Joe update

Joe

As I expected, Joe’s taken a few steps backwards psychologically. Rather than focus on the fact that it’s only going to be a matter of a week or so and the scar wounds will cease to hurt and be virtually healed, he’s pre-occupied with the idea, that now the pins have been removed his leg is so weak again he can no longer walk and today he was off to his Great Nans with a crutch. At the moment even with us cajoling him, he wont put any significant weight through his leg. In the short term I’m not overly concerned, as in the days since the op he’s been gradually bending his knee more and more and therefore increasing his mobility. He went through a stage because of the rigid knee where he though his leg was twisted, but with the increased mobility with his knee this fear has diminished. The only reason he’s not moving the knee joint is that the ‘Entry’ wounds are still fresh and tender so any movement in that area means the stitches are strained, so that’s understandable, but we can’t let him develop a psychological concept where he convinces himself that without the pins his leg is weak and next to useless. Thankfully the physio appointment is pretty soon and those girls don’t muck about and they’ll have him in tears initially, but they’ll get him back on track and doing physio.

There’s obviously some cause for caution though and that’s the reason I’m not pushing him too far because I have no medical concept of where the injury is at, but they have clearly stated that he cannot do any contact sports, and he can’t run around, kick balls or do anything  active in the short term. I don’t know if that’s on the basis of something they have observed looking at his Xrays on an individual basis, or whether that’s just common sense precautions applied to anyone in this situation and a way of easing him slowly to the stage where the full recovery and sports can resume, which at the moment sound like mid to late Feb (6 weeks from Op day).

I’m going to have to contact his PE teachers at school and make sure they know the situation and don’t go putting him in goal again!

The next day

Joe had a good day when I made the entry above, spent most of the day on his feet and bending his knee, helped by the fact that the bandage has come off now and enabling him to bend his knee more. This morning he was sitting watching the tele with his knee bent at 90 degrees, so, good progress. He’s still walking around as though he’s still fearful of his leg breaking – limping, but Michelle said that during the day he was being told to put more weight through his leg by everyone and she says that he has been albeit slowly. I reckon in time it’ll come good and needless to say when the Physio’s get hold of him they’ll push him a lot further.

 

Joe - no more pins!

Up early today and drove through the sleet, to get to the Hospital for 08.00. When we got there, it seemed that the appointments had been made so quickly the nurses on the ward didn't even have records of who we were, but they soon sorted it out and we were allocated a bed.

A surgeon and an aneathetist soon turned up drew arrows on his leg and sorted out the skin ready for the canula to be put in. After some checks, around about 09.00 I went down to theatre with him, but, that was after we'd gone through the usual worse case scenario  talk. In this case it was...

1. The bone could be fused to the metal and the removal might prove to be so intrusive so as to not warrant its removal and therefore it may stay in.
2. The metal might break and he may have to have bits of it left in there.

The canula went in fine and he was out for the count. Then it was a case of 1/2 hour plus recovery time if it goes well and no problems or up to 1.5 hours + recovery time if it doesn't go so well plus recovery time. Thankfully, on the hour we got the call to go down to the recovery room and everything had gone well, with the pins coming out easily. Once back to the ward Joe said that the only bit that was hurting was the entry/exit holes where the pins had been removed from. With one of these, they'd been able to re-open it exactly at the point where it had gone in, but the second one they'd had to create a new hole, so that'll be another small 10mm scar. But, that was it, the fact that two bits of metal had been pulled through his flesh either side of his tibia didn't seem to be an issue.

Within the next hour he was eating and drinking and then at lunch he had a full dinner. After lunch we had notifcation that there wouldn't be a physio coming round to see him, so we decided that after what happened last April, we'd get him started with getting out of bed and up on his feet as soon as possible so as not to lapsed into a state of self pity. We knew that once he sat on the edge of the bed after all the drugs and lying down for a few hours he'd feel sick and sure enough he did, but once he was over that, he soon decided that he needed to go to the toilet, so seizing the chance to set him off on the right route we made him walk to the toilet with virtually no assistance!

The nurse soon came across again and said... "As he's doing so well, I'll get the release forms and you can go". So we were out of there by 2.30pm. While I was getting the car the consultant saw Michelle and gave her a lists of do's and dont's.

No sport, contact games or running for the next six weeks.
Yes get the weight on the leg ASAP
The bandage can come off in two days time.
The protective film that's on the wounds stays on till the next appointment at the Fracture Clinic (Next Friday).
Keep the leg out of the shower/bath till the clinic appointment.
Physio is next Wednesday.

So it looks like we're into the next and hopefully final phase of Joe's recovery. Talking to him today he was saying that when he runs and is active he's been able to feel the pins below the skin. So fingers crossed the limp will over the summer and by the end of the summer he'll be playing cricket and surfing in Cornwall.

Pre Op check for Joe

I've been at the hospital this morning with Michelle and Joe for the pre-op briefing. Everything sounds okay apart from the recovery time. For some reason the impression we had was that he'd be at the hospital for a day and that was it. I've already said previously that I was wondering how it would leave Joe feeling and speculated that perhaps he'd be back on crutches for a while, but today the nurse said that he'd be at home for 2 weeks recovering which is a bit of a shock as we both work and we're now having to consider taking more time off. The only caveat was that the nurse said that the consultant would give us more specific times, but I have been on-line looking at forums (Motorcycle accidents) and their experiences and it looks as though it may be a 2 week off period...

Joe update and general news

I'm getting a little slack with this at the moment. although cricket-wise there's not a lot going on to be fair, but I'll get back to that in a minute.

Joe

Just before Christmas we attended the fracture clinic for another assessment of Joe's leg and to see whether his pins could be removed soon as the expectation would be that the remaining calcium growth that needed to happen in the little gap would have happened by now. Sure enough the xrays were done and the surgeon was more than pleased at the progress and said that we'd get an appointment for a day in January.

The procedure will mean general aneasthetic will be used and the legs opened up again at the small scars where the pins went in back on April 6th 2012. Obviously they'll be as inobtrusive as possible and the scars will heal in a similar small size. The likelyhood is that Joe will have to rest all of the day, perhaps over-night as well if he ends up suffering any pain, but on the other-hand the procedure may go so well, he'll be able to leave in the afternoon or evening.

I have no idea of how this is going to go pain-wise, I'm hoping that it's going to be nothing like back in April/May where Joe suffered a lot. It also strikes me that it may affect him psychologically, he may believe that the pins are holding his leg together and with the removal he may feel that he's been set back? I've not said anything about this and I'm hoping that he'll get up and carry on as usual and that perhaps there wont be any need for physio's to be on hand to get him walking again?

What upsets me though, looking at these Xrays is that it looks like his bones from this angle appear to be offset and not aligned that well? Whether that's just a perception of mine or a reality I don't know, but I suppose I have to be greatful that he's alive and that the damage isn't worse. But deep down it worries me that he is still limping. Looking at these images and knowing how badly the body needs to alligned correctly in order to function well, I'm wondering whether it may be the case that he is going to end up with a permanent limp. The hospital is very non-commital with these aspects of the recovery, always refering back to the fact that being young he has very good potential for a very good recovery, so I suppose I can't dwell on this and will have to hope that next Monday (We had notification today) all goes well and with the pins out and a the recovery being predicted as a year or longer, the limp will gradually fade as he reaches the full recovery period.



Cricket prospects this year

I've spoken about body alignment above in the section about Joe from a position of possible knowledge. Added to the other two ailments and conditions I've developed in the last year that may scupper my chances of being active this year in the sport I've got an additional condition. My right foot has developed a dull pain/ache on the pads between the points in the image below (White crosses) A & B. The sensation is more 'Uncomfortable' than painful and it gives a sense that it will become painful and therefore there's a desire to scrunch the toes up in order to alleviate the pain/sensation.


Previously I'd suffered Plantar Fasciitis (see below) where the main muscles/tendons connect the toes to the heels, this series of muscles needs to be flexible, but become compromised by the tightening of calf muscles in my case, and the tightness causes tearing in the muscle fibres between the toe and heel and around the heel.

Feeling the plantar of my right foot I can feel what seems to be either a knot or scar tissue  mid-foot. Which is a result of my previous episode? I'm not suffering the same symptoms this time and I reckon it may be due to over-compensating for some kind of in-balance in my stance and the way I walk. Incidentally I had some photo's shot at a studio where I had to stand upright and straight and the photographer commented that I wasn't standing straight. Additionally, as a part of keeping the PF at bay I massage my calf muscles sporadically and I've noticed that the calf muscles on my left leg are ridiculously tight and knotted. I reckon a visit to the Doctor is on the cards otherwise I can see this year being a write off.

Ben

Ben will be 15 this year and obviously becoming more and more of an independent person trying to find his own identity and way through life, seperate from his Dad (me) and his brother, so there's the potential that he could easily drift away from cricket which I hope don't happen, I'm still holding out for that chance to play in a few games with him. But a couple of days ago we had a few chuck downs and he picked up the bat and he looked in good touch "Haven't lost the ability to bowl yet Dad", being a positive comment he made that I was pleased about. So, hopefully we'll be able to drag him away from Youtube as the season arrives and get him doing some stuff?

Eye-in bat.

I had an old bat in the garage that had a split up one side and I took that into work and a bloke cut it down for me,making it into one of those eye-in bats for Joe. It's got a nice feel to it despite being cut down slightly for Joe's height. Hopefully as Joe recovers he'll get some use out of it and his batting may improve a little.

Wrist Spinners Diary

Stuart Macgill

I've not posted on here much of late, there's a few things happening which if you read earlier entries you'll have some idea about what they are. To be honest the main hinderance is the XBOX and Battlefield 3 - pretty compulsive stuff and the fact that at work it just seems to be mental and that's in part down to the political landscape in this country, but I'm not going to get into that on here. But the BF3 thing is something that I need to curtail. I do think though that I suffer from a negative mind set during the winter and I look forward to December 21st and the fact that on the day is the shortest of the year and from them on we're heading towards the summer, so a part of me is pleased that day is approaching. Hopefully I'll buck my ideas up a bit and get blogging again.

But one good thing is that Stuart Macgill has surfaced on the internet ready to discuss wrist spinning and so far has done so with gusto and seemingly is surprised at the calibre of the discussion. At this point the people that he seems to be speaking about are the blokes that are a part of the forums that I'm intregral to and as part of that, Stuart has joined my little forum here. At the moment he's looking at Frank Farrington's bowling and analysing it and hopefully he's going to be coming back to me to give me some ideas about helping Frank with his bowling. He's had a look at one of my videos and he's already given me some feedback which hopefully I'll be able to implement in the nets in January and carry forward to the spring and the new season.

Fitness

At the moment its poor. I've still got it in mind that this may be my last season  attempting to be a bowler and if that's the case, I don't see that I'd ever get a game on the basis of my batting! So at the moment I'm planning a strategy to get my fitness back on track. Over October Ben and I had a pull-up competition and initially whatever he could do I could always go two better and then one day he got in front of me and I just didn't have the fight or incentive to put in the effort to pursue him and he's now officially better at pull-ups than I am. (No-where near the level I was at in my mid 40's though).  My main concern though is my upper arm muscles (Deltoids) as mentioned before, it was the deltoids that seemed to let me down last season. Looking at some of the vids on Youtube at physios and body builder advice, it seems to be an in-balance. The exercises and drills that I do seem to emphasis the deltoid around the shoulder rather than down the arm, so the arm area remains weak, so I'm looking to build up extra strength there.

Looking at some of the videos of me the year before last though, one of the things that I can see now and that other people have pointed out is that my arm speed is very slow, this is probably because I was looking at other aspects - wrist position and my action through the crease. Thinking all this through and knowing that I did try every now and then to increase my arm speed, it may be that I am too old to bring this aspects back into my bowling? I'll just have to put in the time to work on the arms and see how it pans out, if it works - that connected to the stuff that Stuart Macgill has said about me action I may have a half decent season ahead of me if the rest of my body holds out?

Joe

Joe's doing well, he's now starting to do PE at school which was initially almost a disaster. Joe had a new PE teacher come in and within his first few sessions the bloke had spotted Joe and the fact that he wasn't doing PE and probably though that he was a shirker or one of those types that think that their fitness and health is of no consequence at all and that they don't have to look after themselves at all because they'll just go to the NHS and get themselves all fixed up. Those days are coming to an end pretty soon I reckon, there's clamour for denying people free access to the NHS if you ailments are self inflicted (Beer, poor diet and fags) and a little beyond that you can see that you may be omitted if you've failed to keep yourself fit? Anyway that aside, the bloke then said to Joe "Next lesson you come in with your PE kit". Joe then comes home all excited at the prospect that - at last for the first time since April he finally gets a chance to be included in the lesson somehow. We were initially excited thinking it was his main PE teacher, but then reading between the lines I realised that it was a new bloke and that perhaps the scenario as described may be being played out? So as a precaution I wrote a letter for Joe to take to school to give to this bloke. In the morning still concerned and knowing how busy teachers are I also wrote another email to his Head PE teacher saying "You know the score - make sure you forward (Another detailed account with links to the photo's on this blog) this email to the new bloke. I got an email from the head PE bloke the same morning saying that he'd forwarded the email. So it seemed to be sorted. All the communications said that we'd love Joe to be doing something but no contact sport or anything that might impact on his leg.

That evening...
"Joe, how did it go at PE - what did you do"?
"Football".
"Okay, so what did you have to do"? Kind of wondering what Joe might have done.
"I told him that my leg was broke and he said, no you're be alright - when did you do it? I told him back in April and he said - Yeah you'll be okay now. I said, no Sir, I can't run about, so he said Well - you can be in goal then. So he put me in goal".
"Jesus - didn't he get messages! Were you okay - did you save any or get hit by any of the strikers or other players"?

"I don't know - he didn't seem to have - he put me in goal, and nah, I let a couple in, I didn't want to get hurt". Michelle then chipped in saying that at 4 o'clock, the new bloke had rang saying that only at the end of the day had he read the letter that Joe had handed him and then saw the email and he couldn't do enough to apologise and kept saying "I'm sorry - I'm so sorry". Luckily Joe hadn't been hurt and so it was okay. Since then,because Joe is getting better and is now starting to run a bit albeit with a limp, Joe gets involved in PE by being the linesman and stuff like that and upper body stuff that he feels is within his ability, so there's some good progress being made.

 This is the exit wound and the area where the surgeons accessed the leg to stick it all back in, nip bits of his bone off and try and repair it. (Above).

 This is the big hole and the scars either side of it are where Joes flesh split because his leg bent so much it ripped open the skin/tissue before the bone snapped.

This one above is the impact scar which doesn't get mentioned that much as it never really seemed to be that much of an issue, but you can see there's a big vein here, only just below the skin.

 

 

The images here were taken today 2nd Dec and show how the scars are coming along. It's difficult to judge how well it's coming along or get any sense as to whether there's any real hope that they'll improve much more than this? Fingers crossed they will.

The other good news is that Joe has at last started to do ‘Exercise classes’ as part of his physio. These classes are far more dynamic in comparison with his physio drills that have been set at home. Unfortunately I don’t go along and see what’s happening so I get the story later. But, there’s a lot more stress being put on his leg these days and the last class included bouncing on a trampoline and jumping up and down. I noticed too last weekend when he was playing football outside the house with some small boys, that when he does things like this he limps less and looks a lot more agile, so it looks as though things are coming along slowly and steadily. Sometimes it feels like this has been going on for year, but it is only just over ½ a year now in a year-long process and that’s the best case scenario! So with a bit of luck and some work and the removal of the pins not setting him back somehow in January in 5 months-time in early April we’ll have the old Joe back – the one that plays football, cricket, rides bikes and runs around the streets!

Injury Updates

Joe first

Joe's doing well. As yet we've still not had any NHS exercise physio sessions, where he's supposed to be doing specific exercises aimed at strengthening his leg. We go along to the usual physio visits where the girl/bloke has a look at his progress, asks loads of questions about how he's getting on and what have you and then sets him a new series of slightly more challenging drills to do.

With regards the inuries and how they look here's an update

This is the whole area with the exit wound at the top and 'The hole' at the bottom (Right). It looks different in different light, in this image with the light coming in from the side you can see that it's not all filled in as yet, but it's getting there.

 In these images I've used a penny to give some sense of perspective and possibly over time show how the wound either does or doesn't shrink. The image here above is the Exit wound, which is coming along quite nicely. Joe does the massage of the scars himself, I offer to do it but he says that I massage it too hard and it's sore. Over the months watching him do it, it has been obvious that he has gradually increased the pressure he puts into the massaging, so hopefully what he is doing is beneficial. The issue with this scar is that it's directly over the area that was snapped, so it is still healing and it is tender and there's very little skin over the top of the bone in this region.

 This is the what was 'The hole' have a look at the May entries in the blog if you want to see why it was called 'The hole'. Again this was very tender and sore when Joe started with the massage, but bit by bit he's been working at it from around the edges working into the middle. I helped a couple of days ago and noticed that the scar tissue either side of the hole where the Reebok stitches were was quite lumpy beneath the skin and Joe allowed me to do the massage and within a matter of seconds it went from being a hard lump to almost not noticeable. Joe noticed the difference and he's started on this area as well. It would be nice if in the longer term the tissue did grow back and this hole was able to fill in properly or at least with level with the surrounding skin. At the minute he's not fussed about the scars, so we have to keep him working on them because I think in the longer term he'll probably prefer it if they were minimised as much as they could be.

Physio

The physio that he's doing at the moment is primarily about getting his thigh muscles working and getting strength in his ankle so that he can walk properly and we can see that he is getting there bit by bit. One of the drills we've been doing is to simply balance on the bad leg. Initially he couldn't do it at all in August some time, but he's been able to do it now for 174 seconds in one go. With that record being set I've adapted the exercise and introduced a bit of a cricket element to it. What we do now is that, I face him as he stands on the bad leg and I throw a ball to him and he has to catch it and throw it back whilst balancing on the bad leg. The idea is to do this as many times as possible without setting the good leg down and the record after 2 days of this is 15 throws and catches. This new version seems to be getting him to use the inside of his foot more as at the moment he primarily balances using the outside of his foot.

The paddock

Unfortunately there seems to be a couple of people that use the paddock to exercise their poxy dogs and it always seems to be Staffordhsire Bull Terrier owners. Despite the fact that I've pointed out to them that I try and maintain a wicket in there and that it's quite important to us that it's not torn up by dogs. One Woman even acknowledged that she should not have her dog in there anyway as it was a sport/play area and not designated for dogs to crap in and ruin. But despite this - she still goes in there and stands on the wicket area and throws sticks along the length of the wicket (Nowhere else) so that dog runs up and down it tearing the grass up! Despite this and probably helped by the fact that we've not been in there a lot this summer it's recovered a bit despite very little intervention on my part.

The two images above were taken a couple of weeks ago.

The images here were taken at the weekend just gone.

 

At the batting end I've put down some organic matter and hopefully this'll help to level it up a bit and promote some growth of the grass. In these images above you can see that on the right hand side where the fence posts are there's some brambles and trees growing on what's left of the fence and it casts a shadow across the grass where we bowl. Again with the light being limited there because of the bush growth the grass doesn't grow so well, so I've had to trim back the brambles and I'll probably cut back the bushes to get some light in there.

The pictures below are more recent and we've suffered a set back. A large group of youths all about 16-18 years old turned up in the paddock at the weekend and spent a couple of hours playing football in there. They know we have a wicket there in the summer and it does feel like they're being vindictive because like the dog owners they seem to focus on stomping all over the wicket area and in this incidence it's all over the area where I'd put seed down and its on Ben's bowling length. I suspect that by the time May comes I may be able to get it back into shape, but if they are to return again over the coming 6 months it may end up being too much?

This is how it should look if it wasn't for the dogs and the football. I've thought about setting up somewhere else, just outside the paddock on the road verge there's a decent bit of flat grass which is ideal for dogs and I could mow and maintain a wicket there, but it would be so much harder to put then nets up there. Or I could contact the council and ask if I can set a wicket up over at the Rec across the way from the cricket pitch, I'm sure based on what they said before and the help that they've offered me before they probably would say okay, but again it's the nets situation that is the problem.

My own fitness

I had a bowl yesterdy and today, over at the Rec in the old tennis courts and the issues that I've highlighted previously with regards to bowling with my arm and wrist twisted emerged again. It's obvious that will need to address this and do something different, so the plan to bowl Top-Spinners and Flippers looks like the way to go, because these cause no problems at all. Other things that are causing niggles are... The pads of my feet - the soft tissue area to left of the ball of my foot on the right foot seems to bruise easily at the minute. That might just need a change of footwear, but I'll have to keep an eye on that. My hip also still twinges - sciatica piriformis, so again as I ease back into training hopefully some of these things will be okay? But, I am aware that maybe this is the beginning of the end, I'll just have to wait and see.

Shane Warne set to bowl again and talks spin

http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/content/current/story/587733.html

Shane Warne had a bowl in the MCG nets on Tuesday. At 43, he is slim and fit, but he has plenty of rust to shed over the next couple of months, before his first match as captain of the Melbourne Stars. Even the greatest legspinner the game has seen was unable to land his first ball, a full toss. As Warne has been saying ever since his retirement, spin bowling is damn hard. Spinners need to be treated with patience.

Read the full article via the link above.

That's another season gone...

Well, that wasn't that good. The season on April 5th looked pretty good all round, on April 5th I was feeling pretty fit and doing all the exercises and training to be ready for the start of the season. Ben, Joe, Kieran and Oliver Bybuke were all up for training sessions pre-season and we were all doing really well and then April 6th came along and Joe was run down by that car.

Straight away that threw a spanner in the works and all the normal things that we'd have done were scuppered. Joe obviously needed a lot of care and our lives this year changed. I tried to train a little and do as much as I could to keep fit, but there just wasn't any time. Ben carried on playing and had a really good season with his bowling and moved his way up the batting order and founding himself batting as high as number 6 on odd occasions.

I missed Joe massively, Joe would have generally been up for having a knock around and in those instances where Joe would have been with us, Ben would have joined in too, but without Joe there, Ben was never that inclined to join in and he only ever joined me over at the paddock on the odd occasion. The same applied with practicing over at the Rec, once the accident had happened that all stopped and prior to the accident that was going well, with Frank Farrington and Oliver Bybuke joining in with us.

All these things meant that in comparison to previous years I was physically not that well prepared which was gutting because I'd got to a point where my run-up was coming together. Despite that, I still played in a handful of games and bowled okay in a couple of them, but for the most part it was pretty poor verging on disasterous. The other factor was the weather, with many people saying that it was the worst start to a cricket season/summer ever with many pitches saturated with water or under water for most weekends right through till July. It seemed that throughout the earlier part of the summer 3 days didn't go by with out it raining and those three days tended to be cool and cloudy. That then compounded the fitness situation and lack of activity meant that by mid June I was bowling and by the end of the first over I was stressing my upper arm muscles. Despite this situation I kept at it for the rest of the season and by the end of the season it was obviously an issue.

Once the season finished I eased up a bit and tried to figure out whether it was my rotator cuff or my Deltoid as it did seem to be isolated to the Deltoid. But, there were symptoms that suggested that it was the Rotator Cuff as I was suffering from the same kind of symptoms as I'd done 3 or 4 years earlier when I was learning the Wrong Un. Having a good look at what was going on,I deduced that the stress was being caused by bowling the Leg Break and having to bowl with the arm twisted in order to get the ball spinning. I then eased up on bowling Leg Breaks which hadn't gone at all well this season and focused on getting the Top-Spinner working,as I'd tried it in one or two of the last games I'd played in and took wickets with it. The other observation was that I could still bowl the bog-standard back-spinning Flipper and do so with some speed without causing the Deltoid issues. So, at the moment it looks like I'm going to go into nets this Winter focusing on bowling Top-Spinners and Flippers and see how that pans out. The other interesting aspect to going back to bowling the Top-Spinner is that the method by which I impart the spin is slightly different to that of my leg break. My Leg Break is bowled using the 2 up 2 down finger configuration as desrcibed by Warne and Jenner with a loose grip. Whereas, my Top-Spinner is bowled with a far more 'Fingery' technique where the ball sits in the hand a lot more higher and less in the palm, meaning the spin is put on the ball using a more finger tip approach rather than the callous inducing 3rd finger approach. But, what I have found is that I can get far more accuracy using this method and by just twisting my wrist a little either way, I can produce a decent Leg Break or Wrong Un with ease and not suffer the Deltoid issue. But, what I need to do is over the winter develop a nice flick with this technique using both the fingers and the wrist to get the revs on the ball and see how it pans out.

Positives from the season include marginally more confidence with my batting and possibly a slight improvement? The other things is that my fielding is still okay with the ability to still dive around and stop the ball with full on committment - sometimes maybe a little over the top and therefore earning the nickname "Superman" given to me by Liam Rouse who captained me a few times this year.

Plans

This winter and summer have seen the least amount of bowling ever and whereas at this time of the year I would normally still be bowling, I've done virtually nothing. I'm going to continue with this approach over November and just work on core strength and upper body strength, with some attention given to my legs as well as weak thighs cause knee issues and lower limb issues too. For the upper body stuff I'm competing with my older son Ben to do the most pull ups on a door bar and we're both at 11, but increasingly it looks as though he is going to go ahead of me at some point. He's now 14 and taller than me and triumphs that he's had so far have been...

1. He bowls better than me (Winner of the Under 15's bowler of the year).
2. He runs faster than me.
3. His batting high score is better than mine.

He's still not beat my best performance in a game though 4-27 off of 7 overs

 

I'm sure it wont be that long before he beats my records that were set back in 2009. I'm beginning to feel that I'll never get to bowl in the same way again, but then again, these bowling figures were set using Flippers, Top-Spinners and Wrong Uns (No Leg Breaks).

The other part of the winter plan to ensure I'm fitter will be loads of stretching and Yoga style routines for flexibility and core strength. Hopefully Joe will be ready for cricket come April when the season starts and maybe we'll all have a decent year where we produce some PB's?

Joe scars and update

This is how Joe's scars are coming along. It's a slow process, like the bones themselves, but he's slowly getting there. He's using Bio Oil and rubbing in and around the scar areas, but because the skin in this area is relatively thin over the bone it's really quite sensitive and to be honest Joe's a bit of a wuss, when it comes to these things. But all things considered I think he's doing okay. There's a marked difference in the areas where he feels he can massage the scar tissue hard and the areas where it's still tender. But as the soreness/tenderness fades he moves in and rubs/massages with more vigour. Fingers crossed with the massage he'll be able to improve the look of the scars and help to fill them in because they are still big dents in his flesh as such.



More thoughts on Drift

Here's some thoughts on Drift over at a forum I started

I don't know what it is Gundalf: perhaps something to do with the 2-piece balls Sean uses for practice. The seam is quite prominant. Maybe the ball surface has other characteristics that make it behave that way.

Dave, you'll probably get your head around it more if you consider that the Magnus effect is at its maximum when the ball is moving through the air perpendicularly to the axis of rotation. I've recently been writing about drift and it'll be here with images and diagrams hopefully illustrating what's going on with http://www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/wrist-spin-bowling-leg-break.html
30th Dec 2015


Taken at one extreme (top spin) the axis of rotation is horizontal and across the pitch, so the ball is being forced down throughout its flight.

At the other extreme of pure side spin, the axis of rotation is along the pitch and the Magnus effect is not active while the ball is moving essentially parallel to that axis of rotation (ie the first "flat" portion of flight). It is only when the downward component of the flight starts to increase that the magnus effect comes into play in this case. As the vertical speed of the ball increases in the later part of the flight, the ball will start to move towards the leg side (for a RH leggie) because the ball is now moving perpendicularly to the axis of rotation more quickly.

For a 45 degree angle on the seam, there is a component of the Magnus effect working throughout the flight of the ball, but it's higher on the downward path of the delivery than the initial upward and flat path.

Because the downward path of the flight is so vital for drift on a side spinning and 45 degree spinning ball, it's imperitive that a good loopy flight is offered. Without that initial upward and subsequent flatter component to the delivery, there will be no late drift in the flight (there may be constant drift, but it won't be significant nor particularly tricky to handle).

It all comes down to the flow of air ACROSS the axis of rotation.

To get drift from a ball that will also turn off the pitch, there must be a loopy flight so that downward speed has a chance to increase during the delivery. It's the change in vertical speed that alters the drift in the air for a side-spinning delivery.

Cheers,
Graeme

Read more: http://spin-bowling.boards.net/index.cgi?board=discussions&action=display&thread=22&page=1#ixzz28byO84YA

I'm still struggling to get my head round drift, but this explanation is quite interesting. The interesting thing I picked up on was the dynamics of the drop from the trajectory and the fact that the 'Drop' aspect adds a different dimention. I've not got time at the minute to try and digest the info and make sense of it, but I may come back to it at some point later.

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