Exploring the Scottish wilderness.

 Images and Videos to follow

Last May, my older son Ben went to Scotland and did a trek between a series of Bothies and came out alive and enjoyed it. You might think I'm being over-dramatic, but a week later a Father and son combo did the same thing further south - the father was described as being an experienced walker and they didn't make it out alive. Two die at Stob Coire Sgreamhach 

Despite this, Ben suggested that I should do it with him at some point. Being a Lecturer I'm limited as to when I can do it. The summer is out of the question - cricket and Midges in Scotland during the summer can be unbearable, so the options were half term breaks - October, Easter and May. Easter would be too cold and there might still be snow, May is Cricket season and that left October, so October it was. So since last June I've been buying the kit and doing some research.

Around August time Ben had a loose plan as to where we'd be going, based on the density of the Bothies in the area (See screen grab below). The starting point Achnashellach campsite which is near the base of Creag a Chaorainn, which for me having never done anything like this looked ominous in images I'd seen viewed from the River Carron and on Google Earth. 

Ben had decided to walk from the main road that runs alongside the river we'd walk across the river and over Creag a Chaorainn into the wilderness with the first stop being the Bearnais Bothy. From there we'd go via the ****** Loch

Ben had quickly looked at the map and plotted a route, I didn't question it other than the stage where we crossed over the top of Creag a Chaorainn, the contour lines were tight. He pointed out that there was a path via that route that went straight into the wilderness and in some ways it seemed logical. In my mind I imagined dry scrubby mountain-side with rocks and rubble, just hard work potentially as it was obviously steep. 

I looked at the rest of the journey and then went onto Youtube to see if anyone was making videos of the route or the area and they were, as it was a part of the Cape Wraith route. The videos differed in quality and information, and for the most part were shot during nice weather during the summer or late spring. The overall vibe was 'Achievable'. One bloke spoke at some length in one of the videos of the journey from the Bearnais Bothy to Craig being a 6hr slog that was tough. He was Scottish and an experienced walker and I made a mental note of his assessment and as far as I was concerned he was probably doing it the easy way 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkYQhGo2Gng&t=334s this video here from 4'.22" to 9'32" is basically the first part of the route we took, albeit in far worse weather - pouring with rain and winy at about 8c. At 9'32" is where we gave up and turned back - more about that later. 

The journey uneventful - long that's for sure. I'd never seen the Pennines before so that was interesting to see and then as we got into Scotland reading the road signs seeing where the roads were going made no sense to me. Needless to say Ben was using Google maps or something so we could be going anywhere and from my knowledge of Scotland most of the time we seemed to be heading North East rather than North West, but at the same time I understood that if we tried to go as the Crow would, there'd be filthy great Lochs and mountains in the way. 

We stopped in Perth for fish and chips on what looked like a typical council estate and that was pretty rough, but it was food so did the Job. The next stop was Just outside of Inverness heading into the North West to fill up with petrol. From then on the terrain around us changed, the roads got narrower, house and street lights disappeared along with other vehicles as we drove further into the wilderness.

The further we went the worse the weather got too - windy and some rain as well. The adjacent landscape changed, less trees and increasingly bleak looking moorland. Around midnight we passed the sign for Craig and started to see if we could see any building with lights on as the bloke who owned the gaff we were looking for had said he'd leave the light on. We went too far and had to turn back - I'd looked on Google maps previously and was able to recognise some buildings and we found the entrance to Annachshellac campsite and drove into the lane and parked up. We turned the car off and got out into Jet black darkness with the wind howling through the trees like a scene out of Twin peaks. It was dark. 

We looked around there were no lights, there were a couple of small buildings and we'd passed one coming down the road, but that was through a gate in what looked like a private compound. Ben was unsure whether we were in the right place and was more interested in free-styling it and just looking for a field and somewhere to pitch the tent. Whereas the bloke had said the building was going to be open and that there facilities - electric and kettles and the like. I was on a mission to access that rather than pitch tents in the black in the pouring rain and wind. I checked the gate that looked as though it might lead the building with the light on and it was open, so we walked through with our torches and sure enough the building with the lights on, was the campsite building. 

We went inside and Ben spotted a note from the bloke. I read it and it was a welcoming letter (Transcribe) and in it he said that it was OK for us to stay there over-night. Ben still had other ideas saying "You can stay in here, I'm going to look to see if I can find the camping field and camp there, so I get a good nights sleep away from your snoring". Do I snore? I thought, no ones ever said that I'm a serial snorer previously. After we brought the car into the compound we walked over to what looked like a clearing where against pitch black blackness of the trees you could see what looked like sky or mountains. The torches lit the way and we came out into an opening which was a field with trees to one side and a stone wall along the back. Ben's torch picked up deer moving beyond the wall, their eyes reflecting in the light of the torches.

The grass was saturated, mossy and spongy, we could here a river nearby and it was pretty obvious this was the flood plain for the river. I said there was no way on the planet I was setting up a tent in these conditions when there's a stone building with a heater, toilet and a settee sitting there free of charge almost. Ben was still muttering that he'd prefer the tent option, but said he'd join me in the building reluctantly.

Ben woke up stupidly early, he does so for his job and he loves it, buys into the idea that sleeping is a waste of time and unproductive. Whereas I work my nuts off teaching for virtually pennies and love a lay in. So once he was up despite it being cold he was inferring initially that I should get up as well. This was at dawn, so there was hardly any light and it was chilly, so there was no way I was getting up for at least another half hour or so. So he was crashing, banging and mumbling about 'we need to crack on and make use of the limited light the day offered at this time of year'. I just snuggled down as I could hear him making coffee and breakfast and thought if he gets some tea on that might offer some incentive, but he drinks coffee! He sounded annoyed that he was doing everything, but he had sorted all of the food, so it didn't make sense that I got involved and started to search through the bags trying to locate the stuff when he must have known where it was. I soon realised he'd made coffee and wasn't going to make me any tea. I'd brought the breakfast, so now felt compelled to get up and make a start on the breakfast. I asked whether he'd put the milk on and he scoffed at the idea of milk on porridge and was going for water... "The Scottish way" apparently. 

Over the next hour or so I had Lipton powder tea which has the milk mixed in and 'Scottish style Porridge' although I doubt if many Scots have currants, cinnamon, pumpkin and sunflower seeds with demerara sugar? However long this was going to take I had it in mind that before I set a foot outside I was definitely going to use the bog as it would almost certainly be the only one I'd see over the next three days. So as I was stalling and taking my time to let nature take its course, Ben was packing his stuff away and getting his crap together. I was looking outside at the rain thinking - 'Yeah I'm in no rush'. 

There was some activity outside and I asked what was happening and Ben said that there was a car with a bloke sitting inside it and had been for some time. I thought it might be the bloke that owned the campsite so got Ben to go outside to the car to get some stuff and show him we were up and about. Once he saw Ben he got out and went over to Ben and started to talk to him so I joined them and spoke to him and he confirmed that was indeed who he was and asked if we'd found everything in order. We said thanks and asked about the journey down from Essex. I asked what he wanted in terms of a fee for the night and he said 'Just leave what you feel is enough... we're new to this game and we're just happy to see people like yourselves camping and travelling into the hills we're not interested in motorhomes and caravans, so its great to have you here and I hope you enjoy yourself'. I said cheers and thanks for the quick response to my emails and messages. 

We went back in and Ben said 

'Did you see his eyes'? 

"No, why"? 

"He looked weird - he had eyes like those Border Collies with the blue eyes".

"Nah I didn't see".

"Yeah he looked like a psycho".

"Nah I didn't see - but if he did that's in-line with this place... it looks like something out of a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The reference was lost on Ben. 

Shortly after we'd had our ablutions and I started to get ready with more purpose. Ben was still going on about the loss of time, saying we should have been out of here over an hour ago at first light. I was now looking at what I should wear asking him for advice. I found myself throwing stuff in my bag in what was probably not the right order. The Rucksack surprisingly filled up quickly and I questioned the need for coal. Without the coal the bag felt heavy! I'd brought some rubble bags and we divvied the coal up and we probably had around 4 Kilos in each bag. Around about 09.00hrs we stepped outside and lifted the bags onto our backs. I thought 'Oh shit, this is heavy... have I bitten off more than I can chew here'? I then delayed us even more, insisting that we took some pictures and then we headed out, heading south heading for the Annachshellac river.

In the previous weeks as we'd planned the trip I'd seen that the river might be an issue looking at Google maps and earth. I could see that it was one of those gravel rivers made up of multiple river-lets at different times of the year - that maybe in really rainy periods or snow melt the whole river may have been filled, but the rest of the year, there were narrow looking channels and wide areas only just submerged strewn with rocks and stone (See below).

****Picture****

Looking on the OS map as the crow flies the first stage is 5 Km, but it was obvious that in reality having to negotiate the terrain it would be more and the Mountain itself is 3000' high.

Despite this I said I was up for it dependent on the weather at the time

Now, some weeks later with my toenail starting to grow back and the broken toe feeling better. I've been watching the weather up and around the Craig area and it's got cold. We've had an unseasonably cold November with the temp going down to -12. But conversely as I write the temp in Essex today is reported as being 18c, but my own thermometer which is in weak sunshine shows 20c. Reflecting on the trip and listening to Ben's account of his trip in May, it does seem what with the Midges and how unbearable they sound, there's possibly only a matter of days where you can go up into those mountains and it's actually OK? When we got on the train at Achnashellach the ticket collector/guard lady said... "You should have been here about a week or so ago, we had beautiful clear days - blue sunny skies and warm". Probably a couple of weeks before my half term break. Easter sounds like it may also be promising, but I'd imagine more likely to be cold? There may also be a fair bit of snow around at that time? 

I think given how old I am, I have to take into account the fact that walking over really rough terrain like this is going to have consequences and maybe we should avoid the cross-country routes or at least look to minimise them. The walk out was on the Forestry commission/water company gravel tracks with a sore hip and was exponentially easier. In fact, as mentioned the blokes we met and were talking to, cycled in and out of the wilderness using bikes, then did the main event on foot, for them it was conquering the Munroe's. I kind of like that idea - get there using an easier method and then do the exploring? Or get there using the gravel tracks and then walk out to the Bothies? Day 1 for us, getting to Bernais was so physically demanding. 

Google review of campsite 

My son and I went walkabout in the adjacent mountain over 3 days moving from one Bothy to another at the end of October and this was our starting point. I contacted 

This video here, pretty much shows some of the walk from Achnaschellach to the Bearnais Bothy from 4'.42" to 13'02" but in far nicer conditions. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkYQhGo2Gng

Indoor cricket game 4

Friday night, game on Sunday. Waiting for the selections to be confirmed. Slightly nervous as 2 other bowlers have thrown their names into the hat, both younger than me, one... Kirby one of the best bowlers at the club with better figures than me. The other bowler is Chris Willoughby - fast bowler and a far better batter than me (He's in his early 30's). At the moment we've all got a game as only 5 people plus the captain have put their name up to play on the availability vote... But there maybe stalking horses in the background umming and arghing about whether to play, it may be the case that they have Lennon's or the selectors ear? Imagine if Aariz wasn't doing his GCSE's after last weeks performance, how could you not pick him? 

Here below is the club bowling stats with some of the recent players/bowlers and you can see looking at the stats I'm not in the frame to get picked, but in this format apart from Aariz with his 3 for 5 off of 2 overs I'm the one that takes wickets. 

I've already paid my match fee to try and curry favour! Hopefully I'll get picked. As I recall the team was announced last week much earlier than this week - so that kind of infers there are decision issues? 

11pm on Friday day and I asked El-Capitano if the team had been chosen? Then he realises he hasn't posted it yet. He still hasn't, so I reckon he's still fishing around for a pace bowler who can bat a bit? Anyway, I checked out the oppo's form...

With so few games played, I'm not making any predictions. The game is subject to all sorts of variables so it can be anyone's game I reckon. We'll see tomorrow and it'll be interesting to see if he goes with the 3 spinners - Chris Willoughby - being a spinner.

Saturday... Still no confirmation of the team. I reckon they're trying to find someone to bowl seam... in which case who goes? 😬

I've been watching replays of the West Indies and England T20 games and Mark Butcher was saying after the first game where Phil Salt scored a load of runs that he (Phil Salt) thinks all bowlers are crap. I've just watched the 3rd game and seen for the 2nd time Akeal Hosein bowl him out cheap. Hosein is a left-arm orthodox bowler. So much for bowlers all being s**t eh? 

Indoor cricket game 3

 Different team again, but same sort of format - me and 4 young lads 16-20 year olds

Nightmare getting there again, but I reckon I've got it now and I can do it from memory. A load of us including the Capt got there pretty late. The team had changed Fharen had bailed and been replaced by the legend that is Ariz Malik - leading wicket taker at the club, so that was good news. The bad news was that Lennon felt ill and he didn't want to keep and he wanted a reluctant Keigan to keep. I reckon that was a good move because Keigan took most of the wickets with catches off the bat including mine off a nice Top-spinner after a series of Flippers and Leg-breaks. I'm happy with the fact that increasingly I'm bowling more Leg-breaks mixed in the Flippers. 

Almost exclusively so far the opposition have been adults... blokes in their late 20's through to their 50's so it was kind if ominous to see the opposition we were facing tonight (Broomfield) had a similar set up to us - 5 young lads and and one older bloke albeit much younger than me (Early 50')? 

The toss had happened and we were batting. What with the late arrivals of our players there was a mad rush to get ready and Rees, opened with Lennon. Rees from the outset looked as though he wasn't really up for it- arriving without his whites and then in the first few balls just trotting between the stumps almost being run-out and it didn't seem to register that he was almost run out. So no-one was really surprised when he was run-out a few balls later, still not making any effort between the stumps, when he plays 40 over cricket he kind of does so in the way that Inzamum-al-huq played towards the end of his career - not really looking to run singles, more looking to hit 4's and 6's. When he came off he admitted not anywhere nearly fit enough for this format of the game. 

Keigan went cheaply as well and Lennon stuck around and was dismissed just sort of being retired and it was looking a bit desperate at this stage as we were well short of 50 and only about 4 overs had been bowled and it looked like we were on for a good hiding. Dan went in when Keigan fell and played well alongside Lennon, He must have been retired, as I found myself with Ariz, I actually hit the ball and made some runs, but went cheaply stumped walking down the wicket. Then from what I recall he seemed to go back in with Ariz before being dismissed and we were edging towards a hundred. From what we've seen in this format 120 is a reasonable score and 150 is a good score. Ariz, as the last man standing got us up to 112. It had been our worst batting performance ever and looked like the writing was on the wall for us, but we usually bowl well so 112 might be defendable?

Ariz bowled first and got a wicket  with his first ball, with me taking a catch, the looping up to square leg where I was fielding. Ariz got another 2 in quick succession both caught behind by Keigan. He came away with 3-0-5-3! It was the pace and accuracy that did it. Dan got 2 and I took one with the Top-Spinner. They were bowled out for 38. So another win for us. 

Indoor cricket game 2

 I've been selected again, I thought this might be my Mady Villiers moment, but seemingly not. Again, more players than there were places and for a moment, I wondered whether an old duffer like me might see another game, but I take wickets (So far) and I've been given another shot. What I probably need to do is learn how to use the scoring machine as that may help secure my position to some extent, but over and above that take wickets.

So Harry and Arvind are not playing this week - they didn't put their name down, so they've been replaced by two other lads Reece and Fharan Redgrave, both bowlers that can bat. Reece is an off-spinner and Fharan is a seam bowler, usually quite fast who plays in the 1st XI sometimes - one of the up and coming stars of the club.

I actually think this format of the game is quite nuanced and that hitting the ball hard and long isn't the solution as that'll potentially be caught. Again, I have to admit that I still haven't got my head around the rules, but what I observed last week was that a late cut that goes to the back wall is possibly worth four - 2 for hitting the wall and if you run one that's the additional 2. The same would be for a leg-glance to the back wall. 

I reckon there's value in tip and run as well or getting your body in the way and going for byes as I was trying to do. But early wickets is the key thing I reckon to winning this game. With that in mind - My stock ball with the leg-breaks worked well and I reckon that if I can get the Top-Spinner going as well I'm going to be potentially effective? The Top-spinner if its working, means the small leg-break with far more dip is going to be a valuable ball as well. Bowling at the stumps is going to bring in all sorts of potential dismissals because they're looking to hit the ball every time. 

On Sunday, someone bailed at the last moment and the captain, Lennon put the call out for another player and the position was grabbed by Kirby. She's a 5th XI player that takes wickets - one above me in the most wickets for the club with better strike rate and economy, so in a way a threat... This maybe my Mady Villiers moment/match. We'll have to see?

The game 

The Opposition - Brookweald cc

So the team... Dan, Lennon, Kiegan, Farhan, Kirby and me. The others I reckon are 16-19 years old and me 64. Wish I'd got a team shot, but I'd forgot to do it. Again, I think we all went into this game still with no idea of how the scores work, just knowing that hitting the walls is important, plus the all important run between the wickets. We bowled first and as with the first game, the oppo got off to a flying start. Lennon started off with new bloke Farhan. Again this game is so fast - you're up against a clock and you can see it on the wall and you have to get through your overs to ensure you get through the whole innings, so my overs are a blur. I know at one point I was thinking 'He's not going to bowl me' but I got my overs in, one near the start of the game - maybe the 3rd over and the other were towards the end of the game. One of the wickets was off the wall caught by Lennon (I think - I really need to read the rules) and the other was bowled around the back of the legs again with a leg-break and again the bloke stood there in disbelief like he'd never seen a leg-break before? 

They scored 123, which was a lot less than last week, but these blokes looked like seasoned pros and were taking it seriously so I kind of expected a decent attack with the ball.

Not grasping how the runs are scored half the time, it seemed we were going along OK with Farhan doing a really good job with the bat, hitting sixes, most of the others chipped in with runs. Keagan didn't do so well this week and was clean bowled by the bloke who seemed to be their strike bowler. I was out first ball, walking down the wicket, copped one on the foot and it went away to leg and I ran expecting Dan to be backing up and taking the run, but when I looked up he was standing there and needless to say he didn't get back.

My observation for what its worth is that, if the ball comes off the bat or even the body and you run, just the fact that you're running puts them under extreme pressure and for the most part these blokes aren't Jonty Rhodes and they rarely pick up the ball cleanly and get it into the wicket keeper effectively - it's just not that easy in such a dynamic situation. Whereas I'm playing with young lads and they did this so much better than the oppo, and again the oppo running between the wickets lack the fast burst reactions of teenagers and were run-out for 3 of their wickets.

Kirby batted well till she was out, but as I said last week, the 2 bowlers or me at least, shouldn't occupy the crease if you're not hitting the ball or running with blokes waiting to come in because they've been retired (happens after 25 scored). Thankfully me and Kirby went quickly allowing Dan and Fahran to come back for the final 2 overs. It looked like it might be a run or two too much  3 overs out, but the last 2 needed just over 20 off the 2 overs, there were some dot balls, but these were countered by some good tip and runs for 3 and a 4 or two and you could sense that the oppo were aware that they'd got it wrong and they could see it slipping away from them, there was some serious backing up going and some 'Mankadding' chances as a warning. In the 2nd from last over the bloke went right through his action - didn't let got of the ball and went back to the stumps as a warning to Dan for over zealous backing up. But on the last ball Dan hit the necessary runs and we won our first game at the 2nd attempt and this put us at 2nd place in the league (See below).  

Our bowling figures for the game (Below)

Batting details (Opposition) Below. 

League at the moment (below).

League Top 10 Bowler rankings

I'm top of the league currently, but that's down to the fact that I've bowled the most overs. The bloke below me with a strike rate of 6 with a wicket per over is the one to watch and try and keep ahead of. 

No games now for a couple of weeks, so we'll no doubt drop down the rankings. Can't wait for the next game. Hopefully I'll get picked again. 

Indoor cricket league game 1

 I've always wanted to play indoor cricket, but it's always seemed shrouded in secrecy and open to a selected few. You never heard anything about it other than one or two of the 'Insiders' within the club mentioning it among each other and that was it. This year with the exponential growth of the club and the massive influx of people from different ethnic backgrounds, it feels like we've lost a lot of the people that were holding the club back... the 'Inner circle' maybe have left or have stepped back? Whatever has happened it's meant that Indoor cricket was offered to everyone and I jumped at it and so too did 29 other people. Tonight was the first game...

What happened? The game was played at the Riverside leisure centre in Chelmsford...

The team consisted of...

Back row left to right...

'Harry' Hiralkumar Suthar

Me Dave Thompson

Arvind Rajaram

Front Row left to right...

Keigan Scannell

Lennon Cleveley (Capt/Keeper)

Daniel Gray

To be honest as this was our first game I didn't have a clue what was going, no idea of how many overs we bowled or what constituted a game - seemed like possibly 10 overs. I think I bowled 3 and so did someone else (Arvind)? The other 2 bowlers bowled 2 it seemed? 

The scoring was different. What I did note that was a normal run was worth 2 runs and most of the runs seemed to be gained by hitting the ball to the wall and running a single. Hitting the wall gained you a point and the run between the stumps 2, so that scored you 3 and seemed like the 'Go to' approach? 

Balls hitting the end walls in the air I think are sixes, not sure about the side walls. I'll pick up the rules as we go along I guess? 

Umpires were provided as too was a scorer which was a result as you have to score using a machine that looks like something from the Apollo space missions in the 1960's and 70's. 

When we turned up, the game that preceded ours was coming to an end someone noted that the scores were in the 90's at the end of the game. The opposition were in the changing room when I was getting ready and I spoke to a bloke about it and he said they'd been playing some years and their first 2 years they came bottom of the league 2 years in succession, saying that it takes a while to figure the correct approach to playing it.

How do you feel it went? Given how the game panned out and the fact that I've not picked up a ball in a month or so it went well. Read on below...

What was good/bad? It was cricket so everything about it was good, met a bloke I've played against before "Ken", can't remember who he plays for and I didn't even get the name of this team he was playing for here! Nothing bad really - maybe it would have been a good idea to get more of a sense of how the scoring worked out because it was nothing like anything I'd seen before! The light in the hall might be better and others commented that it's difficult to see the ball coming off the green carpet. The ball is a dull red low bounce rubber, pretty much responds in a similar way to a proper ball. I copped one in the face off a slow bowler - didn't hurt, there's enough weight in the ball to warrant the use of a box though. 

Analysis. Apparently, the scores will appear somewhere on-line and I'll copy them over. Not used to the fact that the scoring rate is mental, it felt like the first few overs were poor. Wides are tight, anything down the leg-side was given as a wide. So the run rate was in excess of 10 and over and it felt like the game was going away from us from the outset. I think I came on for the fourth over having seen Dan, Arvind and Harry bowl and get clobbered, I got a wicket with the first ball with Harry or Arvind taking an easy catch at Mid off. I think I bowled another over straight after and then the next over I got another wicket bowling the bloke around the legs with a Leg-break. I think we got another 2 wickets, but anyone scoring over 25 I think gets retired and they had 2 x retirees and they came back on and the oppo finished on 140 which looked way beyond what we'd potentially get against an experienced side.

14/10/24. Got access to the score sheets...

 

So, looking at this it looks like there's 12 overs per innings. No idea what the rules are - could you use 3 bowlers and they bowl 4 overs each or two - 6 overs each? Will have to either read the rules or see how it pans out each game. So looking at the score sheet for the bowling looks like I did OK, especially as I took 2 of the wickets and wasn't particularly costly in comparison to the others.

Just been looking around the website and found more data... 

Even though we lost, we've got some points and 4 teams have played we're not at the bottom of the table and having spoken to the bloke in the changing room I reckon that should be our first objective.

This is a nice start, just need to keep doing it. It would be good to find out what this other bloke does. I reckon a good ball to be able to bowl would be the top-spinner and a small leg-break with a lot more over-spin. I wonder how it's going to pan out in terms of Lennon picking the team? Will the team rotate. I reckon we could have easily fielded 2 x teams given that there's 30 people with their names down to play? 

Good to see all our batters in the top 10 with Keagan at the top. Now it's a case of how do I stay in the team? Because I'm pretty useless at batting and the fact that I don't really have an ego re batting, I was aware that there were proper batters in the wings waiting to bat again, so I was happy to lose my wicket and give them a 2nd chance. What I did do batting with Lennon was run x 2 which was the only example of it in either innings. Risky, but when the pressure is on, the fielders are struggling to get the ball back clean. 

Orsett Friendly 14th Sept 2024

 After campaigning for the last few years and more so last year about the need and demand for cricket to be played right through Sept it's happened and we have fixture right up till Sept 28th/29th and some weekend there's 2 matches. Last week Sept 7th there were two teams out playing friendlies. The bloke that's set this up Luke Dawe said "This is unheard of in the history of this club... It's unusual to play games in Sept let alone have two teams out"!

We had a great game on the 7th as well - a timed game that ended up as a draw, but it was close and the weather was fantastic. (A lot of people cite the weather as a reason not to play in September).

So this game coincided with our end of year awards night and initially it seemed there'd be no games at all because of the hope for everyone to show at the event. My captain 'Nishant Khare' had other ideas and he knew that people wanted to play and so set  up a short-arse game of 30 overs starting at 11.00 with Orsett & Thurrock. This is team with a lot of players from the team I played with when I started.

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with one of the better players at the club Michael Gray about his son Dan who took an award for his bowling at the end of season event. On this particular day he was having a moan about how badly he'd bowled saying that he'd been tonked because "he was searching for wickets". He then said "All he needs to do is bowl a tight off-stump line and the batsmen will make the mistakes and wickets will come. Instead, every ball he's looking to bowl them or get LBW and these players at this level if its inches off line - as he found out... were whipped off the legs for 4's and 6's". 

I've not bowled that well this year... currently 7th highest wicket taker at the club, but that's down to being one of the people that bowls the most overs...

But hearing Michaels analysis of Dan's bowling I realised that's primarily been my objective and now it's as plain as the nose on my face that's the reason I've gone for so many runs. I also played in an interclub game a month or so ago against the blokes I usually play with and they said pretty much the same thing, when I bowled in the channel or wide of the off-stump - leg-breaks or flippers it meant that they had to play high-risk shots, whereas if I tried to pull off a Shane Warne and attack the stumps from outside of leg, they were filling their boots with 4's and 6's. Needless to say that's not always the case, there's batter at out club that's a significant player who specialises playing off-side and straight shots. I was told to bowl at his legs or or wide of his legs as he couldn't play it. Sure enough in the nets in 20 balls I had him out 4 or 5 times - he was lost!

So with the Michael Gray mantra in mind I committed to adopt that approach.

We arrived and saw that the wicket was over to one side of the ground. I then requested that I bowl from the 'Road End' at the top of the page.

I then proceeded to attempt to bowl an off-stump to wide of off-stump line and it worked. Almost every time I was tempted to try a more attacking line I was hit for 4 through square leg or fine leg (Shorter boundary) red-lines approximating the 4's. Whereas the off-side line brought rewards - wickets at extra cover point and point with regulation catches. I conceded a couple of 4's (I thought there were more) but the more disappointing one was the one through mid-on. I must admit it was a friendly and I find that some of the other players wont put in dives to stop fours and this was one of them. There were a number that went through the same area and the fielder (A small boy) was having to run from (A) to prevent the boundary. 

In part that's my fault for not setting my own field, but given how I've been bowling with no clear strategy of my own I've generally been happy with the fields I've been given. I need to be more assertive next year with this revelation re this bowling line/strategy and set the field I want.

Overall I was happy with the outcome and my figures and the captain Nishant said that with these figures I now sat at the top with most wickets for the 6th XI.

Sticking with this theme, the opposition opened their bowling with two of the players I used to play with back in my Grays and Chadwell days - Matt and Andrew Hills - both really good players. Matt said that it was probably the first time in 16 years they'd opened the bowling together. 

They both adopted the same approach to me, but were both several times faster than me and have played since they were kids and are/have been very good players. I'd never seen Andrew bowl before, so he was a revelation. Check those figures out! 4-3-4-3!

But it was the field they used that was interesting - see below... (Blue B is the batter).

I don't think at the speed I'd bowl I'd adopt this field (Above), but probably something more like the one below and I've still got potentially three more games to put it to the test.

In conclusion; The rationale therefore is that I bowl an off-stump line. This season when the batters come in they're initially susceptible to being caught behind, in the slips and gully. So it may be the case that I start with 2,3 and 4 in place for the first over when a new batter arrives at the crease. Once, they've seen what I'm doing I could move 4 to "A" and dependent on what I'm bowling like move 3 to the boundary at deep mid-wicket if they're managing to get the ball there or I look to bowl a more leg-stump line? 

The white lines are records of where I've been hit predominantly in games, so I reckon this field might actually work for me. The key is - like Andrew Hills make sure I bowl and off-stump line and be prepared to adapt and explore a leg-side approach if the batter shows all the signs of being an adept off-side player. 

Note. This approach is the what I used to do and had done for years with very little luck, but that was massively in part due to the fact that strength of the squads I played in was a massive factor - no one could run, jump or catch unless the ball was hit directly at them. Different story these days with the club attracting far more committed and athletic Asian players. The club is exponentially better and growing massively. Next season the 6th XI I've been playing in this season is to be put into the league and we'll be playing league cricket. This is us...

Oh yeah we won. We bowled first and and they were all out for 219 off of 25 overs. We got that in 17 overs for the loss of only 5 wickets with Asad Abbas back row left with black arms scoring 55 not out. 

Back row left to right 

Asad Abbas, Varun Khare, Adhitya Kalabarigi, 'Harry' Hiralkumar Suthar, Chris Prince, Nishant Khare,  Adil Ijaz.

Front row left to right 

"JJ" Jayvant Jadhav, Vedant Khare, Arvind Rajaram and me Dave Thompson

Cricket week game v Rayleigh

 Lovely sunny and hot day 26 degrees - blue sky and fair weather clouds. Friendly game with a mixture of adults and kids, ranging from old duffers like me who play 6th XI cricket to girls of 16 to early 20's and 1st XI players who can smack the ball for sixes as easily as I can eat my Cornflakes in the morning!

Looking at our team see team sheet it looked as though we were in with a real chance and to be honest I was expecting a win for us. We had the bowling, but we also had some big hitters who were in form... PJ and Harry, backed up with good batters such as Somnath, Michael and Dan Gray and an appearance from 'Vanders' who I thought wasn't playing this year, but he's no slouch with the bat.

The first surprise was we batted first but then it transpired that in such scenarios (Their cricket week) you let them decide what to do. The wicket was a 'Road' apparently and they decided to bat. The game was recorded on one of those Micky Mouse digital systems and there's no detailed record of details, not sure why, you'd have thought that would have been possible? 

I can't recall all the details, but two 1st XI blokes (See below) got set reasonably early in the game and rattled through the runs at around 4.5 an over. This may have been down to the fact that one of our players 'PJ' didn't show up till an hour into the game, so the fielding was more difficult than it needed to be, then when he did take the field within the first few minutes he had a ball hit into the air directly to him, gentle arc, you'd have bet your house on a squirrel being able to catch it and he fumbled and dropped it and I think it may have been one of the two blokes that went on to score the 50's? All of the early wickets were taken by the wicket keeper Keagan Scannell off of the bowling of our fast bowlers who bowled well. By the end of the game Scannell had taken 8 catches and the wicket were taken primarily by our young bowlers Dan Gray, Zach 

Dan Gray - 7-1-30-2 both caught Keagan Scannell

Ted Currington - 8-0-43-1 caught Keagan Scannell

Zach Swain - 6-0-46-4 all caught Keagan Scannell

Hiralkumar (AKA Harry) 7-0-39-2

Me (Dave Thompson) 5.5-0-43-1 caught Keagan Scannell

My figures are pretty bad, but see content below and you'll see the explanation. Also the context... Some old duffer, 64 years old v a young bloke in his 20's who plays first XI cricket and the clubs 4th best batsman with a strike rate of 125 and three 50's this season. He's their all time 15th best and yet he's still young, so he's pretty good. If only I got him figured out a bit earlier, or if the umpire had given the 3rd ball to him LBW! read on...

They were all out for 223 off 37.5 overs I took the wicket of one of the blokes that had retired and come back on. 224 with our batting line-up looked like the game was there for the taking. But they had other ideas...

Somnath and Vanders opened and they started with an older bloke - Duncan Bond bowling off-spin. Following Bond was one of the 2 girls Chloe Martin bowling medium pace from the pavilion end. Somnath started off with a promising looking start and fell to Bond having scored 10. Vanders at the other end was doing well, the occasional 4 interspersed with 1's and 2's running with Daniel Gray who started off steady. Vanders who had said he wouldn't be playing this year found it difficult in the heat and eventually retired on 14. That brought in PJ with the opportunity to redeem himself and it looked like he was on track with a big one of his sixes over the pavilion and into the road almost. Then a ball or two later he was out bowled by Chloe Martin who looks about 16 -17 years old. 

All was not lost... We still had Hiralkumar Suthar (AKA Harry) and he got off to a promising start, but then they brought on the 2nd girl a wrist spinner Katrina Mayfield) and he was out caught by Richard Noble. Mayfield also got me batting at 11 with a ball that pitched on middle and took my off-stump as I went back to defend. If I'm batting it usually indicates we're in trouble and we were. There'd been a collapse after Harry was out for 6 with only Michael Gray batting at 9 making 41 and Dan Gray batting with his Dad getting 53. We were all out for 190.

Might it have been a different story if we'd had all 11 of us for that first hour? It surely would have been closer? 

The wrist-spinner Katrina looked really good, far better than last year, so much faster than me. It always baffles how girls who are small of frame and stature bowl so fast and bat so well. Watching her it seemed to be arm speed, as she came off the same kind length run-up to me, but had what looked like another 7-10 mph more than me and the key difference was that she whipped her arm over so much faster than me. She went for 6-0-34-2.

Looking into this and researching further, it seems that all is not lost and that if you have a training program that uses plyometrics, bones, muscles and tendons can adapt to potentially improve arm speed. 

All in all it was good game played in the right spirit and there's potentially a return game at our ground in late August, so I'm looking forward to that already to see if I can get Lynch.

Steven Lynch 1st XI batter

The majority of this content has been copied over from my other blog https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/

Friendly game against Rayleigh on their main pitch on a beautiful day 29/7/24. This is the 3rd time I've played in this game and they're good competitive games. The majority of the players are youth players and they had a couple of girls this year including the player 'Kat' who bowls leg-spin. (To be continued). 

This was a game during Rayleigh's cricket week and the 3rd time in succession that I'd been involved and I came up against this bloke again (Steven Lynch 1st team bat see details below), having faced him last year and got the same treatment again this year. 

So I was brought on around the 20th over after drinks with both players batting well nearing their 50's at which point they'd have to retire. The wicket was either the end wicket or '2nd in' over to one side meaning one side was very short and the other big. I was brought on to bowl from the northern end meaning the off-side was short and the leg-side big. 

My first over was eventful, opting to try and bowl at the stumps, the first few balls were decent and singles were had and a dot ball. Then I bowled at Lynch... leg-stump line-pretty full and got his pads, went up for it and the umpire... a kid - looked flummoxed as though he new it was out, but was more than aware that this was their best player and the consequences of giving him out were the game would probably be gone, after a few seconds of going over it he said 'Not out'. I don't bother questioning these decision, it happens so often and there's not point. 

That kind of threw me...what am I supposed to do I thought? The decision seemed to be that he was susceptible to a ball on the leg-stump and that I should continue, completely ignoring what happened last year. The next one was fuller - too full in fact - a full toss on leg-stump and he thumped it for 4. I persisted with this same line as the other bloke Same Keene looked lost as what to do. But Lynch was in my head and I couldn't seem to bowl at him and eventually in the 3rd over he hit me for a massive 6 over the leg-side and Michael Gray pulled me out of the attack, which I was fine about. 

The game progressed and both of these blokes reached their 50's and retired and I said I'd come back on if needed. But in the time, the rest of the team were bowled out, I was able to reflect on what had happened and decided that if I bowled at him again I'd bowl a mixture of Flippers and Leg-Breaks on an off-stump or just outside line. Which seemed risky with the short boundary. The last wickets fell and coincided with coming back with these two batting again and it worked. For Lynch everything was either off-stump and just outside and he was seemingly only able to hit singles down to deep mid off and to covers on the boundary, which was fine as it meant I was then able to bowl a more attacking line to Keene and he was lost as to what to do and eventually a ball on a good length targeting middle was edged as he defended and Keagan too his 8th catch behind the stumps to finish the game. 

In conclusion, for next year, or if I'm in the return match at our ground in August during our cricket week the key points are (1). Just don't bowl anywhere near a leg-stump or wide of leg-stump line. Otherwise its going for 4 or 6. What worked today even with the small boundary was to bowl a channel or off-stump line. (2). Vary your deliveries; I just bowled Flippers and Leg-Breaks, but I've got a top-spinner which I had tried earlier that didn't work out - that would be an effective delivery. One of the other players I was speaking to about how relaxed he looked while they were retrieving one of his 4's said that if he was going to get out it would be to a slow spinning ball and that what I was doing was what normally got him out.

On the off-side, the shots weren't expansive, he seemed to have a lot of time and played the ball late well within the crease. Looking at his records he has never been stumped, so that's not an option!

This is an approximation of Steven Lynch's wagon wheel from this game - all bowlers. TBH the majority of the leg-side in front of square were mine, but anyone who strayed legside was hit. He hit 10 x 4's and 3 6's and scored 84 off 50 balls for a not out. 

The ariel photograph shows the position of the wicket/strip and the shortness of the boundary. Once I'd figured out that it was a lost cause trying to bowl at the stumps with leg-breaks I then went for the off-side line as mentioned and this then restricted his shots to the green zone. The field set is a suggestion and not one that I used. The field I bowled to had 9 and 10 on the boundaries on the leg-side deep mid wicket. Maybe someone also in conventional mid-wicket. 

This is based on a vague memory of last years game and this game. It could well need modifying, but my analysis was that he didn't look to place the ball short leg-side in order to rotate the strike, it was either 4's or 6's. 

Some of his data...

_______