Happy December 21st!

At last it's here - for me one of the best days of the year - December 21st. Today is the shortest day of the year and the longest night, from here on right through to June 21st the days get longer and potentially warmer, drier and sunnier! We all know what that means - cricket and just being outside and in the sun! You can only be optimistic about that prospect and for me this is such an important day as I hate the winter so much so that it takes the edge off of June 21st for me as I always think "That's it - it's all downhill from here on"!!! I get over it though as it's summer for the next few weeks anyway.

As usual had a couple of short sessions outside my house and the Top Spinners looking really good and consitent and the short burst of Leg break practice look like they're slowly coming together so along with it being Dec 21st my optimism is riding a high at the moment.

19th Dec

I spent 45 minutes today on grass, but it was very sticky and soft so there was very little bounce, but it was useful in that my accuracy with line was good, far better than in the summer, but I still need to concentrate on length - I've still got a tendency to bowl too long. So this is something I need to look at. I also was aware of my walk-in and this seemingly new way that I do it. But this evening I've been looking at some video's on youtube and noticed that it's something a lot of people do in a similar way to me and it just appears to be what you have to do in order to keep your balance when shifting from a running forwards motions to a throwing over arm sideways motion. I looked at Lasith Malinga and Mathew Hoggard and they both seem to do it, but it's difficult to see the mechanics of it as they're so fast and most of the video footage is concerned with their bowling actions from an upper body perspective and not so much how they run in. I reckon if it is a change it's a change for the better. I need to get someone to film it so I can have a look at it and compare it with video footage I've previously shot of myself bowling.

Badger - if you're looking at this - when you get back come and video me please?

Update

Even though it's Dec and the temperature has been around 2 - 4 degrees centigrade the last few days I've still been managing to get out and bowl quite a bit. I've been submitting loads of questions and reports on my bowling progress on the forum at www.simplycricket.net as well as getting advice on what to do about my damaged calf muscle and on both fronts I've been getting loads of feedback that's been helpful.

My calf muscle at last seems to be definitely on the road to recovery after being advised to take it really easy. For more than a week now I've had no twinges and it seems as though it's okay. I've even leapt up flights of stairs in the last few days and it's been fine. Despite this I'm going to continue to take it easy and not do any exercise on it till the new year and then start to get it back in action.

Bowling

My bowling in the last week seems to have undergone massive improvement. One of the blokes on www.simplycricket.net in discussion made this point -

Ok, after reading this, one thing screams through my head.You have the leg spin variants, but you don't have the stock ball. This is pretty, i wouldn't say worrying, but for a leg spinner not being able to bowl it, then it isn't effective, you need one ball which spins, and when i say spin, i mean its the ball you fall back on when everything else fails.So, my suggestion, just how good are you at offspin? Because you can keep all your variants of legspin, and if you can spin using offspin, then i'd say we're onto a Sachin Tendulkar kind of moments, where you can use both.

Off the back of the comment I made a decision to look at the Leg break again and see if I could re-learn it. I looked at the Shane Warne Vid's and sussed out what I need to be doing and started throwing balls around indoors. I've now progressed onto bowling spells where I concentrate on the leg break and bit by bit it's coming together. In the mean time I'm still spot bowling with all the other variations except for the slider. They are all getting much better. I've now bowled 7 consecutive balls onto my designated 3' x 10" spot and regularly hit it now in sequences of 3 and four. Today I had an exceptional practice where for a 20 minute period bowling primarily flippers, Wrong Un's and Top spinners I was bowling 6 out of 7 good balls all on the spot or very near or turning into the stumps, which is probably the best bowling I've ever done! So tomorrow as the weather is dry I'm going to go over to one of the local fields with a set of stumps and try it with real balls and see how much success I have.

Two of the key things I've realised is that with different variations the leading arm has to point in different places. For instance the Flipper needs my leading arm to point in the direction of leg slip almost in order that the balls is directed towards the stumps. The other thing I've noticed that has changed is the walk-in. I now do this thing which is like a dance move where my right leg passes round the back of my left leg as I twist my body so that the delivery action is bodily sideways rather than forwards. It's difficult to explain - I've tried to do a diagram but it's not that easy. What I'll try and do is get hold of a video camera or someone with a phone with a video function and youtube it or make it available somehow for people to comment on.

I've also found someone who'll give me some coaching for a very reasonable price in West London. So if you need coaching checkout http://calypsocricket.co.uk/default.aspx I'm hoping to have at least a session with him between now and the new season.

Plans and Hopes 2007-2008

Bowling

After spending all summer trying to get the Flipper to pay dividends as my stock ball I've had to review the situation. It seems that in practice (This is still the case now) I can get my Flipper to turn acutely across the wicket from Leg to Off. But on the wicket at Blackshots it just wasn't happening and that tied in with the psychological aspects of having my confidence knocked for 4 along with the ball mean that my bowling was poor.
Then in the last game we played I saw the bloke that got the multiple maidens. He seemed to be bowling straight balls, straight down the wicket at the stumps on a good to short length, nothing flash just very consistent. So I've left the Flippers and now I'm concentrating on bowling Top Spinners but getting them to land in a very small area to order. So over the next few months all I'm doing is bowling 95% Top Spinners concentrating on line, length and flight. The other 5% will be the ocassional Flipper and Wrong Un which will serve as my variations. On that front since laying off the Flippers and concentrating on the Top Spinners it seems the rest has done wonders for the Flipper as it seems to be a lot more accurate now that I bowl it less?


With regards playing for G&CCC my main strategy will be to try and ensure that I don’t suffer any injuries. Seemingly the problem areas are

• Sprinting in the outfield calf muscles
• Sprinting in the outfield thigh muscles
• Throwing the ball in from the outfield shoulder and upper arm muscles.

Needless to say it sounds like I might have to do some kind of training with my legs, either more running or more cricket specific running. Looking back all the time I was practicing over at Great Berry I never suffered and that represented cricket specific training. As soon as we had the problems at Great Berry and the practicing tailed off that’s when the injuries started to occur. It may have been the reason for both the arm and leg muscle pulls?
With the throwing it’s also obvious technique is also an issue, so I’ve got to look at my technique.
Bowling aims – to take more wickets. The equivalent of one per week would be really good and to reduce the amount of runs I conceded. All of this I’m hoping will simply fall in place because of the new strategy with the Top Spinner ball which will become my stock ball. I’m hoping that the fact that I deliver it straight will mean it will threaten the stumps and cause the batsmen to play in a more cautious manner.

Persevere with the Flipper and the Wrong Un and have them as my other balls in addition to the Top Spinner.

Batting – I’ve not even addressed this yet, but one of the blokes at G&CCC commented that I need to move my feet more and stand slightly sideway to the stumps rather than directly in front of the stumps and then not move. At the end of the summer I had started to practice with a ball up against a wall which was useful in that it forced me to move my feet in relation to the trajectory of the ball otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get behind or on top of the ball. The thing with this is finding a decent wall and a ball with the right amount of bounce. Having said that now having discovered the basket ball courts with their high fences and tight nit mesh I may be able to use large bouncy balls if they come back off the fence in the same trajectory that they went into the fence? Something to look at for the future. Ideally when the spring comes I’ll be able to resume practicing on Great Berry and people will join in over there.


Teams – Obviously I’ll be playing all year with G&CC. Other than that I’m looking to get a team together within the college amalgamating our old MPA teams with sports science. The intention then is to play against G&CCC a couple of times if not more.

The other thing I’d like to do is get the blokes over at Glouscester Park to get a team together and play them over at Glouscester Park or Great Berry. There is so much potential there it would be a shame if those blokes never ever got to play a real game, so I’m determined that I get that together somehow.

Fitness

I've started a fitness regime with a strategy to get my upper body strength increased - arms and shoulders with some attention to core strength. I've got a series of exercises I'm doing every other day and for the next month I'll be doing the exercises and seeing how I get on. I'd imagine that if I keep it up for a week or two the exercises will then become easier and I'll increase the amount of reps. Once I get organised what I may also do is post the exercises on www.simplycricket.net and get feedback from the people on there - Liz Ward and David Hinchcliffe of www.harrowdrive.com That way hopefully I'll be building up to a good start to the season at G&CCC.

Here's how to put new grip onto a bat using a cone. This has been lifted from the simply cricket website with the permission of Tom. So cheers Tom. Have a look at the website and get involved with the forum loads of useful stuff on there including our old mate David Hinchcliffe and LIz Wizard from Harrowdrive still promoting fitness and core stability....

www.simplycricket.net

Although this will be teaching many of you to suck eggs, one or two of you have asked for tips on using a gripping cone so below is quick guide with pictures.Firstly -a gripping cone!Before you start it's a good idea to check the binding on the handle, make sure there are no loose ends and it's not starting to unravel. If it is you can stick down the loose bits with a little bit of wood glue. If the string has come away completely you need to get it rewound by a pro.You need to place the grip as far onto the cone as you're able - don't force it on but you should get about 2/3 of the grip on, like so:Once you've done that roll the grip upwards (as per arrow on photo) until the grip 'pops' off:Turn the half rolled grip around and place the unrolled bit back onto the cone, until the rolled up section is back on and then roll the grip down:Continue to roll the grip down the cone, towards the metal ring (if your cone has one). It should look something like this:Once you are near or on the metal ring, place that end over the handle of the bat (you need to grip the bat with your feet to free up your hands) and push the grip over the bottom of the cone and onto the handle. It may take some force, depending on the age of the grip and how thick it is:Proceed to roll the grip all the way down the handle - try to get the bottom of the grip to fall where the handle meets the bat (this will take practice). If you don't get it first time, you'll need to play with the grip to get it to fit. Use your thumbs and palms to work the grip.Lastly, roll the grip all the way up the handle. You can 'pat' down a small amount of excess using the flat of you palm. If its a lot then you can again work the grip using your hands. If the grip comes up short, roll it down the handle and then back up to stretch it.To finish off you can place some electrical tape on the base of the grip (wrap it twice round, keeping the second wrap over the first) but it's not critical.I hope that explains the basics, after that its down to practice and blisters on your palms! Apologies for the pictures being slightly blurry but I had to take them on a camera phone.

Winter plan of action - Throwing

I'm also writing a blog on a cricket website www.simplycricket.net so some of the content of this blog will end up on there and vice versa.

So - a winter plan? Whatever happens initially it's going to be hindered by the fact that I've pulled a muscle in my L/H calf muscle and I've been told by Liz Wizard on the simplycricket website that I need to rest it properly in order that I don't do any more damage to it. Liz is good at this stuff and has given me advice before that has then led to me getting fixed as such.

The winter plan I feel needs to lead up to the start of the season. At 47 I'm not as physically active as I was when I was younger and I have a tendency to expect my body to still do the kind of stuff I used to do as a kid. Over the last season I found that I was useless at throwing the ball in from the outfield and that everytime I did it I could sense that I was almost injuring my arm each time and it was obvious that if I continued I would in fact do some injury. Fortunately I noticed that the other 'Older' blokes were rolling the ball in and throwing it under arm if the batsmen had stopped running and wisely adopted that as an injury avoidance strategy. But at the same time I was gutted that I couldn't do what would have been easier in younger days - but then younger days would have been spent throwing rocks at objects out in the river Thames or hours spent trying to hit Swifts as they flew along river banks stuff like that where you'd be constantly exercising your arm. These days all I do is type and drive a car in between weekends, so it's not surprising that my arm isn't up to it?

So one of the things I need to do is exercises that will help with that and also practice on the technique. There's a good link on www.bbc.co.uk in the cricket pages where Paul Collingwood has a video where he covers throwing techniques and as soon as you see it and then try it - it all makes sense. Also on the www.harrowdrive.com website David has covered ways of practicing using different weight balls alternately as a method - so I'll re-visit that before I start.

How often? As yet I'm not sure and I want to do it in a way where I'm not really feeling I'm going to be wasting lots of time. I suppose what I could do is make it more cricket specific (If my leg was okay) by setting up targets opposite one another and everytime I've thrown the ball run/sprint to retrieve it, that way I'm also doing things like stooping down to pick the ball up quickly and turning to throw back in the other direction accurately which'll all add to my agility?

Anyway - my legs knackered so I'm not going to be doing that so what will I be doing this weekend? More than likely I'm going to be spot bowling trying to pitch the ball from 17 yards throwing top-spinners trying to get it to land in area 10" x 30" as that'll be fairly easy on my leg? If it proves to be too stressful on the leg I'll ease up again. I'll let you know what I decide.

Great Berry plan of action

For some reason tonight I was laying in bed and started thinking about Great Berry Open Space and all the stuff that happened over there last summer and how it was finally resolved and the councils official line on the matter at the end....

You can play cricket on the field whenever you want, you can mark out the boundaries, wear whites and play two proper teams.

If we can help you in any way we will, if we could somehow get our three tonne roller over here from 'The Rec' we would and we'd roll a wicket for you. In the meantime you can cut the grass as much as you like - we think it's brilliant what you're doing and if there's any other way we can help don't hestitate to contact the office, there may be cash and incentives available on the basis that you're grass roots and you're encouraging a sport that is on the decrease in this area.

So there I was going over this in my mind thinking what can I do next spring to ensure that I'm able to practice over there and maybe get some of the old MPA team over there for a knockabout. I was going over it and thinking maybe I should go and repair the holes where the foxes dug up the stump holes - fill it in and plant some grass seed. Then I thought maybe I should mulch it as well as I've got tonnes of compost in my back garden doing nothing? Then I thought that without a roller to then roll it once the mulch had been absorbed that was pointless and would make what is very flat piece of grass more lumpy. Then I had one of those moments of genius and remembered this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02b_xMIi3vg

Watch what happens 55 seconds into the clip - it's genius! Why didn't I think of this last summer? The council blokes when they came and spoke to me on the occasion that I was mowing the wickets drove up to me on the field in their own van, so there's obviously some way of accessing the field in a van via the adjacent estate. Okay, so maybe I'm not going to be able to go to the council and ask can I use my car to roll the wickets as they're bound to be tied up in H&S laws and will almost inevitably say "No - sorry". But there's a chance that they might just drive across the wicket when they're in the area?

I know it's going to work because last summer during our camping holiday I noted the impact the cars had on the grass on the campsite when they drove around - compressed and flat and lovely for cricket!

Exercise & Fitness

If you've been following the blog over the months you'll have read about the occassional injuries that I've suffered - shoulder injuries, thigh muscles, thumb swelling, back injuries and calf muscles being the most recent when I played the last game of the season. I'm not that young anymore (47) but for my age I'm probably not that bad, I've always been quite sporty and interested in staying fit and eating well. Seeing my 'Fit' uncle die at 40 was quite a shock leaving a wife and two small kids behind kind of made me realise that along with his Dad dying in his early 60's and my Dad dying a couple of weeks after retiring that there was a propensity amongst the blokes in our family to croak quite early. So at the age of about 23 - 24 I decided I wasn't having any of that and that I'd see if I could take the record and hang in there till I'm at least 70. That'll do me fine my youngest will be in his early 30's and he'll be able to deal with it by then and not impact on his life too much.

Thing is I never accounted for cricket and now I've discovered it I want to be playing it till I'm 70 as well. Which means I don't want to be going down with injuries every weekend every time I run for a ball in the outfield, or put in a spell of 20 overs back to back when I'm practicing and suffer shoulder injuries. So tonight I got an email from my mate David Hinchcliffe at www.harrowdrive.com and it was covering his favourite subject "Core stability". He loves it core stability, he can't get enough of it and it's his mission it seems to turn the rest of the UK and probably the world into cricket athletes. I'd love to go and see his team play - I've got this image of 12 blokes doing warm ups and warm downs and they all look like Olympians in cricket gear. The opposition on the other hand will be a bunch of Lager bellied blokes tucking into their pre-match cans of Lucozade washing down bags of crisps and Macdonalds. I'm digressing a bit here so let's get back to where I was. So tonight after a recent good practiceI was thinking as I was reading David's email, maybe part of the reason I am bowling well is that I've taken on some of David's advice regarding shoulder exercises? So with that I tried to read it and decipher some of the language used (It's all very technical when it comes to the muscles and exercises) and as usual kind of lost my way with it and began to think I need something visual here I thne looked at the forum and some of the fitness plans and that sort of made more sense and was tempted to ask on the forum for a personalised plan. I erred away from that because it doesn't seem right that he'd spend half hour writing a plan for an old bloke like me simply playing Sunday friendly matches and that his time would be better spent replying to some young bloke who's got years in front of him as a cricket player. So I drifted away and googled "Core stability". Anyway to cut a long story short I found this - www.trainwithmeonline.com and within it exercises that relate to shoulder strength using resistance bands. But more than that a load of core stability stuff (I think) and it all comes with little video clips showing how the exercises are done. Looking at it - it looks like a really useful website if you're looking to improve areas of your fitness, or at least as a starting point. I reckon this website along with Davids mantra of 'Cricket specific exercise' and training I can see myself going on at least till I'm 50! This could become a new aspect of my blog - who knows?

Another practice idea

I've just been looking at the forum on David Hinchcliffes website www.harrowdrive.com/forum and some bloke from Korea has just posted a brilliant idea in response to a thread me and a bloke (Ali Malik) from Suadi Arabia were posting on relating to practicing on your own. The Korean bloke 'Alan' suggests marking out a grid on the ground in a kind of noughts and crosses arrangement. Any ball that lands in the zone you're aiming for is a wicket if it goes on to hit the stumps. All the other areas - short, long, wides etc they're all scored as runs against you, you can then keep a tally of how many runs are scored against you in the process of bowling the whole team out. Sounds like a good idea for my new practice venue. Now where's that tin of exterior masonry paint.........?

New practice area

On a bike ride with my boys yesterday I noticed a play area near where we live that looked as though it might be good for some winter practice. It's an enclosed fenced of play area tarmac and 10' wire mesh fencing designed to be used for Basket Ball (The hoops are still there). But the width of the area is easily big enough to have a bit of a run up and bowl for a spinner, diagonally it might even suit a faster bowler? So today it was raining slightly so bowling on a field wasn't viable so I thought I'd go and check this place out in the drizzle and see if it's any good.

I tied some stumps to the wire fence got myself two balls and placed down my 'Spot bowling' marker and threw a few balls. In a similar way that I practice on fields I threw the balls one side and then back the other side. With two balls it meant I was back and forth a bit but it was okay. All I need to do now is buy a load of those 5.5oz solid plastic hockey balls and I'm away (incidentally there's 12 on ebay at the moment for a good price).

With regards my bowling it - it was pretty good. My thumb has got better and I've been able to bowl flippers, so I threw a few of those and they were very affective - suprisingly accurate and so different to the top spinners in fact the opposite to a top spinner, so if I can get those both sorted over the winter that'll be a right result. I'll post some pictures of my new practice area once I've got some shots of it.