Day 3 cricket boot camp

Boot camp drills for Joe have had to be put on hold as he's fallen ill with a cold and looks ill, so he's on paracetamol, lots of drinks and rest for a few days. Hopefully he'll be better before the start of next week. Next week looks as though we may be in for a change for the better with regards to the weather, with the temperature reaching double figures 11 degrees centigrade, so hopefully if Joe's feeling better we'll be able to get over the Rec and start doing some training and having a knock-about. We'll get Ben and some of the other lads involved, Kieran, Harry, Ollie Bybuke and maybe Frank?

Weather forecats here... http://www.xcweather.co.uk/forecast/ss16_5ue

In the meantime, I've kept going, using the same drill off of Youtube as linked yesterday and I've started power walking and running as well, my legs ache like mad, but it's got to be done! Ben joined me on the run/walk drill I do, but he didn't like the walking bit and ended up running off doing a circuit that I used to do back in the day, which is well beyond me at this point in my fitness regime and not particularly 'Cricket specific'.

The other thing I've been doing over the last year or so is the batting a ball up against a wall and keeping it going A La' Don Bradman, albeit with a flat bat and a training ball. The space I do it in is pretty small so it's quite awkward, but I reckon this forces me to do the right thing batting-wise. I batted in the nets a couple of weeks ago and survived quite well, so I'm guessing my batting, or should I say blocking is getting better! At the end of the summer I'd got to the point where I was able to do it 13 times consecutively and tonight I went out and did 22 times! So I'm wondering whether that indicates that I've improved my technique?

Sidearm Pro

http://www.listofphotographers.blogspot.co.uk/

Sidearm Pro

I noted looking through blog stats that one of the pages that has had a lot of hits recently has been the Sidearm Pro page back in 2012. So I thought I'd write an update on my thoughts on it having used it now for more than a year.

For a start I'm a layman, so I have no vested interests in the product and I only pick it up every now and then and use it, so it's not as if I'm a professional trainer who has spent hours using it and therefore can be accused of over-exaggerating its potential or ease of use.

How tough are they?
When I bought my one in Dec 2012, there were a lot of reviews saying that the cup section of the sidearm was manufactured out of a brittle plastic that was susceptible to breaking. I've not found this to be the case and despite being in my kit bag amongst bats and helmets etc it's still very much intact. I think my sons have let go of it in use and its okay.

How fast does it throw?

Fast. Very fast. A lot faster than you could ever throw it from a standing position or off a few steps. I think if you're fast bowler with a fast arm action and young it would be ridiculously fast. Same if you were generally strong with long arms. Have a look at the Youtube vids here, I think they talk about it being easily used at speeds nearing 80 mph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJO2yaqNesk

This vid here - has a more in-depth instructions and demo on how to use it and footage of it being used against a batsman.

How long does it take to be able to bowl accurately with it?

If you practice with one type of ball and not mix them up e.g. only cricket ball as opposed to cricket balls, heavy tennis balls and training balls all at the same time, you may find it really easy. I know that within just a few minutes I was getting it to just miss the off-stump on a regular basis. But realistically maybe 100 balls and you're start to get the hang of it. Needless to say if you've got a bucket of balls to work with it'll be a quicker and easier process. But, on the other-hand if you're not that adept at such things you may take much longer, I would imagine that being a bowler will help you get it nailed.

Can you use it with other types of balls?

Some of the advice in the vids suggests that the pro-version is only usable with heavier balls such as adult size cricket balls, but I use it conjunction with training with my sons and we've used a variety of balls. The balls we've used include - Kookaburra training balls, Readers 'Wind' balls, 4.5 oz cricket balls and the heavy red tennis type cricket balls. What I will point out at this stage is that it is difficult in my experience to use a variety of balls mixed in the same session. Each ball because of its size and weight requires a different approach and I can never quite get a technique to enable me to use a range of types in the same session with any success.

Are there any negatives?

Not that I'm aware of, I suffered from an injury to my upper arm at the start of the season last year that dogged my bowling right through the season into November. The injury occured/came on around the time that I was using the side arm. I'm just about at the point where I'll start to use the side-arm again this season with my kids and I'll be watching out for any niggles. All the bowling I've done so far in the nets hasn't created a re-emergence of the injury, so watch this space for updates on whether this pans out to have been down to using the side-arm


The image that I've used comes from this website here http://www.slashsport.com/shop/product/sidearm-pro-training-cricket-ball-thrower
If you look at the website there is a series of basic instructions relating to its use that might be helpful, so is worth a look at.

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

 

 

Exercise Boot camp for Joe (And me)

The weather is still crap, snowing again today and ranging between 4 and 5 degrees centigrade, so not at all nice and nowhere near warm enough to go outside and train. Everywhere is wet and saturated with water and with the Easterly wind it's just miserable. With the season looming fast there's a requirement to get out there and shed some pounds and get fit for the first match, especially for Joe what with having been sitting around for the last 12 months. So with 2 weeks off and the weather predicted to be cold and miserable for the full two weeks a contingency plan has been devised...

Exercise Boot Camp.

The plan is everyday we're going to be trying to get out and do something, hopefully for the most part it'll be useful in more than one way to cricket development. The main part of it though is based around a video I've come across on Youtube that I like that has a quick 5-6 minute work-out that'll get both of us fit and ready and maybe we'll lose a little weight. This is the video here or click on the video above. We made a start on it yesterday and it went okay as a first attempt and initially Joe needed a lot of cajolling to get through it and there was a lot of stopping and starting. But today we've done it again and we both did it and there was a very marked improvement - especially for Joe and I think now he's slightly enthused by the idea. *Note, we're not doing the full 30 seconds for each exercise we're only doing 15-20 seconds and we're looking to increase the time as we get fitter.

On day one 29th (Friday) we also went to the 'Muno' (Community Centre) and hired out one of the badminton bays and all played Badminton for an hour Ben, Joe, Michelle and Me and that was good as well as it incorprates eye, ball and bat coordination skills which can only be beneficial. I made sure that when I played Joe I was lobbing the ball up and into the corners alternately, getting him to run around lots. Needless to say he slept well Friday night!

Part of the same plan involves looking to reduce his carb intake, Michelle said at the start of the holiday that she felt we needed to do something (I've been saying this for months now) so, at last she's on board and hopefully he'll get served dinners fit for a boy who is the smallest member of the family as opposed to portions the same size as the rest of us?

There's a second video of the same nature that focuses on upper body strength and I'm hoping that after a week I might be able to incorporate that into my own exercise program, but at the moment I'm a big fan of this idea and I feel really motivated to do it, primarily because it is so fast to get done and out of the way.

Tomorrow we're planning to go swimming.

Another session at the Essex Nets

Damn I wish people would get their facts right! Last week at the net session despite what I'd been told, there were no youths and I'd almost taken Ben and Joe. This week at the youth nets I asked about the prospect of taking Ben and Joe and was told catergorically 'No' and then tonight when I arrive Sonny and Frank are there! I'd gone out saying to Ben "Sorry mate you can't come, youths are not allowed! So again I asked and was told yes they can come along, so maybe next week?

Tonight I stuck with the keep it simple formula and it went okay and I was happy with everything except for the Flipper, that didn't work at all, so will need some work. The top-spinners didn't look that clever tonight but the Leg Breaks and Wrong-uns looked fine with the wrong un causing problems. Fitness-wise, did okay, have come home and warmed down and everything is fine. Bowled some faster balls and my arms good as well, so all in all a good session. Didn't bat though as there was a lot more people there tonight.

I took the camera tonight to get some pics and vid of Dave Bonnetts bowling, he bowled a lot better tonight and talking to him about his deliveries, he was saying that his stock delivery was a 'Slider' , where he uses his thumb primarily to impart the spin, in the light available there it was tricky to see the seam presentation, but his explanation looked to match up with the action. Unfortunately I was so engrossed in the bowling that I didn't shoot any video or take any pictures. Frank was there too and he asked about what Stuart Macgill had said about his bowling, I said that we needed to get some new footage and submit that to Stuart for him to comment on, but, I didn't get round to it!

The weather here though is appalling for late March, still 2-3 degrees during the day and around 0 at night with no prospect for any drastic change, the wind is still coming in from Siberia in the East. I walked through the paddock on the way home as it was light and it's in a mess and we certainly wont be using it this Easter!

Can't get me on the phone?

I love this article here about not having a mobile phone, I buy into what this bloke says whole-heartedly.

Nets at Essex County Ground

This year I've not attended the net sessions at my club because they've over-lapped with Ben and Joe's training/net sessions and I'm not a massive fan of the process, although I seem to be warming to it recently. So I was pleased and surprised to hear that we had four weeks at The Graham Gooch Centre at the Essex County ground in Chelmsford. It's a bit of a trek at 20 miles away and 9pm at night start was a little odd as well, but do-able. Initially I wasn't that interested, but at the last youth training session one of the better bats (If not the best) Sony Downes asked if I was going and whether I'd be taking Joe and Ben. I hadn't realisd that Joe and Ben could potentially go and when I asked about it, both Sonny and Dave Ayres said it was fine. It turned out that later that Michelle didn't think it was such a good idea this week as it was Wednesday and they've got two school days after and they'd not be coming in till nearly 11 by the time I got back, so eventually when I did go they weren't with me.

There were a few emails and some stuff on Facebook saying the club wanted as many people as possible to turn up so I was surprised in the end when there was only about 10 of us in two nets and none of them, the blokes that I played with in the 4th XI. In fact most of them were the younger blokes who played in the first and second XI's.

I had meant to take my Canon G9 because there was the prospect of Dave Bonnett turning up and he's the clubs Wrist Spinner who plays in the first or second XI's. From what I've seen of him and heard of him (Most wickets in the district 2 seasons ago) and a really smooth (and to my eyes) and near perfect bowling action and therefore I wanted to video his bowling action in order to see if Stuart Macgill would have a look at it for me and comment on it. Reason is, I'm still not that versed in what is a good action and what is not and what to be looking for when analysising other people's and my own bowling action. Dave was there, but I didn't have the camera, so I cant post up any videos or even show you what the facilities are like, so I'll try and get that done next week. But I did get to see what Dave's bowling was like and later on I got to face it, I'll come back to that later...

As far as I'm aware, the rest of the sessions this year have been at Fitzwymarc school, which as I recall has a slight cushioned fabric floor rather than a concrete/wood floor which tend to be slippery, but it's very dark in there with poor lighting exacerbated by the fact that the walls are dark. The Graham Gooch centre has the fabric surface, but far better light and a lot bigger as you'd exepct from a county cricket clubs facilities, but having said, that I've seen council facilities up North that are far better Ilkeston in Derbyshire is phenomenal. The facilities for cricket in Derbyshire as far as I've seen are generally far better than we have down here in the south. Anyway, so I got to have a bowl. Last weekend at the youth training session I had a bowl and did fairly well, took a few wickets over three overs for virtually nothing - 2 stumpings and a catch and a nick where the kid didn't walk and a plump LBW that I didn't go up for, so on the basis of that performance I was kind of looking forward to this session.

I didn't do too bad considering it was a net against better level players, my fitness needs working on which is an issue in view of the fact that as far as the weather is concerned we're still in the midsts of winter, you just can't get out anywhere to have a practice or run around because it's freezing cold or the fields are just sodden. So as the session went on I started to bowl wides every now and then, but generally I was quite happy with it. Tactically it was the Top-Spinners mixed in with the Leg Breaks that seemed to be the winning ball, they all know I'm a 'Leggie' and I think they assume the balls going to be be going away from the edge of the bat if I get the line right (Off-stump). So to then bowl a Top-Spinner that causes some upsets. My Flippers initially were coming out well, but I can't disguise them that well as it's obvious that the way I bowl them includes far more effort, and that gives away the fact that it's a different delivery. I guess they see that it's flatter and faster and therefore realise it's not going to turn and they treat it as a seam up (Which it is) medium pace ball and they'll generally put it away with a high degree of ease. So, how useful it is at the moment as a delivery is subject to some reflection. I think I need to lob them up maybe, but with the back-spin they are going to stall and almost stop, it's something I'll have to work on once the weather clears up. My Wrong-un wasn't working that well and was coming out as a Top-Spinner. Overall I was happy with the session from a bowling perspective, as I was using my faster run-up. I'd also taken note of something someone had said with regards to the last video I posted up on Youtube about the fact that I was over-thinking everything and trying to change too much and said, just relax and bowl, so that's what I tried to do.

Batting

I did the usual thing, whereby I batted last, I bat last in matches or at 10 so it reflects the match situation to some extent in that the bowlers are not 100%. I didn't fancy it, but once there it didn't look as bad as I'd imagined. I used Ben's bat as well which has more meat in the middle of the bat rather than nearer the toe of the bat which is the case for my own bats which are also heavier. That aspect went well - it felt okay and I did manage to get the bat on the ball and block almost everything. I had Dave Bonnett bowling at me, Rusty and some other geezer who I don't know and another bloke who came in and had one or two. Incidentally the bloke who only bowed one or two balls kind of strolled in with "What's the issue here lads, he's an old bloke and a No.11 at that - just bowl him out". And he did, well, he forced a nick off the edge, the faintest nick that I guess the wicket keeper would have gloved. But the others were far more interesting as they all obviously wanted to do the same thing, but I managed to keep them out. I was mostly just blocking, but the odd loose ball I may have got away for singles or two's, but the high-light was a Paddle Sweep off of Dave Bonnetts leg-spin which brought some laughs, no-one expected to see that! But the fun part was they were all trying to figure out what they needed to do to get rid of me and I kept them at bay for ages. Then the bloke who I don't know came over the wicket and eventually forced a top-edge that would have been caught by the bloke running in from Mid - wicket. I was trying to just steer the ball down the leg-side and it didn't come off, so that's something I need to adapt to.

Dave Bonnett

I've noticed before that Dave has a tendency to bowl accidental Wrong Uns, and I reckon he may have a litte Googly Syndrome. But this is early in the season and may not be a reflection of his abilities generally. But he goes for a really flighty approach that is similar to Frank Farringtons bowling, getting the ball right up above the eye-line. Again because it is early in the season, he was getting the length wrong and many of the balls initially were full-tosses. But his bowling action looks very good, he pivots and gets right up on his toe and because he bowls relatively slow, the whole thing looks very balletic and smooth. Tonight he didn't seem to be getting many revs on the ball, so the ball wasn't turning that much, but with variation of speed, length and flight you can see why and how he is effective, so hopefully I'll be able to video him and get some vid on-line for comments and analysis. I'd love to be able to do this with loads of different Leggies in this area and make a database and biography of spinners of Essex.
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Those rebellious Aussie test players.

I haven't followed this too closely, but have been keeping an eye on it. As an advocate of reflective practice, using the Gibbs model, in conjunction with my own practice as a teacher and as a method for students to use in their work I was on-board with what happened and couldn't believe that people like Mathew Hoggard dismissed it.

I noticed in my blog list on the left here that fellow blogger 'Pencil Cricket' had covered the same story in his blog and had a look  and initially he seems to have been of the same school of thought as Mathew Hoggard, but then says having read the article linked below from Cricinfo he had a change of mind. The article puts the case very well as far as I'm concerned, and considering how little they had to do I find it incredible that they didn't. What model the trainers and managers used as the basis for the task, is not clear and there are many, but they all work on the same basic principles which are alluded to by the writer. But my own favoured version "Gibbs Reflective Practice" is a superb tool for reflection and promoting development and improvement. If used correctly it's a very harsh way of holding a mirror up to yourself and looking at what you do, it forces you to draw conclusions about what you  do and to put into practice systems to force improvements. I'm a big fan, but it leaves me wondering how much this goes on in our obscene national game Football, maybe its something our football teams should be doing?



http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-australia-2013/content/story/624584.html

March 12^th

 Joe’s had a good week this last week, he had some nice messages on Facebook about his return to the net sessions where he had a bowl, he’s been doing gymnastics at school on the horses and generally getting back to normal. This last weekend 9^th & 10^th I bought some batting pads for him and a pair of Slazenger spikes for the new season, he normally gets Ben’s hand me down ones, but Ben hasn’t worn spikes for a while turning down the offer last season from us to buy them, so Joe’s got a brand new pair for once!

So this weekend they had a session whereby they used the whole hall and set up like indoor cricket set up where everyone fielded and they used the bowling machine  instead of rotating the bowlers. Everyone batted having 15 balls where they lost 5 runs if their wicket was lost, then after 15 balls they had an extra 15 balls, where if they were out, that was it… dismissed. Ben batted okay apart from losing his wicket in the first 15 3 times and then lasted an extra few balls past the mandatory 15. Joe was offered the chance and with the prospect of batting with his new pads he accepted and did really well lasting up to 23 balls and only got dismissed once as I recall. I think he was quite pleased with his efforts and he got a lot of encouragement from the rest of the players.

 Kieran did well, as he always does with the training balls, smacking the ball miles through mid-wicket region, whether in real life it would clear the boundary or not is another matter and being in the air always runs the risk of being caught, but looked impressive nonetheless. I had a go as well and tried flicking the ball off the legs and doing the paddle sweep shot, didn’t do too bad. I copped one in the face at the outset, but it helped that the ball was only being bowled at 50 mph and straight and a Bola ball, as a opposed to a real cricket ball much faster or breaking from an off-spinner!

The limp

 The limp is probably getting better, but it seems as though Joe has good days and bad days with regards to the limp, a couple of weeks back it was hardly noticeable, whereas in the last week it seems to be more obvious, but we are looking at him having it for the summer with the hope that it fades over the summer.

 Scars

 As mentioned before, the progress of these is difficult to ascertain as it is a slow process (Scar healing) and not that obvious. In different types of light the scars are more obvious, so some days they look good, other days they look bad, but generally I still think they’re improving very slowly. I’m now only photographing them once a month, so that if there are any subtle changes, they might be visible in the images? But, because of the slow progress, I think Joe is less inclined to massage the scars because he doesn’t see any benefit in doing so, so we have to keep on at him constantly in order that he does do it.

 School cricket

 Yesterday 11^th March, Joe had his first ever cricket session at school with Mr Ackred, I think there’s another bloke Mr white whose in charge of cricket this year whose even more enthusiastic about cricket than Ackred, who primarily is a rugby player, but who puts a lot of effort into the cricket team as far as I can make out. I can’t remember if I mentioned it before, but Joe won £200 for the school because of his Jack Petchey award win and he designated the money to be spent on cricket equipment. The session was indoors and from what Joe tells me they broke up into 3 groups based on ability, and prior experience… Boys that have some experience and were interested, boys that were interested and wanted to get involved and the final group… Football players. Joe was in the first group and his team won. He said that at this stage it was very basic – a version of Kwik Cricket where three sets of stumps where aligned side by side and the ball was bowled under-arm.

 

As yet there’s no cricket training in the evening or dinner time, Ben reckons that his team (3^rd years) will struggle to get a team out, he seemed to think that by the time boys at his school reached the 3^rd year they were more inclined to be wanting to go home and update their facebook accounts and preen their hair than go and play cricket, so he’s not holding out much hope. So we’ll have to watch that situation, but from conversations with his team manager at the club it does sound as though he’s going to be playing a lot of cricket outside of school this year, so it wont matter that much.

Astra MKIV 1.7DTi Estate fuse box

Astra MKIV 1.7DTi Estate fuse box

This bit is a bit off topic. I’m useless at cars, I’ve got no interest in them at all so when the bloody things go wrong I struggle. Currently mine’s got electrical problems – the number plate light doesn’t come on normally, when I lift the boot it comes on and on the same rear door the windscreen wiper only works intermittently. Looking on-line the suggestion was to check all the fuses. I did this before when the wiper initially went wrong, but do you think I could find it? No. After about an hour and half on-line I eventually found a diagram and explanation that was relevant to my car. So for those that have suffered in the same way I made a video and here it is here.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC-oFimPIwA

The Paddock

Paddock

 The other thing I did over the weekend was have a go at cutting down the bushes that run along the side of the paddock. Over the years there’s been a cluster of trees growing along and in amongst the fence on the sunny side and these trees cast a shadow across the wicket and needless to say that has a negative impact on the grass. So I’ve been out and cut all the trees and the brambles at the base to kill them off before they get going. I’ll have to cut the dead stuff off bit by bit over the coming weeks. At the moment it’s wet and lumpy over there and at some point soon I’ll need to get in there with the roller. The grass is in need of some care and with 3 ½ weeks till the next school holiday now’s the time to get the grass seed down as Easter’s a key prep period where the main rolling happens so the grass seed will need to have got established by then.

 

My Bowling this season

My Bowling.

Stuart Macgill had linked Frank Farrington’s bowling at Wickford to his Google page and had commented on it. The main point that he picked up on was the need for his leading arm to be stronger and higher, he’d given me some feedback on my own bowling and having looked at the rate of ‘Whip’ that Frank uses in his bowling I decided to go over to the Rec and have a bowl. Part of the incentive was that the weather has taken a turn for the better and for once it was in double figures at 10 degrees centigrade. Another aspect of my bowling that I wanted to look at was… could I do it still in view of the recent foot injury which as far as the doctor was concerned seemed to have me written off? Last week at youth nets I’d bowled a little and had come away okay, so I was fairly optimistic.

 The plan was I wasn’t going to go mad, I was just going to bowl 30-40 balls and see how it goes and if there was any niggles or pain I’d stop. As it turned out from the ‘Can my body still do it’? perspective, it went okay and my foot didn’t seem to be an issue at all, I thought maybe I’d get through it and have to then have an ice bath for the foot, but everything was fine. What I did do though was, video my bowling action from half-way up the wicket pointing directly at me, so that I could look at the intricacies of the action – specifically arm speed and whether my foot was coming through past the pivot foot rather than around it. Having got home and quickly uploading the footage and looking at it in some slo-mo software, I can see that there’s a lot of work to be done. In Stuarts video here one of the things that he discusses is the need for consistency in the way that you run up and approach the crease. This aspect of my bowling is forever changing and since losing the Tich Freeman skip I’ve gradually moved towards a MacGill-esque approach as well as experimenting with the Warney walk-in. I’ve been advised by bio-mechanists not to use the Warne method as it’s very demanding on the body and as a result I’m undecided about the faster running-in MacGill method or a bouncy skipping-in technique. But today I went for the faster method, which part of me likes and prefers, but the results are less consistent and I always feeling like I’m bowling flat without any loop, so it’s still very problematic.

 Playing back the video though and looking at my approach in slo-motion, I can see that although I’ve tried to be consistent in that I’m using the faster more aggressive approach, it’s still all over the shop and if you look at the video, each delivery is very different and lacks the essential consistency as stipulated by Stuart. There are one or two positives to take from it though, the leg does come through in some of deliveries and the evidence would suggest from my comments as I come out of the follow through that it has worked. Where-as the leg swinging out a-la Warne and Fingers Spinners (Allegedly) results in the ball being a wide down the leg-side. Looking at the ‘Leg-through’ approach, I would admit though, like most of the action it’s lacking in the explosive aspect and this would be very worrying if it wasn’t for the last delivery at the end and one or two of the deliveries towards the end. The Flipper delivery you’ll notice is far more dynamic and in comparison you can see that the body is used (Core) in the delivery with no impact on the arms. My concern going into this season would be that I would suffer a re-occurrence of the Deltoid strain and thus far this hasn’t been an issue. The effort that is put into the delivery of the Flipper is far in excess of the Leg Breaks, but I’m of the opinion that an equal amount of effort used with the Leg Break might cause problems? Why this is I’m not sure, but may have something to do with the way that I rotate my whole arm and wrist in order to get the side spin on the ball. But, generally I’m not happy with the action and the lack of explosiveness in the main deliveries.

 Thinking this through, I can imagine that I might be able to put the additional effort into the delivery if I change my technique and perhaps roll the ball out of the hand rather than flick it? The other option would be to consider re-introducing my wrong-un and working with that? At the peak of my career as such, all my best performances were bowling a combination of Flippers and Wrong Uns, but in doing so I lost my Leg- Break, so if I was to practice the Wrong Un again and get it back up to speed, it might impact on my stock ball?t is here.

Joe Update

March 4^th

 No cricket at the weekend with the boys except for some throw-downs with Ben. Joe was unwell for most of the weekend and the youth nets had been called off. But, today is Joe’s first day in 11 months that he’s been able to do PE, so he’ll be doing Gymnastics, which isn’t too bad, hopefully fairly soon he’ll be doing cricket as it’s about this time of the year that they start that up. He’s been practicing roly-poly’s as he’s been watching the other kids and seen that a lot of them can’t do it and he’s got it sussed now, so at least he wont have to suffer the humiliation of not being able to do that! We’ll have to wait and see how he gets on, his biggest challenge is his stamina and his strength, which he needs to build up again, someone has said along the way, that it may be a couple of years before he catches up with his full fitness.

PE went well, they were outside and did shotput, spear chucking and other field events and in the spear chucking he did really well throwing it the furthest. The following day (Tuesday) they were in doors and doing exercises on the horse - jumping exercises and he did that and there were no dramas, so I'm guessing he's realised that his leg other than the scars is pretty much fixed which is good to hear. Last night when I came home from work he was outside throwing a rugby ball around with his mate 'Malcolm' aka Callum. Tonight he's off to his first Karate session and I heard him say something about he's not going to be doing any kicking drills, so I'll have to follow that up and see what he meant, as that implies he has some doubts about his legs strength? But overall he's doing very well.

Stuart Macgill - Spin Doctor

Over at Big Cricket on the Spin Forums we've been discusing the prospects of someone taking up the role of Terry Jenner as the 'Spin Doctor'. We've always though that Warney would be unlikely as he's far too taken with the role of celebrity star and we all thought that Stuart Macgill could be a likely candidate.

A while back Stuart Macgill joined one of my forums and went public on Youtube and for a while was readily contactable, he's since moved over to his own Google page and currently he's got Basildon & Pitsea Cricket Clubs Frank Farrington's video on there for discussion and analysis. Frank's one of our clubs U13's players and he plays in my younger sons team. In the email contact that I've had with Stuart he's previously said that he was looking at doing something along the lines of Terry Jenner and it looks as though this is happening see the link here

Stuarts contactable via his Google page and his 'The Cricket Club' page.