directly behind you so that you can try things like leg glances or just miss the ball and it doesn't go anywhere. But surely it's beneficial - I must be getting more adept at making contact with the ball and just practicing stroke? Before discovering this as an idea last weekend my experience of hitting a ball with a cricket bat was incredibly limited - so this must be having some benefit? It'll be interesting to see how I fair against Alex and Simon next weekend when we have the practice - that'll be the point at which I'll be able to say whether I've advanced at all.
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