Practice and other stuff

We've not had the sunny weather that had been predicted, but it's stayed dry if not a little cool - 11 degrees centrigrade. I threw the ball around a little this morning outside of the house and I've taken to doing nothing but trying to get the ball to come out of the front of my hand using the 'Big Flick' when I'm indoors doing nothing. This seems to be working because this morning throwing the ball around I was able to bowl it the 22yards and get it to turn fairly big as a leg break using the big flick.

So somewhat enthused by this I went over the paddock and threw a few overs and they went okay trying to bowl Leg Breaks with the big flick. The line was a bit wayward but the general feeling was that it seems promising and it's something to work on.

I got the mower out as well and set the blades for a long cut and cut the new growth on the wicket area.

This afternoon Joe, Ben and I went over to the artificial wicket at Glouscester Park and we all had a knock about. Wasn't that eventful other than that both of them seem to have anger/frustration issues when they can't do something and they don't seem to grasp the fact that if you can't do something then maybe you need to practice at it in order to force some improvement. I said to Ben that if he could hit the ball to the boundary on the off-side I'd give him a fiver. Once he'd been given that incentive he started to bat with more conviction and enthusiasm and at one point near the end of the session he hit the ball and it ended up only about 20' short of the boundary. But we then ran out of time and he was most upset that he hadn't done it and it seems as though that turned out almost to be counter-productive. But I think it might make him realise that potentially he could do it. If the outfield had been a bit better he'd have easily done it. So maybe it might serve as some incentive in the future?