Net Session

Nightmare! I don't know what happens - I seem to do okay outside on the grass and then when I get inside much of what I do goes wrong? Is it that I'm intimidated by the fact that so many people are watching? If so this isn't good. Somehow I've got to take some positives from tonight.

One thing that was weird was one of the blokes in our team - Neil Samwell who's one of the key figures in the team and I've got to say one of the friendlier blokes said as soon as I arrived that he'd been keeping an eye on the blog! So much so (And I think he's pulling my leg a bit) that he said he was disappointed by the gap in the blog activity through Dec and January and then was pleased that I'd started up again recently!!

So if you're having a read Neil, cheers for tonight it's good to have someone tell me what I'm doing wrong and giving some encouragement and advice as to how to correct it. Although I'm going to make a whole bunch of excuses now for how crap I was, but I do acknowledge what was said and will make an effort to do something about it.

One of the points Neil raised was that my walk in is wrong - I was doing the walk in and stop thing like I was doing last year in the nets. As far as I know when I bowl on grass I'm not as bad? But I would definitely acknowledge that if I'm trying to bowl Leg Breaks I do pull up short and have no follow through. I think what was happening tonight I was aware of the fact that My trainers were a bit slippery and I didn't want to go arse of tit. But once Neil had mentioned it and said give it a go and follow through I tried it and he said there was a difference/improvement. So I'll have to try this out. What I need to do is figure out how the little video camera I bought works and use it when I'm out on grass and check to see what my bowling looks like?

The other really frustrating thing was that I wasn't able to bowl a single flipper anywhere near the stumps, they all went flying off to Leg about 10 yards too long - why? God knows what I was doing? Yet earlier today on grass I was hitting the stumps and getting the ball to spin from leg to off all the time.

The more I think about it - it seems I get the yips when the pressure is on to perform. Yeah - this could be it - when I'm out on a field bowling on my own everything is fine. As soon as someone comes along and starts watching me it all goes to pieces - I start trying too hard. This is an observation I made earlier in the year, if I do things in a really relaxed manner it works fine, but as soon as I try and do stuff with a heightened sense of determination it all goes horribly wrong. So some how I've got to switch off from thinking about what I'm doing and who might be watching and just do it in a really relaxed and uninhibited manner.

So positives from tonight -

1. Other people in the team do care and do offer advice and encouragement and this bodes well for the new season especially if I can get out on the field prior to matches and practice.
2. The Flipper aside, my Top-spinners and Wrong Uns were fairly accurate and this is while everyone was watching.
3. I've now been made aware of the fact that my walk-in is problematic and I need to look at that as an issue as well.

Additionally........

4. If I get the Gloucester Park blokes all playing this summer in the evenings there's going to have to be some positive outcome to playing with and against them - the bloke who joined me on Sunday within a matter of minutes was giving me advice that seemed to make a lot of sense.

I just wish I didn't have to work on Tuesday nights as this means tonight will probably be my one and only net session - gutted.

One last thing - the balls; I've been discussing the size of balls with people on the internet and I know there are differences in sizes and I've mentioned it before in the context of playing with G&CCC saying that in the past the balls they use seem to be bigger. I seem to have to distinct sizes amongst my collection and when I'm trying to practice seriously I go for the bigger ones as they seem like "Real" size balls, but tonight I noticed (The flipper especially) the balls they were using seemed enormous! The flipper is the variation with the flick between the fingers and the smaller the ball is the easier it is to do this. Tonight not one of my flippers was anywhere near being acceptable - is it a size issue as well? I'm convinced it is.

Practice session

As predicted the weather was unbelievably warm and I made sure that we went over to Gloucester Park on the Tree Field and got some practice in using stumps for the first time partly to get the attention of any prospective players and the ground staff at the park. All in it was a very good practice session with some very consistent bowling (line and length) although I didn't record how good it was as I have done in the past. So it does look as though all my practice with the Top Spinners has paid off because they in particular are very accurate, but with an added bonus of just turning my hand only slightly they become Wrong Uns and very effective wrong Uns at that - they turn quite dramatically!

There did seem to be loads of council staff around, so hopefully word will get around and I'll get a visit from the bloke who helped out last year. I also noted that adjacent to the field there were a couple of bloke who were driving around and working using one of those 6 wheeled rough terrain vehicles. If I could just get them to make a slight detour everytime they to and fro from their main working area to the section our field is in and drive along the length of our wicket surely that would be beneficial in that it would flatten out and compress our wicket? It's something I'll have to work on.

So here we are Feb 12th and the first use of stumps and cricket balls!

Hopefully tonight in my one and only net session with my team I'll be able to replicate some of the bowling I managed today? I'll report back later.

15 degrees centigrade!

Strewth it's Feb 12th and it's going to be 15 degrees today!

Yesterday I took some pictures with Ben and Joe over at the field that we'll be using for cricket this summer and I'm just sitting here now thinking what I can do today to prepare for it. The area where the ball lands needs to be flat and smooth and I'm just wondering whether there's any point of going over there and flattening it some how? The ground is still very moist and wet and I suppose I could try and contact the council and see if they could help in some way? I'm wondering if there's any point in getting a piece of board and laying it on lumpy bits of the new wicket to be and just stamp on it to make it flatter? Or if there's any dips fill em in while the grass is still just about to start growing more rapidly?

Gloucester Park "Tree Field"

Gloucester Park is a big area and there's several places you can have a game of cricket. 2 official cricket pitches one with a pavillion (Murrayfields) and loads of open field areas including the area that I looked at last year called J field because of the peculiar J shaped mowing pattern that was there. Anyway this fields going to be designated as "Tree field" owing to the obvious trees that are adjacent to the wicket.





The first image here is looking SSW and you can see that the field is big enough but smack in the middle almost is a bunch of trees and these trees are in a position equivalent to an area between point and cover if you're at the southern end of the wicket batting which is a pain in the butt, but this is where these blokes play and the patch of grass that is the most even and most central is here.





The next image is looking in the opposite direction towards where the first shot was taken. My two sons are standing where the stumps will be and this illustrates the proximity of the trees with a fourth tree just out of shot on the right. It's not ideal but this field is very central to the town and is in an area only a few hundred yards from some more favourable fields that I'm hoping to maybe persuading these blokes to play or get them to play eventually on the real cricket pitches (again only a few hundred yards away). The other benefit of these fields is that they are right under the noses and within site of the council officials that work nearby on the council bowling greens. I've had loads of support from the council in the past and if I can propogate that support again this summer there is a small chance that I might even be able to get the council roll a wicket and even cut the field and wicket for us? It may be the case that the bowling green only at the edge of the field has a roller?




All in all apart from the trees this is a good venue with the potential for two teams to be formed here over the coming summer and having a bit of a laugh and some good games.

Watch this space.....

exercise log

Still can't get too excited about the prospect of exercise, I prefer to do it in situ.

I've been doing some pulling of those bands that physio-therapists give you behind my head to do my shoulder muscles and arms. Some L sits which I do in my kitchen while waiting for kettles to boil and stuff. Stretching exercises for my calf muscle which I'm doing more of and walking and running more than usual, but still pretty lightweight stuff.

Still being lazy. Bowled a lot today though.

Break through!

Again lovely and sunny and warm 13 degrees. So late in the afternoon I drove over to the field at Gloucester Park for a bit of a practice and look at the prospects of marking out and maintaining a wicket there this summer to try and encourage the blokes that play there to take their cricket a step further.

Got over there and there was no-one around, but the light was low in the sky and was picking out the lumps, bumps and undulations in the field allowing me to have a good look and make a decision as to where I might position the wicket. I found a relatively flat spot running in the same line as the blokes had their wicket last year but more towards the centre of the field. I measured it out and pressed some of those flourescent orange lucozade lids into the ground to mark out where the stumps will go. I set up some stumps and bowled a few overs to see if I could get someone's attention even at this early stage.

My bowling was pretty good which was nice, even the leg breaks looked okay, all in all it seemed pretty good with me hitting the stumps very frequently especially with the wrong Uns which I was getting to turn nicely (Maybe I'm Off spin bowler more than a leg spin bowler)? Anyway I kept bowling and was enjoying myself and had just delievered a nice Flipper hitting the stumps and I heard someone shout something in approval from the outfield. Looking round I saw one of the blokes from last summer and he came over and offered to keep while I bowled. It turns out that he bowls a Chinaman normally but screwed up his shoulder some years back. We threw some balls had a chat and he gave me some advice about my bowling saying that pitching the ball 5 yards/metres in front of the stumps was too short - it would allow the batsman to step back and hit the ball which is true as that's what my mate Nakul always did.

At the end of the session he said "Do you come over here often"? I said not normally and explained what had happened last year at Great Berry had kind of forced me to look at this field as a practice option. I then told him about my intentions of maintaining a practice wicket and that usually the council support me with this and that they'd even offered the use of the nearby council wickets free of charge if I was encouraging "Grass Roots" involvement in the sport. He asked if I'd be back next week or if I played in the evenings? I said yeah and went on to explain if he was up for it (Or indeed if he'd turned up earlier as the gear was in my car) I'd bring all my gear - bats, gloves you name it. He then said he'd bring his over as well next sunday and we'd meet up at 4pm.

So brilliant already and it's only February and my plan is swinging into action! Furthermore a couple of the blokes from our team last year - Rod the Aussie and Thomas are both syaing they're up for a knock about as well. So things are on the up!

Also, despite the fact that there's a group of trees right near the wicket and we'll have to play around/with them the field is quite a nice field surrounded by fairly mature trees so it's quite a nice location. There's always the option once I've got all these blokes on board that we change the location to another nearby field (J Field) which is only a few hundred yards away - that's big and open and flat and can be as big as we want it.

I just hope that the weather holds out and I can meet up with this bloke and get the ball rolling and get something really good going this summer.

Leg Spin

Leg Breaks - this is the one if you're a Leg Spinner you're meant to be able to do and it's the one that if I'm honest is the one I'm worst at. Over the last few months I've been talking to people on the www.simplycricket.net website and they've said that if I'm going to ever achieve my goals I'm going to have to somehow re-learn how to bowl leg breaks. I say re-learn because it is the ball/action that i started out with.

Recently I've been exercising my arms, shoulders and rotator cuff using specific exercises in order that I can stave off any injuries over the summer. I've also not been bowling, trying out the idea that if I have a break from it I might come back with a slightly different approach and this seems to have worked as today what with the weather being very mild and sunny I bowled some balls concentrating on the leg break.

The thing I seemed to have lost the ability to do was release the ball with the plam of the hand facing the batsman, so that when the wrist flicks the ball is release spinning from right to left. Today I made a point of trying to do this and had a great deal of success pitching the ball very wide of leg and making it turn into off and hit the stumps albeit over a very short distance. It seems if I can repeat this action and watch my follow through as that's also a bit ropey when bowling leg breaks I might be moving in the right direction again? I've been enthused by the success with getting the ball to turn and I'm now looking to follow this up with a concerted effort to crack this before the season so this becomes my stock ball.

I think I need to move away from having the flipper as my main ball. If I can use the leg break with the top spinner as my main balls that can then leave me with the flipper and the Wrong un as "Surprise balls" to pull out of the bag in situations that might call for the added variety. Hopefully this weather is going to continue into tomorrow in the same way as there may be a chance for some bowling against one of the old MPA 1st XI blokes - Thomas. He's the bloke that was always able to knock me all over the park. So tomorrow could be fun.

exercise log

Knackered - 12 hours almost non stop teaching. Got home at 21.45. There's no chance that I'm going anywhere tonight. At best I'm going to do some stretches and a plank or two. I'm going to struggle with that I reckon. Calf muscle stretches I reckon will be my limit.

Fitness intentions and ideas

There's football field just a few yards from my house so I reckon I may start my exercise regime there - but a better idea might be to do my training at the field or near the field where there's a big bunch of blokes (22-24 of them) who play informal cricket - the blokes I want to get playing real cricket this summer (See earlier posts). That way I can get a sense of how often they play, when they play and try and make friends with them so that I can make the propostion?

Check out www.gloucesterparkcricket.blogspot.com

Anyway that aside. What I'm going to do as I am so unfit is probably walk a circuit the first couple of times as fast as I probably can (Power walking)? over a period of 20 minutes. Then as I begin to get fitter intersperse jogging with sprints and walking trying to emulate what happens in cricket matches.

I've not mentioned warm ups have I? - I'll do those as well beforehand.

More to follow.....

February update

Gutted!

I've had computer problems for the last month or so and haven't been able to get on-line and pick up emails and what have you. So yesterday I was able to check my emails and was really pleased to see that my main team I play for (Grays & Chadwell) had a date for this seasons net practice sessions and the first session is on the 5th of this month. I went to bed excited about the prospect at last of being able to bowl at someone rather than a target, I lay there contemplating talking to all the other leg spinners and maybe even getting some coaching in some form or at least some kind of feedback and then it dawned on me - the 5th.... That's soon...... That's at the start of the week? I then realised it was probably Monday or Tuesday - both nights and the only nights when I work till 9pm. The nets start at 9pm. Gutted! Absolutely gutted!

I'm now trying to think how I can get out what I'm doing or shift what I do to another day. But it doesn't look promising.

Fitness

It's gone down the pan. Over Christmas I did okay, I didn't over eat and felt so much better for it and didn't drink either so on that front I did better than any previous year. Everybody round this way suffered from either flu or sickness with the diaorhea and I managed to avoid that as well, so that was a result as well. But I just got the post Christmas blues and felt like doing nothing but sleeping. Additionally I'm still concerned (Or paranoid) about damaging my arm/shoulder through over-doing the practice, so it suited me to do virtually nothing for a month and then once I started to do the pre-habilitation exercises for my calf muscle injury from way back in September I then realised that there is some serious work to do there because the muscle now feels amazingly taught in comparison with the other leg. So January was written off on the fitness front and I've noticed at work if I simply climb three flights of stairs at work I'm huffing and puffing and my hearts beating fast.

So right now this moment I'm probably the most unfit I've ever been in my life and I've now got 3 months to address the situation.

What I intend to do is log my route to fitness here and possibly on the www.simplycricket.net where I'll be seeking advice and guidance.