Back in the early days of this blog one of the many people I met up with on this cricket journey was a bloke called Suhail, who hailed from Pakistan and now lives and works here as a surgeon. I bumped into him again for the 1st time in 3 years or more last week and loosely arranged to have a knock about today over at the tennis courts at the Rec.
So this afternoon I sent him a text saying that I was going over there for a bowl and he joined me a bit later on and we had a bit of a knock about.
Bowling a good length is one of the issues that I had last year, but here I had the chance to bowl against a bloke who's got lots to say and it all sounds very knowledgeable and he was saying that my bowling since last seeing him has massively improved. I bowled with him last week and he was saying that in his opinion the only thing he could see that I was doing wrong last week was that the length was wrong (I was bowling on to a mat). He said that I needed to bowl to a batsman and bowl the right length in accordance to the whether the batsman played off of the backfoot or front foot. So today he turned up with his bat and I got to bowl at him.
Again he was pretty impressed saying that the length that I was bowling was causing him to play off the front foot and block most of the time and that my length was spot on. Anything slightly legside he was hitting with a sweep shot which at the same time he seemed to be covering himself in the event that it got past the bat by padding it away. I got a few past him for stumpings - wrong un as he bounded down the wicket and he hit a few to positions where he'd have been caught, so all in all it was a good knock about. Got to bat as well which is something I need practice at and he bowls off-spin so if I can keep practicing with him which seems to be his intention I may survive the offies next year?
He was saying that he intends to play a lot more cricket next summer so there may be a chance we can get over the Rec quite a bit?
