What happened.
For a start the weather has turned from being pleasant to a very brisk wind making it cold, but I was determined to have a bowl, so went out and bowled about 10 overs worth with Joe.
How did it go/feelings?
Depressing. After yesterdays success I took a camera out and had the intention of videoing it and it started out bad and went downhill until I got rid of the camera. Then the improvements weren't that good either, so overall a very depressing session.
Evaluation -
Not much good to take away from this at all, except that the Top-Spinner and the Googly were the best and most accurate deliveries.
Analysis.
Lack of focus and not relaxed. I had a crap day at work and my wife said that I looked like I had the hump. I did go out with the intention that it might relax me a bit and take my mind off of work. But then I remembered that I'd intended to go out with a plan to video the proceedings and bowl to an accuracy plan. What with the wind and the cold, setting up the camera and tripod depressed me even more and then Joe came over to have a bowl as well when I wasn't expecting him too. I tried to put a positive spin on that by acknowledging the fact that the time between his over and mine would be realistic and therefore re-creating a real bowling scenario.
With the camera running, the first ball was 7' wide of the stumps, possibly helped by the wind, but then so was the 2nd and 3rd ball and by then I was very wound up and not in a good place psychologically - certainly not relaxed. The camera continued to play up and bother me (Wind movement) and pre-occupy me and it wasn't until the SD card was full and the camera eventually taken out of the equation that I was able to focus on the bowling. By now I'd got to the stage where I was thinking the only positive to take out of this is the fact that it is exercise!
Eventually I thought about my grip and bowling with a looser grip and then things started to come together a bit better, but it was cold and miserable and I never really got into the zone.
Conclusion.
Don't try and film it when it's cold, only try that when the air is still and warm.
Action Plan
Go to training tomorrow night and try and be a little more relaxed. 2 hours or so in the nets, maybe focus on top-spinners, flippers and Googlies when bowling against the batsmen in the nets. Sloggers try and pitch the ball quite wide looking for edges and nicks?
