Another cold but sunny day today and while the kids were out on their scooters I went over the Rec to have a bit of a bowl and a practice with the Sidearm again. They were over near the Rec and once I turned up they spotted me and came over and one thing led to another and without much prompting they were getting involved. Initially Joe came over and had a go with the Sidearm with me batting. He had a little success with it, but generally they were pretty wayward. There's a tendency to try and increase the speed once you've got a couple on target and this is what Joe was doing. Joe had a go facing it with the Red Slazenger Balls and did okay, but the star of the last couple of days including today was Ozan, the kid that doesn't do sport. Ozan, no matter where the ball went - leg-side or off-side, he got some bat on it. Leg-side or on his legs especially, he was pretty adept flicking the ball down to fine leg or whacking it and losing one ball over the top of square leg for 4! So he looks promising for the summer for our knockabouts, we just need to instill some confidence and get him to buy some box pants and a box. You never know - by the end of the summer he might be batting for Billericay School and calling himself a cricket player, that would be a right result!

We all finished up having a bowl and bat batting in pairs looking to practice good communication and running singles, Joe did well in that he stayed in for the longest and he made a couple of runs here and there.