Not having bowled for a week I had an opportunity today for a bit of practice using Hockey Balls on Tarmac at the 'Chav Park' - a playground round the corner from where I live where there's a fenced in basket ball court.
Considering the balls have no seams I was able to get it to turn off the wicket quite well with my leg breaks and again the consistency and accuracy was on par with the last practice session over at Gloucester last week. This time using a Coke can as my length and line target marker and hitting it quite frequently, but generally 90% of the time the ball landing very close to it.
The Big 4
These are the variations that I'm focusing on as previously mentioned - Leg Break, Wrong Un, Black Spinning Flipper and a Top Spinning Flipper. The Leg Break was very commendable and my Wrong Un by the end of the session began to come together in a manner that I was happy with. The two Flippers were a lot less impressive, the Top Spinning Flipper over the summer had been very good in practices but I didn't bowl it much in very many matches, but for the moment my Flippers are a bit ropey, with me not being able to control the swing they produce and the ball ending up down the leg-side. I'm not that worried in the short term as I know it'll just take a couple of practice sessions and I'll have them both back under control.
I also had a look bowling from around the wicket bowling the Leg Breaks into the same target area which kind of looked potentially useful. It looked as though if you did this it may entice the bowler to to try bat against the spin into the Leg Side with possible mis-hit consequences? But It also looked useful in that you could bung a Wrong un in there which might be problematic too? I reckon it's something I'll try and in the nets in the new year.
Indoor practice with Ben and Joe.
This morning Ben, Joe and I went to the Laindon Community Centre and had a knock about trying to get them to improve their batting. Towards the end of the session I worked with Ben trying to get him to play with a front foot defensive block which he sees as being boring, preferring to swing at every ball. Even though he was pretty negative about the idea he did go along with it and I think after a while he could see the potential in the indoor games as the ball is pushed forwards into the area where there are no fielders. It looked as though if he was to apply himself he can do it.
