With so much bowling of late, I've had a rest tonight and had a bat instead. I was hoping that Joe would give the side arm a go as I'd discovered in the day that the bowling machine balls are dead easy to use with the side arm and he'd be able to throw a few down. Instead he hi-jacked the idea and said he's have a go facing it. So we set up and gave it a go. I thought he was looking to practice the cover drive so I kept throwing them down the off-side, but he got the right hump as he kept missing them and it was only once he'd ripped his pads off in disgust that he then said he wanted me to target the stumps! Anyway that aside, it was my turn, but then he couldn't get on with it and soon gave up and reverted to bowling himself...
Now normally that doesn't bode well as he mixes his bowling up loads and never lets me settle into one style and sure enough he was bowling me and getting me to do all sorts of daft stuff, but then I had a moment of clarity and thought... What if I start off with a really high back-lift ready and shift the angle of my body slightly (more side on) and just look to be a lot more positive and get my head in line with the ball moving my head towards the line of the ball once its released. I tried it and it worked! I was hitting the ball clean 90% of the time and timing it a lot better than I normally can, which is a massive improvement. Whether I can repeat the same thing again on another occasion remains to be seen, and then carrying it through to a game with other bowlers - again another matter, but with three ducks to my name so far out of three batting opportunities, I've got to try something different and this more positive approach can either bring results in some form or more ducks!!!
