Grays & Chadwell cc v Woodford

I haven't been blogging that much recently I've been dwelling on my last set of bowling figures and wondering what I should have done in that situation. I finally came to the conclusion that the batsman came at me like that because of a number of reasons.....

1. He'd reached his 100.
2. There was only 3 overs to come.
3. They had a commanding lead.
4. A fair few of our lot had visibly thrown the towel in.

So basically the bloke had nothing to lose hence the reason he suddenly started bounding down the wicket and smashing me all over the park. Well - that's my excuse and I'm sticking with along with the fact that Wayne and some others had said that they were in a different league to us and that it would have probably been better if they'd played the 1st XI.

Anyway a much better prospect on the cards for this Sunday with a match against the Woodford blokes. The last match we played against them was very enjoyable if not slightly odd in that we fielded first and they seemingly didn't make any real attempt at getting any runs on the board and played in a very cautious manner. The end result being that we were chasing only a small total and the match was won fairly easily. Hopefully they'll have the same blokes and perhaps come at the game in a different manner this time? Whatever happens I'm sure it'll be fairly enjoyable and a close match hopefully.

So with that in mind I had a bit of a bowl this evening and it went okay. The dislocated finger seems to be 95% better and of no consequence anymore although it looks swollen still a bit. I couldn't bowl that well because it was drizzling a bit and the grass was slippery. Also the earth in the paddock at the bowlers end is loose and uneven and is pretty dangerous if you really put some oomph into your bowling as there's no real guaranteed stability underfoot which isn't good.

The Paddock

So in the next few weeks as well as treating and maintaining the batting end of the paddock I'll have to have a look at repairing the bowlers end and levelling that out as well.

With regards the batting end - it's gradually coming together. Initially the grass was growing in distinct tufts with ruts in between the tufts, so over the last couple of months I've been filling in the ruts and levelling the area in front of the stumps 15' x 8' so that we can bowl onto a relatively level area. It's rained a few times today but the rain has had little affect on the earth and it's far from saturated, so I'm still waiting for a day of significant rain. Once there is some significant rain I'll be out there with the 2 bags of topsoil getting it down levelling it off, seeding and rolling it. I just need the rain.

We've got the nets and the rope to suspend the nets ready for next summer so it should be a good little set up.

As I write it sounds like there's a bit of rain out there now, so I might go and have a look and see if there's any value in getting the roller on it tonight?