B&PCC U15's v SLHCC - Langdon Hills Rec

Again I'm going to try and get this done quickly otherwise it'll never get finished. The figures and more details will be added later.

The team was made up of mostly U15's and a few U13's because many of them were away on Holiday.

U13's - Ben Thompson, Mitchell McLeod, Frank Farrington, Finley Munroe and Anthony Ayres.
U15's - Harrison Morris, Nathan Hubble (WK), Connor "Killer" Barnes, Sonny Downes and few other blokes whose names I don't know.

Weather looked okay, a little cloudy 20 degree, got cloudier with the threat of rain and much colder once the sun set. We batted first and did really well with Sonny, Frank and Harrison Morris making big contributions to the final score. This team (SLH) was made up of several of the U13's that played in the narky match on Thursday over at Stanford, but today they were somewhat subdued in comparison. Using the same tactics as they used last week we batted first, meaning they'd have to bat in rapidly failing light. There were some good contributions from the batsmen - Sonny Downes 29, Hubble 19, Harrison Morris 28 and Frank Farrington (Wrist Spinner) 19, and this was with a damp outfield and the ball visibly slowing down. Frank was particularly good exploiting a gap at fine leg with some deft batting. The innings finished with the B&P boys setting a total of 125 off of the 20 overs. Their fielders had a total of 16 extras, so a decent score with which to give our bowlers a chance.

The bowlers got off to a good start against a couple of confident looking batsmen, the opening bowlers were Harrison Morris and a new bloke Alfie Cobden, both bowled really well, especially the new lad Cobden, who came away with 4-1-6-3 he had a stuttering run up, but when he got to the crease an incredibly fast arm action which resulted in very fast bowling. The others....

Harrison Morris -                4-0-13-1
Ben Thompson (My son) - 4-0-13-2
Mitchell McLeod -             2-0-7-1
Frank Farrington -               2-0-7-1

The official data is here - Scores and I'll try and photograph the scorebook and upload that later today.

Bens bowling

After the match I got a text from Neil (Umpire and coach) saying that Ben's bowling in the match was superb and that it was the best he'd seen him bowl, which Ben was pleased to hear. He said of his bowling "I went in without any intentions, whereas normally I go in thinking I'm going to bowl really fast, I didn't put myself under any pressure I just ran in really relaxed and bowled with no thoughts of losing or winning the match because of my bowling and it just came out really well". Maybe this has something to do with the fact that it's the U15's and it's not his team? Who knows, but I agree with Neil he bowled superbly and looked as though he was bowling really well from the edge of the pitch - really relaxed and fluid and as a result it was also quite fast - but effortless fast.

Anthony Ayres catch

In these matches there's never enough committment in the field from my personal point of view, only one catch went down in this match as I recall, but it's the levels of fitness and intensity that always dismays me and the lack of enthusiasm for fielding overall. It's not the trainers fault, I've seen G-Man trying to enthuse these lads and most of them watch cricket and know how pro players field and how quickly the get the ball, gather it and get it back to the keeper. But saying that there was the ocassional glimpses of promise Anthony Ayres was exceptionally good and getting the ball in accurately over the stumps once he'd got to the ball and he took an brilliant catch over his shoulder at the end of the game which was very impressive. The new lad had a longish run in to take Franks wicket, but overall with regards the fielding the SLH lads were leagues ahead.

The final score for the SLH lads was 92 with 23 extras helping them along the way. A good win though, with some very good cricket on both sides.

Superman gets 40-0-7-1

Again too much to keep up with and I've got to somehow condense these posts to shorter versions. No pic's unfortunately as my camera gave up this morning when trying to video Ben, Kieran and Franks bowling U13's, so it looks like a trip to John Ilsley is due tomorrow to see if it can be saved. I could gone on now about how crap digital cameras are and how I've got a few 'Proper cameras' still and they're 30-40 years old and they still work, but I wont.

Anyway after the U13's I had to dash home throw some food down my neck (Pasta, cheese, tomatoes and Ham) and then try and get to the club by 12.00. I got there just after 12.30 and the news was that we had 11 and that they were waiting on news as to whether the game would be on because of rain over at Harold Wood. A heavy shower passed through and with covers on the wicket the game was on and we all made our way over to Harold Wood. Got there and it was raining again and we had to wait another hour or so for that to clear and for the covers to come off and start the game.

Mike Morris, Liam Rouse, Jack Farrington, Harrison Morris, Kieron & Steve Ward, Anthony Ayres, Phillip Tooke, Scott Noble, me and some bloke I've never seen before (James Bunce)? Made up our team and we were to bat first with Rousey putting me in to bat with Phillip Tooke. I lasted about 3 overs and score two runs before being clean bowled. The highlight of the day was Scott Noble being denied his 100 by the weather, because of a down-pour it was decided that the match be reduced to something like 25 overs and despite Rouse's efforts Scott was one short at 99.

A decent tea was had by all as we all sat and watched the Olympics waiting for the covers to come off again because of the rain. Again I was part of the opening pair, with Jack Farrington bowling bowling the 1st over and me the 2nd. This team had an over-seas player - a South African bloke who kept for much of the match and was a very good player. He opened LH along with a bowler RH. My first ball landed on the edge of the cut strip for a wide and the 2nd ball was put away to the boundary by the SA bloke. In the same over I think he did that at least twice. Left hand batsman are not my favourite variety and for them to be so good that they're the chosen as over-seas player for a club spells disaster for me all the time I've not got my Wrong Un working. But after a few balls we figured out a tactic. I bowled over the wicket to his leg-side, where he then hit the ball down to fine leg where Mike was fielding and this restricted him to one run much of the time meaning he was off-strike, allowing me to bowl at the far less adept RH bat and over my seven overs we had some fun with this bloke with me bowling reasonably well, meaning that there was loads of chat around the wicket as Scott (Slips) and Rousey oohed and aahed and bigged me up as I bowled. In the end I got the bloke, but had to negotiate the very good South African LH bat and that meant that I came away with 40-0-7-1 and a new nickname on top of 'The Blogger'. The new nickname being 'Superman' due to my proclivity to dive in a very enthusiastic manner to stop the ball going past me. If you read this blog on a regular basis I'm always ranting about the fact that youngster when they're playing cricket and fielding, do so in such a half hearted way and because of it, leak runs (Boundary 4's especially) simply because they wont dive and put their bodeis on the line for the team and end up losing by 1 run with only 4 balls left in the match like this morning at Orsett. But my dives had Rousey in stitches, one especially during my bowling when I did a very 'Over the top' one just to stop a single at best as Jack was right behind me fielding at Mid on. But, I like to lead by example and if the kids see a 52 year old bloke going for it like that they may feel shamed into putting in an equal amount of effort when it comes to their games?

The South African bloke despite everyones attempts went on to score 50 or more and eventually as it was so obvious that he was going to get them past our total on his own his captain retired him and let some of the other bats have a go and without the South African they still did it relatively easy. With access to the scrore sheets I remember that Steve took a wicket, Harrison Morris took one and Phillip Tooke had a bloke bowled and caught at the very end. 

It was a match that I enjoyed very much especially as I bowled pretty well despite my figures and got to bowl 7 overs which was very nice. Other than that it was played in a very convivial manner with people giving the younger kids a chance.

Whoa - what's that about - blimey I finished an entry!!!

Mullered at SLH Under 13's

The under 13's had a 6pm start game away at Stanford Le Hope, we were at Frinton leading up to the match so had to make a mad dash back and have a quick shower, throw some food down our necks and get to the game.

The weather was good though and we arrived with about 3 minutes to spare before the match started. Unfortunatley one of the lads that had practiced with us over at the Paddock on Tuesday (Oliver) hadn't been able to make it and we had to field a team of 10 which is always a massive disadvantage. I don't know who won the toss but we fielded first meaning that we'd have to bat in failing light. Ben opened with his bad toe and bowled okay. The worst thing about his bowling is the fact that for some reason he tries to bowl bouncers. Initially he has success with the first one in that the bat doesn't normally expect it and doesn't get the bat on the ball, but then follows it up with a second one and is ready for it and like today smacks it to the boundary.

They had two bats that did well and went on to score 25 each before retiring and then only 2 other added 5 each, yet they finished on 106, all the other runs were down to extras, which is pretty poor to concede 46 runs from bowling and fielding errors. But 106 was do-able it seemed. But without Frank Farrington to open the batting and get some initial runs on the board there was a little bit of work to do. It panned out that despite the SLH boys being diminutive, they took advantage of the fact that we were a bloke down and they bowled and kept well and only gave away 23 extras and bowled our lot out leaving us 14 runs short.

Ben took two wickets as did his mate Kieran, I've got vids of the bowling and some pictures and they may follow at some time in the future.

Again I'm behind with getting this finished so here's a link to the outcome of the match....

http://basildoncricket.hitscricket.com/scorecard/fixtureID_284602/Under-13-XI-v-Stanford-Le-Hope-26-Jul-2012.aspx

Rain stopped play again and general update

 Last weekend all the cricket was called off, as far as I'm aware not a match was played despite the fact that over the weekend the weather was fine, it was the run up to the weekend - rain, rain and more rain and all the venues including our own pitch at Mopsies were water-logged. But the weekend saw a change in the weather. The Azores high pushed north moving all the bad weather up to where it's supposed to be... In the north - Scotland and Northern Ireland and at last for the first in months we had some proper weather. Sunshine 25 degree centigrade and blue skies!

We'd decided to go up the Midlands (Derby) to see the in-laws having had notifications by email and text messages that our matches were off, so this was the perfect opportunity to get up there and see them. But, somehow I'd missed the fact that Ben had a game on Sunday and it wasn't until we'd left and were half way up the M1 that Kieran Barbero's Mum sent a text asking "Is the U13's match off then"? So as soon as we go there I had to text Ben's manager Dave Ayres and explain that we'd cocked up. He then did say that it wasn't 100% that the U13's game was on and that it may yet be called off and sure enough by the end of Saturday we got notification that it had been called off as well because of the state of the pitch, so I felt a lot better about the situation as it felt as though we'd let the team down.

Joe's recovery update

I haven't posted any pic's of late of Joe's leg, so here's the most recent shot this morning. As I've said before the visual aspect of the recovery seems to have slowed down massively and the difference from one clinic visit to another is now very minimal. Overall though, Joe's doing well, since the consultant spoke to him, relating his condition to the astronauts and the way that their bones and muscle deplete because of inactivity, Joe's been ditching the crutches and hobbling around with out them when he's indoors, outside though he's still using the crutches, but he seems to be putting more weigh through the injured leg.

He's got his first physio visit at the hospital this Wednesday and we're all looking forward to seeing what they say, but a few people have said that they reckon by the time he gets back to school in early September he'll be walking around with a limp with no crutches or even a walking stick, which if it happens will be really good news. But for the moment he's still very reliant on his crutches and is missing out on so much, normally he's a very active kid and just today on day one proper of the 6 week holiday he already looks very fed up and is saying that he's bored and that he wishes that he could get into his new school.

A couple of days later... Just been to see the Physio at the hospital (Jill) and that's gone really well. She checked out his posture and the way that he's walking and where Joe's got deficiencies and over-compensating for the injured leg. His mobility in his ankles and knees are good and generally his strength in the bad leg is okay and only slightly behind where she expected it to be at this stage. So Joe's been given a list of bends, stretches and drills to do and we have another visit next week. Overall it went really well and again the message is that he's expected to be walking without any aids by the time he goes to secondary school. When we got home I suggested that Joe have a little go on his bike and he had a little go and said it felt weird - I think he's mostly worried about falling off and having to put the bad leg down quickly.

I've just gone through the physio routines with Joe and there was only one where he reported pain. Sitting on the floor with a green terra band around his foot with me holding the end he has to  push his foot away from me as at 2.56 in this vid. From the physio advice I've had from Liz Ward on www.bigcricket.com in the past I know that if there is pain then this shouldn't be done, so we adjusted the resistance so that it was much lower and then this was fine.

This is Joes wounds as they were on Monday. The top one is the inside of the leg with "The hole" to the left and the "Exit wound" to the right nearer the top of the leg and as you can see they're very slowly getting better. The physio today had a look at the scars and said that the exit wounds can and should be massaged to break down the scar tissue under the surface and showed Joe what he needs to be doing, which was good as this is one of the things I've been a little concerned with. The lower image is the impact wound.

The Paddock.

After months of rain the paddock at last has dried out enough for some work to be done on it. As usual the kids that try and play football in there, they run all over it and ruin it and for some reason dog walkers pretty do the same simply because the grass is short.

With some rolling though and the addition of a few buckets of water it came good and by the next day we were able to get the nets up for the first time and have a bit of a knock about.

Once the work had been done what with the temperature at 30 degree centigrade and 20 at night the moisture soon dried out and left us with a pretty smooth surface for Ben and Kieran to bowl on. The leg -side we leave a little rough so that the wrist spinners have got something to work with.

The nets had to be put up in a different way this year because the fence has been taken down and the council refuses to replace it and this took ages and I had virtually no help at all from the boys as they all mucked about as I put it all up.

Once up though it worked quite well and needless to say if it goes up again it'll be a lot easier 2nd time around.

Ben Transformation

This morning Ben left the house on the verge of being labelled a 'Bleedin Long Haired' and came back with a new hair cut, not only that having had it cut he looked taller than me and when we measured him at the age of 13 he's about 5mm taller than me!

Here's the new look Ben...

What a difference 20 minutes makes to your life, and this wasn't instigated by me, this was his own doing and he loves the new look and the way that it feels.

Fox in the back yard.

This is a bit off-topic, but a fox turned up in our garden in broad daylight and decided he'd have a snooze. He knew we were watching him out through the window, but he wasn't bothered although he kept and eye on us, he ended up being there for about an hour and half.

Stuck a net up outside the house

We stuck a net up outside the house so that Joe could have a bat. We stick a chair behind him in case he over-balances and it works quite well and most of his shots are leg side and it gives him a chance to have a bit of fun and gets him working with both legs and balancing all of which are good news and it's just good that he gets out and about doing stuf rather than being indoors doing nothing much at all.

It's good to see that Joe's now getting up and about doing things, we've been up North recently to see his Grandparents in Derby and his Granddad has set up a table tennis table and for much of the time we were playing table tennis and this again was encouraging Joe to balance and use the bad leg.

 

 

Check out my other blog here - this is all about Leg-spin bowling and nothing else. Double click on the image below.

 

Another victim of the rain

And there goes the last remaning match, just had a text from the U13's manager and the Orsett game has been called off, obviously whatever they had in place wasn't enough to survive the deluge. The rain has stopped now, but it's cloudy, but I think the forecast is for nice weather tomorrow. On the subject of weather, if you're interested and you like detailed forecasts, you should try these out.
http://www.xcweather.co.uk/ which is a specialist site for aviators
 Also Magic Seaweed - look at the "Charts" link. This is a site used by Surfers, both of which are very detailed.

And on and on and on...

Again another series of days when we don't have a 24 hour period when it doesn't rain. In the last 3 days and probably longer we haven't had a 12 hour period when it hasn't rained. All the matches at our club have been called off, the only one that remains is the U13's at Orsett and 12 hours ago we still hadn't been notified whether it was cancelled or not. It may be the case that they've got very good drainage and covers. This rain you see here followed a wet night till 1 or 2 am and then a lapse and this morning a sunny start and then 10.30 the clouds moved in and we've got this now for several hours and it's consistent and heavy. The sort that'll leave standing water on most pitches.

Joe update

Fracture Clinic appointment

Joe leaving the house today. His main question was - when are the pins coming out and how's it going to be done. Previously when he broke and dislocated his arm they were pulled out with a pair of pliers with no aneasthetic, so he's having visions of a similar approach.

Joe in the hospital waiting for the consultant.

 Over-head view looking down on to the shin.

Side view.

Thankfully I went in no real expectation of any major leap forwards and the overall feeling was just that. In the early stages, because of the nature of the wounds, it seems as though each time we went to the clinic there were dramatic changes, but then six weeks ago when we last had an xray we came away gutted. The wounds as you've been seeing have healed well, and we're now at the stage where they are almost all sealed, so the differences between each visit are now minimal. So much so I'm not even going upload any pictures of them. But today the main event was the Xray and again if I'm honest they were a little disappointing and yes this is really going to be a long process - at least a year. As you can see here, both the Tibia and Fibia are not that well alligned and again the consultant was no concerned and he's still 100% sure of a full recovery and the leg being normal once again in the future.

I think it's the fact that if you know about sports injuries, you know that people bounce back from these relatively quickly and it's only if you scroll back through the blog to here that you can refresh your memory of how bad this injury is and you see the situation from a realistic perspective.

So with that in mind think about the positives.

1. The scar tissue is nearly completely sealed and the bloke said not to look at the scar tissue now from an aesthetic point of view and think that this is how it's going to be, he was saying in a year, the difference will be dramatic. I asked about having the scars treated with massage and he seemed to agree that it was a good idea, but also seemed to think that this will be inlcuded in the physio stages of the recovery. Michelle asked about the physio and he said that this could now start and forms were filled in to instigate the physio. I asked about whether the scar tissue and wounds were such that they affected the muscle structure and he said that on the scans this wasn't evident.

2. The bones he was happy with and feels there's no issue. What he did say though was that Joe needs to be progressively looking to load weight onto the foot/leg. He explained to Joe, that in space where the astronauts are subjected to weightless-ness all their muscle tissue wastes away and calcium deficiency in the bones becomes an issue...

From - http://www.livestrong.com/article/362352-the-effects-of-zero-gravity-exercise/

Musculoskeletal Impacts

Even during periods of short duration in space, your muscles and bones begin to deteriorate. This is particularly true in your legs, which rapidly lose calcium in weightless conditions where they don't have much work to do. You'll lose muscle mass, and your bones will become weaker. You might lose up to 10 percent of bone in your lower limbs, according to the Canadian Space Agency. It's been estimated that astronauts risk losing two percent of their total bone mass for every month spent in zero gravity.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/362352-the-effects-of-zero-gravity-exercise/#ixzz20WuRmcTf

He then said that if Joe puts weight onto the leg, the body responds in that it feeds more calcium and hormones to the leg and the recovery process speeds up and becomes more efficient. Michelle asked - in that case could Joe remove the boot and walk around indoors without the boot putting weight through the injury and he said yes. So indoors now the order of the day is boot off and more weight, hopefully Joe will buy into it and do this. I'm trying to get him to have the leg up high as well when he's sitting around.

3. The Pins; The next appointment is at the end of August and the consultant has said that they'll then consider the removal of the pins, if the bones look good enough, it then maybe as little as a month and the pins will be removed. I think the procedure for the removal is general aneasthetic and a over-night stay?

4. Physio; This is to start soon it seems, it's just a case of waiting for the letter to come with the 1st appointment. This will be interesting as the physio's that we saw last time were hard-core, we were joking in the car that they'll have Joe hopping around the ward on his bad leg within minutes. But seriously these Physio's at the hospital don't muck about - they will have him doing stuff straight away miles out of his comfort zone, but I reckon he needs it, especially now that I know about the astronaut analogy.

5.Weight; I'm concerned about his weight, with no exercise and still eating in the way that he normally does, he is definitely putting on weight and this is something that we'll have to address.

In summary, it is a long process and I can see that it is going to take a year and that there's no way that he's going to be taking part actively in sports during the first months he at his new senior school. I was kind of hoping that by mid September he may be walking around without crutches, but increasingly that seems unlikely. But, everything is moving slowly forwards and the thing I'm looking forward to seeing is the physio taking place.

And on and on and on (The rain)

Rain Stops Play. When is it going to stop? It feels like we haven't had a 24 hour period when it hasn't rained for weeks now, maybe a month? Every day it rains at some point, most days, as it is now for hours and hours on end soaking every single cricket pitch in the area. I've got a match on Sunday and so has Ben, but with 48 hours to drain and dry the likelyhood is that all the matches over the whole weekend will be called off again!

Paddock
I had a look at the paddock the other day because the football kids had been on there, they still haven't got it even though we've lost yet another international competition. Lads it's a lost cause, that will never be helped especially by practicing on a pitch that is barley 70' long! Stamina is a part of what you need to be able to demonstrate, go and play on a full size pitch somewhere!!! Inevitably, with it being so wet and combined with the fact that it appeared that they had decided to stand on the wicket at the point where seamers would land the ball, the wicket was ruined, don't what they'd been doing but it was only in this area and they'd turned it to mud almost.

During one of the breaks in the weather, I went over and re-seeded the area and scattered top soil on it at dusk. Over-night it rained and this morning I had another look and the seeds and the top soil because of the rain all seemed to have merged into the surface, possibly setting up a situation for quick establishment of growth assuming the rain and sun carry on in this on off manner. I'll have to wait and see.

Joe's Leg

I've not posted anything on here for a while re Joe's progress with his leg. We've got an appointment tomorrow at the fracture clinic so we're hoping for some good news going forwards with the bone healing situation. The big open wounds are all now almost sealed and the only one that is still 'Wet' is the impact wound. We're not getting our hopes up too much as this has been called as a year long healing process, so there may be very little difference tomorrow, but some good news would be good. We'll have to wait and see...

And the rain goes on and on

All the matches that were scheduled for today were probably called off, I know mine was due to the pitch being saturated. Ben had a match scheduled for tomorrow which he was really looking forward to as 7-8 of the opposing team are on the same bus as him going to school. They're at another school so over the last couple of days they've all been winding each other up and Ben was gutted when the text came through saying the match has been postponed. It's raining now as I write and it's meant to do so all night with some places experiencing a months worth of rain in the one night, so it sounds highly unlikely that my match will be played.

Joe update

No pictures as the last set that were done last Friday didn't come out too well as my camera is on its last legs and the screen didn't work so I was unable to see if the images were in focus and they weren't. Michelle took Joe to the clinic this afternoon and another little milestone was reached. The "Exit wound" no longer has any plasters or covering on it and the other two the "hole" and the "Impact wound" only have water-proof plasters and there's no bandage at all. The two remaining wounds only have small areas of open tissue left that need to seal, so hopefully by the time we visit the fracture clinic all of the wounds will sealed up, that's not this Friday but the one following.

With no bandage on the wounds this has meant that the skin surrounding the scar tissue is itchy and this evening Joe was scratching it and was able to feel his leg and its physical shape and he got a little upset. At the moment where he should be feeling smooth continuous bone along the length of the leading edge of his shin, it feels as though under the skin - remembering that the tissue surrounding the bone would have come away from the bone in this instance, this is now fresh scar tissue and feels lumpy and irregular. He didn't like this and obviously wasn't expecting it to feel like that and he got a bit teary. I asked him if he was okay and he said that he was fed up with not being able to do anything. I suppose the combination of trying to cope with the on-going boredom and lack of options to him and with the realisation that his once perfect leg is now not so perfect found a little chink in his emotional armour and he got a little bit upset. On a more positive front though - on his last day the teachers (Aware of his new lack of bandage status) have said that he can join in with a session at the school pool, so hopefully that'll come to fruition. It should be okay as it'll be after the 13th when the next set of Xrays are done and a new mile post set? I'm not going to speculate what the outcome of the 13th will be, but I do hope it is one that has some obvious visual improvement in Joes situation and one where they set him new personal objectives that indicated a definite move forwards.

On the scar tissue front...

"Debbie," 35, came to me several years ago for help with what she thought was carpal tunnel syndrome. After observing a large scar on Debbie's wrist I inquired as to its origin. When she was nine years old she had put her hand through a window chasing her brother. After working on her hand for two sessions, scars from the glass cuts were reduced visibly by about 80 percent, she obtained range of motion back in her hand/wrist and the numbness was gone".

In addition there's a load of stuff on Youtube on the subject, so overall this sounds interesting for the coming months http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vMvAJYikxo

B&PCC U13's v Belhus U13's

Another win for the U13's with Ben making a good contribution with the bat having been put in at No.5 and taking a wicket with his first ball. Again whether I'll get it together to write this all up or not is another matter, but I'll have a go!

Ben batted with Stevie Wyatt and initially it looked a little risky with both of them looking to go big with the bat, running the risk of being caught, but then it seemed a discussion was had in the middle and their tactics changed. The field wasn't in or out and they started to just get the bat on the ball and poke it into spaces or hit it gently, starting to just look for singles and communicate well and it worked. Ben came away with a personal best of 11 and Stevie came away with the same score and both of them "Not outs". So as batting goes a good job done by Ben and he came away quite pleased with his contribution as a No.5

With his Bowling Ben did okay taking a wicket with the first ball of his spell dismissing the opening batsman (Need to check this when I upload the pic of the scores). He bowled four overs, two at the start and the final two at the end of the game. The last over he bowled really fast - a completely different approach to one that he adopted at Pegasus a few days before. He came away with 4-1-19-1 the maiden over was the second over. His batting mate Stevie Wyatt did well too, he came away with 2-0-8-2. Frank Farrington the Wrist Spinner came away with 4-0-22-1 his only wicket being a catch at square leg taken by Finlay Munro, who'd had a couple of chances off Franks bowling and didn't quite get there. But the star of the day with regards bowlingwas Kieran Barbero who came away with 4-2-14-3. His two maidens were made up of a wicket maiden and a double wicket maiden and all of the wickets were bowled.

The more adept batsmen of the team - did well, with Frank Farrington and Mark Broadhurst scoring enough runs to have to retire. Mark did really well, as he has had up and down fortunes as a batsman in the past, but looks to have been working on his batting and he scored a lot of his runs off of 4's through square leg which the oppo didn't look to stop.

Fielding overall was good with everyone trying hard and this was a win without the usual main players being in the side. The new lads made valuable contributions and worked hard to ensure a secure win. Overall I think the coaches and the manager were well pleased as this was against a perceived strong team and our boys were a player down.

Sunday 1st v Pegasus

I can't keep up with this blogging lark at the the minute!

Headlines - 4-0-28-2 for me, was on a hat-trick, the ball was driven straight back at me at just abover ankle height and I skipped out of the way! Keeper (Rousey) was in disbelief, reckoned I should have got down for that and caught it - pfft!

Good win with Frank Farrington bowling very well along with some good bowling from the others and some amazingly good batting from Phillip Took. If I can get my act together I'll write some more up-load the score book.

Back again trying to write this up at work with no access to pictures. An interesting game where Rousey gave everyone a bowl and I mean everyone except himself and Phil Tooke who I think is a very good bowler. Jack Farrrington was first up from the Vange end and bowled a tidy first over and then Rousey had me up for the second over bowling from the "Main Road " end. Again I went into this with no illusions of doing either good or bad, or with anything in my mind like "Don't forget to get up on the toes", I just ambled in and bowled in a way that I was comfortable with and again for the 2nd game in a row now it came out okay. Slightly daunting in that it was the 2 openers, but following the logic that openers don't expect to face spinners, it panned out to be a reasonable tactic, although it could have gone wrong! So whereas these blokes may have expected to take their time a bit, to settle into a rythmn against a new ball being bowled at pace, they had me bowling relatively accurately and getting the ball to turn a little. As a result in the time it took them to get settled I'd taken two wickets.

I took the first wicket 20 mins in getting N. Stapleton LBW off a Leg Break pitched up on the leg side that was blatantly going on to hit the stumps, so much so that I went up for it. This was a bit of a revelation for me as I never go up for LBW's, but this was so obvious that I did and after a few seconds of screaming, and watching the umpires brain ticking over the finger went up slowly for my first ever LBW wicket! He was then replaced by the No.3 - A Penny, a young bloke. The next one up was a leg break that bounced up and come off the top edge of a bat presented straight for a back foot defensive block, the ball went straight up, Rousey jumped up stopped its upward momentum, changing its direction and then juggled it again at least once before taking it. Thereafter the wheels started to come off a bit and one of the bats (No.2)? started to swing the bat a bit and in one over I got hit for 10 and Rousey quite rightly pulled the plug on my bowling leaving me at 4-0-28-2.

The star of the show though had to be Wrist Spinner Frank Farrington, having played over at Belhus this morning in the U13's and only taken 1 wicket he came into this game bowling against adults.