So, what with being a lecturer it has its advantages in that I get a lot of holiday and it turns out that I need to take the full two weeks off over Easter and I'm not due back in till the 19th of April. So if the weather holds out I can get some full-on practice going and see if the calf muscles and foot hold out...........
This morning after a week of rain I had a look at the Paddock to see how that's fairing and it looks like winter again as the middle of the wicket, where fast bowlers would bowl bouncers is a swamp again. There's no sign of the grass coming through but I'm optimistic that it will over the next couple of weeks. The end that has been treated and rolled is holding up well and hasn't sustained any more damage. So it's fingers crossed now that the weather shapes up and we have some dry weather and sunshine to get the grass growing.
Shortly after it poured down again for about an hour and eventually it stopped and we went over the tennis courts and had a knock about - Ben, Joe their mate Ozan and me. The one extra bloke made a difference to the game in that we then were in a position where we played with 2 batsmen.
Later I went back on my own with the hockey balls and bowled for an hour. Earlier in the day I'd been experimenting with a variation of my grip using an extreme version of the grip that comes through with the wrist in the karate chop position with an exentuated release off the 3rd finger and it worked well over shortish distances but was less consistent over the 22 yards, but when it turned it did so really well and when it didn't turn is seemed to be coming out as a top-spinner with lots of bounce? Over the hour it seemed to be fairly accurate, so that's something I'll stick with for a while. I also bowled with the hand coming through very palm forward and coming off the 3rd finger and that was also really good. Overall everything was working well - Conventional Flipper was accurate with in-swing and then breaking like a small Leg-Break, Top-Spinning flipper was fast and accurate and the Wrong un worked well every now and then, but was the least consistent. Overall it was a 9/10 practice so pretty good.
Got back in and did some warming down with the calf muscles and I see how I am in the morning.
