24 hours to go and it's called off

Yep sorry people - because of the recent rain (Nearly 2 weeks of it now) the wicket at Welstead is so wet that the games been cancelled. But along with Sports Science we're looking to get another game set up as soon as possible. I kind of get the feeling that "Dean Mr 6 Wells" is gagging to get at us after his good performance last Friday - he was hitting 6's all over the shop as Simon warned he might do from the very beginning of us challenging them to a game. Dean's looking to get our first game set up as soon as possible but there's still issues over how soon can people get there from work. It might be that the game starts slightly later?

Good news for us is that Rod The Aussie is back in the UK as from Saturday which means we'll be up to full numbers again.

Practice

Hopefully on Friday Alex (The Capt) will be rallying the team for a practice this Sunday at 10.00. So let's hope for a good turn out. Some people need the practice before the game and we all certainly need to practice catching the ball.

Useful Forum

If you subscribe to David Hinchcliffes www.Harrowdrive.com take advantage of his offer to join his forum for free. All you have to do is suggest three good practice ideas and you stand a chance of getting a free subscription. He's offering 100 freebies. Have a look at the forum, I think it's one of the best as it's not full of people suggesting that Michael Vaughn should do this and that as though they've got any say in the matter. It's a forum for people that want to get better at cricket looking at all aspects of trying to improve your game and fitness. Look at the website home page and check it out - http://www.harrowdrive.com/forum/

Cheap gear - Helmets at 70% off and more

Simon found this - check it out £40 + helmets for £17.00 you can't go wrong

www.sportsdirect.com/Product.pasp

2 Days to go & match stats

Doesn't look good with regards the weather. Rain again all day today on and off and very cold, so little opportunity for the ground to dry out. I'm not holding much hope out as it's more of the same tomorrow and probably Friday too.

Other than that the Aussies and Kiwi's have issued us with a copy of the match statistics so here we go........

MPA first Eleven v's Antsac's

279 for 9 (Antsacs) 30 overs
72 for 9 MPA 30 overs

In batting order.......

Richard 0 - Bowled
Simon 18 - Caught
Thomas 1 - Bowled
Nakul 24 - Bowled
Boffa 2 - Bowled
Dave 9 - LBW
Mark 6 - Not out
Badger 1 - Stumped
Alex 0 - Caught
Nick 0 - Run out
Trevor 2 - Not out

Bowling stats haven't been recorded adequately

It looks like Badger bowled 1
Someone caught 1
Nakul bowled 2
Simon bowled and someone else caught the ball?

They were drinking so the details are not that clear.

We've now got our own scoring book so I'd imagine that both sides would keep score?

3 days left.......

3 more full days in which to have a practice and looking more and more unlikely by the hour. It's 8pm and it looks like the rain at last has stopped and I'm tempted to get the roller out and roll the wicket, but it's so bloody cold so I may stay here and blog instead. Apparently at Headingly it was 7 degrees celcius - the coldest test match ever played. It's not nice.

The weather is predicted to cheer up in the short term but return to showers by Thursday which sounds ominous for Friday. So far both my matches have been played against the backdrop of the threat of rain and both have been okay, so lets hope the situation remains and I have my third match in similar conditions or sunnier.

Anyone out there know a good way of making a DIY roller and what kind of size limit would be right to enable two blokes to pull it up and down a wicket? Half the trouble with my roller is that it's small and it doesn't make that much impact on the pitch. If I could make a biggun on the cheap and chain it to a tree and leave it at the field I'd be more inclined to use it!

4 Days to go........

It's been a wet Sunday and it predicted to get worse over night. It's been raining more or less all day since 7am when I work up, so the wickets will have had a good soaking and I'm tempted to take the roller over there tomorrow and have a bit of a roll and see if I can smooth it out a little more. I'll see what happens tomorrow and see how I feel. Lets hope that by Friday the weather will have cleared up and Welsteads ready for the match.

Hopefully we'll be able to get some practice in during the evenings later in the week - possibly Wednesday or Thursday evenings - Alex is talking about having a couple of practice sessions over at Great Berry and getting as many of us over there for it as we need it because of our dismal fielding and catching. I'd also like to put my 'Bowling with your eyes closed theory' into practice and see if I can replicate what happened yesterday.

Sunday Practice - Rain stops play...

The only person that has mentioned this to me running up to this week has been Nakul and Alex. As I sit here it's just rained very lightly 20.48hrs. The two wickets have been cut and are ready - just need the lines painted which I can do tomorrow when I get there. But for the rain it is all sytems go. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of commitment is shown by the rest of you especially as we all acknowledged that we need to do catching practice.

I'm going to have a look at the weather prediction for tomorrow and see if it's still bad.

Just had a look and it predicted to be bad. It looks as though around about 10.00 it's going to start raining and then carry on till Monday. It's up to you - if it's not raining I'm up for it.

Update Sunday 10.20

Needless to say it's pouring with rain. I spoke to Alex this morning and we're looking at the possibility of some of us getting over there tomorrow if it ceases, but it's predicted to rain till Tuesday as far as I'm aware. Alex suggested that maybe in the week during the evenings at least once maybe twice? What do you all reckon? I'm up for it as always - Maybe Wednesday Evening?

Leg spin bowling blind + eyes closed

I had the opportunity to bowl on my own today as no-one was around and Nakul was at work. So I had a couple of hours to practice. Last nights game against SEEVIC once again highlighted the fact that I can't deal with the fact that you go straight into the bowling with no warm up as such. So this practice session I was looking to see if I could get into The Zone by the second over. By about the 4th over I realised I had serious issues.

1. I was bowling far too long.
2. I was bowling wides
3. I was bowling crap with all my variations.

Decided to try and address the issues one at a time, so starting with The Flipper I tried bowling shorter, so using a marker placed dead centre and 5 yards in front of the stumps I tried hitting that..... Useless - absolutely useless. I was now beginning to get frustrated and annoyed trying to figure out what was going so wrong?

I then noticed that I was beginning to wear the grass out where I do my Walk in to the crease. Then I realised I was wearing my Adidas Sambas instead of my cricket spikes and these slide rather than grip and it's obvious some of the power that's generated in the throw is absorbed when you slide in the trainers.

Step 1. Change my Sambas for Spikes

Did this and straight away it felt a lot better.

Step 2. Sort out the Walk In.

I know that Shane Warne takes about 8 paces during his run-up/Walk-in and you can't go too wrong using Warne as a starting point. So despite the fact that I do usually have a 4 or 5 step walk-in I started with 8 a la Warne. Using a marker I gradually reduced the walk-in from 8 down to 5.

Step 3. To spring or not to spring?

As I release the ball I've noticed for some reason that I'm more affective if I do a spring on the last step, the sense is that it gives you more height and possibly more power - like a spring being released after compression? So I added the spring at the end.

It turns out that each of these little adjustments were making big differences and suddenly it came together - suddenly it felt right, the whole process....

I step into the my first step, I then shuffle on the second the third is like a trigger, the fourth the spring and the fifth the follow through and the ball goes down the centre at the right length. I keep at it and it feels good and I'm now bowling and it's all working as it should - good line and good length with the ball skidding around and doing unpredictable things. In between balls I'm going over what's happened here evaluating what I've learnt. My conclusion is that at the start I was looking at where I wanted the ball to go and I was trying really hard to put it there. The whole process was based on the idea of seeing what I wanted and then assuming the ball would get there through me throwing it there - based on the transfer of info from sight to physical exertion. Ignoring all the other aspects like the walk-in and the spikes and the feel of how I should bowl the ball. I kept bowling and it was now happening, it was feeling right.

I then reflected on the game last night and last week and how I felt as I approached the crease and how I responded in the face of the opposition. There's a massive psychological thing going on out there. The batsman knows that if you're a spin bowler he's either going to come unstuck or he's going to hit you all over the park and you as the bowler know that too. As the bowler it might be part of your own strategy to allow for the batsman to hit the ball for 4's and 6's thus luring him into a sense that he's got the better of you - then when you sense he thinks he's won you do something different. But then you got the expectations of your captain and team where they don't want you to concede runs. As newby the whole thing is very intimidating and pressurised and on both occasions so far I've let the pressure get to me and I've ended up throwing long balls fast and they've been dispatched to the outer Hebrides!

It therefore seems to me that you've got to go about your business with total disregard for the batsman - whether he's sledging you or standing tall looking like he's full of confidence you as the Spin Bowler have got to do your stuff - put your practice into action and not be intimidated. You've got to feel that you are already in the zone and you're going to bowl short balls exactly where you want them - 5 yards from the stumps slightly to leg or dead centre. You don't look at either the batsman or where you want the ball to go, you know it's going to go there - that is where you always put the ball you feel it - you're in The Zone.

So everythings come together, everything feels natural, the arm movement, the walk-in, the length and line it all feels right the only thing that can go wrong is to have some big ugly brute of a batsman standing there scowling at you presenting a visual distraction. Then it happened - an epiphanal moment....... I realised I don't need to see him - this is about how it feels not about how it looks - I'm in the zone I don't need to use my eyes - I can bowl this ball with my eyes closed!

For a second it seemed impossible, but I thought let's do this - lets throw 16 balls and see what happens? I look again at what I do as I approach the stumps and decide that just as I'm going into the 2nd from last step of my walk-in I'll then close my eyes so that the last two steps and the throw are done blind.

The first ball is a plastic practice ball and it goes wide to leg (Always happens - it's a different weight) so I'm not put off. I'm slightly worried that as I do my spring I'm going to come crashing down with my goolies onto the stumps! But it feels right and it feels good so the second ball........ I walk in spring and bowl and open my eyes to see it hit my target which is 5 yards in front of the stumps and then skid on to hit the middles stump! Unbelievable! I try again and again. With 16 balls I threw 2 wides, 4 Strikes and 10 really good balls that went down the channel perfectly - some of which hit the 4" target that I place on the grass as my length marker. It wasn't a fluke either as I threw another subsequent 4 lots of 16 and it was almost identical each 16 balls, hitting the stumps and going down the channel. Man was this a revelation!

Michelle rang and said she was coming to pick me up in the car. So I threw 16 more balls and this time with my eyes open but feeling my way - it was pobably the best 16 balls I've ever thrown!

But this now has implications for my bowling. As I mentioned yesterday when I step up to bowl I'm nervous and it all goes to pot. It always seems when faced with a competitive situation and some bloke standing there with a bat I opt for speed and it never works. I always deliver the ball far too long and the bloke knocks it for a four. It seems that the visual/psychological impact undoes any chance of bowling the right ball. So what if I was to get in the zone ignore the batsman close my eyes and deliver the ball as I was today - short, above the eyes with potential to spin on landing and I deliver it with my eyes closed and tell them that I'm going to do so because I am so confident that I don't need to have my eyes open! It's an interesting idea that I'll be exploring throughout this week.

I wonder if anyone else out there in Leg Spin land has ever tried this? Or if you haven't maybe it's something you might want to try? If you do or if you have in the past - post a comment I'd be really interested in what your experience is.

The only thing I can see that's still unresolved though is the fact that it took an hours worth of bowling before I got in The Zone. I've still got to explore whether it will make any difference if I bowl for half an hour before going onto the pitch and then whether if my chance to bowl comes an hour into the match will I still be In the Zone?

There's some useful stuff in this link about Shane Warne and the way he was coached. I found the advice to bowl at or just slightly off of leg stump useful. Have a look - http://www.tssonnet.com/tss3001/stories/20070106000201700.htm

And more ....

http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/features/ecb-programme-hailed-a-success,1764,EN.html

Dave

6 Days to go............

It looks like we’ve got a game on our hands with Sports Science. Several of them as expected are quite handy with the bat – Dean, Gavin, the big bloke with the sandy coloured hair and ‘Conan’ the Kiwi. Dean was especially good hitting 2 or 3 sixes and he’s their wicket keeper and he’s good at that as well. Looking for positives it looks like our strength is going to be our bowling and sooner we get Rod in the team the better. It’s going to be pretty difficult and if our bowling is ineffective we’ll lose it because they’re good in the field as we expected they would be – taking catches and running balls down, backing up, good and accurate throwing with lots of trying to throw the ball at the stumps while the batsman is running and being successful – full commitment.

The bowling was pretty one dimensional being medium pace but they do have a ringer who may bowl leg-spin so we might be in trouble there?

Other than that we won SEEC v SEEVIC with Richard and me making contributions to the wicket taking. Richard caught one off of Conan’s bowling in the slips – slower ball hitting it up in the air. I did a similar loopy ball when I was bowling and that was caught at cover point by Gavin. Batting - both me and Ricahard went for Ducks. But I've got to say in Richards defence he was possibly the unluckiest bloke in town. He had a ball sit up nice for him and he copped hold of it nicely. Unfortunately there was a bloke standing at somewhere between silly point and silly mid-off and the ball went straight at him at chest level and hit the bloke sqaure in the middle of his chest - he didn't even have time to get his hands there, but the ball bounced out of his chest probably having hit him at 70mph and he had the determination and constitution to try and catch if off the rebound and he did!

My bowling was a bit ragged and too long and for some reason I just couldn't do those super fast flippers that I normally do and my wrong uns which I reverted to were crap as well. I didn't do the little jump thing that's needed and it all went pear shaped.

What I have got to overcome as a bowler is the tendency to bowl crap with my first and often only over. Somehow you've got to be in there doing it from the outset - it maybe that as I'm new to this I'm overcome with the excitement of being given the opportunity to bowl on top of being nervous in case I get it wrong. Because it is slow it's obvious that the batsman is going to attack the ball and you are going to give runs away - but then that's a part of the whole deceit thing. It's like the bloke that got me today -one went really wide and he said..
"You didn't fancy that then"? He then bowled a straight one through the air that didn't turn when it hit the deck and I defended it okay. The third ball looked safe as well but then hit my body around about hip height and glanced off and hit the stumps - gutted - a duck. But the bloke looked confident and was chatty and I think this is something we don't do that we need to step up. I noticed sports science all the way through were very positive - especially Gavin, but with some ribbing when players fielded the ball a bit slowly.

So how do i resolve the bowling thing? Could it be rectified by bowling before the match starts? Would that be sufficient if I was to bowl 4 or 5 overs before the game started - and then what if I didn't get to bowl for over an hour later? I feel that if I was to bowl I'd like to do it with 2 spells of 3 overs allowing me to draw the batsman in, but you know that as a spin bowler you are going to concede runs. I suppose in the short term I've got to somehow get over the nerves thing and get straight into the groove, so I'm going to have to try the practice and then not bowl for an hour thing and see if it works - or do the thing where in the 2 overs running up to your over the rest of the team throw the ball back to you on the way back to the current bowler, so that you get a chance to warm up a bit.

7 Days to go........

No cricket tonight ended up working late at the college. Some good news as far as Richard and me are concerned. Earlier today I mentioned to Gavin (the captain of Sports Science) that a few of us might go over to Welstead and watch them playing SEEVIC (Another FE college in the Southend area). The impression I've got of SEEVIC's team is that they're quite a strong team, they turned down the chance of playing us and I get the impression that they might be a specialist college when it comes to Sports? So.... later in the day I had an Email from Gavin saying that they were short of players, so I offered my services to him and then spoke to Richard and he said he was up for it as well. We checked it out with Gavin and sure enough he's going to give us a knock - which was nice.

So Sainsbury and me - we're going to be playing SEEVIC tomorrow night at Welstead 20/20. Chances are we're going to be down at the bottom order so we may not get a bat, but it'll be good to be out there fielding at least and perhaps I might to throw some balls - Wrong Un's, Sliders, Over-spinners and the dreaded Flippers? I'm liking my combo's of Flippers down the off side followed up with a big old wrong-un which catches them out with either hitting it up in the air cos it's short or it just turns into the stumps. The flippers leading up to it aint so easy either. Unlikely that I'll get a chance but it'll be good if I do?

The other good thing is I'll be able to get the inside story on Sports Science - are they beatable?

Hopefull while we're over there I'll be able to find my glove and stumps and pay off Gillian for the teas as we've still got that to do.

So MPA first eleven barmy army - instead of going down O'Neils or the Courtyard or whatever it's called come and have a look at the opposition for next Friday!

Sports Science

AKA

SEEC 1st XI

v

SEEVIC 1st XI

Friday 25th May

Welstead Gardens

20/20 Match

5.30 start?

8 Days to go

Tonight I went over to Great Berry and prepared the wickets for the weekend - so there's another job that I do - Green Keeper! I cut two wickets so there's a choice. They've both been cut too long so that there's an option of positioning the stumps so that I can bowl into the rough with my Wrong Un's. I had a quick go and it seemed okay, but I couldn't get as much turn on the ball as I did last night, but then again I wasn't warmed up or anything. I'll look forward to having a go next week.

No-one as yet has mentioned going along and supporting Sports Science and seeing how good they are. I want to go as I also want to see if I get my stump back. The stump I was bowling to at the start of the match in the outfield is one of the stumps from my best set. Who-ever it was who removed it didn't put it back with all the other gear and now it's missing and Welstead say they've not seen it. Rumour has it someone put it down next to the screen? Gutted.