First net this year

Gibbs Reflection

What happened _________________________________________________________
The first two nets of the year, one at Woodlands school and the other at Writtle. Bowled and batted. No expectation or plan for the bowling, with the batting an intention to be more positive. Was bowled by my son Joe and Alistair Hayton. (fast and off-spin respectively).

Feelings________________________________________________________________
Given that this was the first net of the season I was happy with what happened apart from the fact that Joe who was bowling in the 1st and 2nd XI nets came across to my net when I started batting and knowing full well that in the best of circumstances I struggle with the ball coming into my legs - bowled into my legs. He came around the wicket and hit me in the side of the knee where there's no pads and no straps even. 2 days later it looks like this...

This is the back of my knee - the ball hit the side of the knee on the boney bit of the left of the image. Yes it did hurt and yes it did swell up and it is still tender know and this is having iced it when I got back of the nets.

What was good/bad_________________________________________________________
Bowling at the first net session (Club nets) was bad, primarily because there were a load of blokes in the nets and you're rotating your turn with 8 others and there's no way that you're going to get any rhythm. Good in that session was that my line was pretty much spot on, I was able to bowl the line I wanted, length was okay too. 2nd net at Writtle that was good with regards the batting, but that's in part down to the fact that the group I'm there with (Disability players) included Graham Davies AKA G-Man who's the coach for them at Essex as far as I'm aware. So that meant the batting was done with purpose and scenarios.

Analysis __________________________________________________________________
Bowling, at both sessions, the majority of my bowling was was on or outside the off-stump, so with the ball turning away from the batsmen. They have a look at a few balls and then see the consistency of my line and turn see and that its not actually threatening the stumps. They then play cut shots of different varieties, drives and back-foot drives. All of these can be countered as I keep arguing in my other blog here by having a strong and organised off-side field.

One of the blokes that I bowled at... Alistair Hayton I asked about this approach (He also bowls) and he said "if I saw that the field on the leg-side was offering more scoring opportunities, I'd be stepping across the crease and trying to score through the leg-side". It's then that you need a straight ball or some other variation which is something I need to work on. I do bowl a Flipper and I did try one or two, but both went leg-side. Flippers are a variation that I need to work on a lot before using in a game. But preferably, I'd have a good Top-Spinner, again, this is a ball I have to work with a lot in order for it to be usable and last year my attempts at a Top-Spinner were indifferent. A perfectly straight one would be ideal, but just a leg-break with only a little turn would be more than useful. Googlies for me are out of the question.

So for the moment the basic plan when bowling this summer will involve the field here...

This field is reliant on being accurate with your bowling line in order to not concede runs on the leg-side. Added to this your length and speed needs to be such that you're able to land the ball on a length that encourages the batsman to drive off the front foot and not slow enough to play back foot shots.

The key thing here is to be able to bowl variations in line and length, if you've got something that doesn't turn - bring it out early show the batsman. I have a number of sub variations of my leg-break - As well as the bog- standard leg-break I can vary it's flight, dip and the amount of turn by either getting up on my toes at FFC (Front foot contact). Generally I bowl without going up on the toes for my standard leg-break, but simply going up on the toes creates more dip and turn. The same speed ball will have a trajectory initially that looks similar, but will then suddenly dip and then bounce more.
There's a caveat to this though, this kind of accuracy and control of variation isn't the norm and only comes about when I'm totally relaxed and 3 overs into the game when I'm bowling well in practice. Generally I need to be fully fit and practicing a lot. (See 'Action Plan' below.

Batting Analysis Batting is something I need to work on as you can see from the picture above - cricket friends on Facebook have helpfully suggested that I should hit the ball rather than let it hit me. Other than my son Joe nearly breaking my leg and getting me LBW, I continued to struggle against the blokes that bowled off-spin mixed with a straight ball (There's that combination again). Against anyone that bowls with some pace I've been working on moving my feet and in the last year or so in practice in the paddock with Joe I've been walking down the crease to the bowler in the same way that England Women's Tammy Beuamont does in this video here at 4'.45' (double click on the image below). 

and is seems to work for me if the wicket it relatively sound and the bowler is bowling in a consistent manner. The good thing is, If I'm able to get to the Writtle nest every week heading into the season I reckon this may make some difference especially with Graham Davies's coaching. This is first time in 12 years that someone has helped me with my batting!

Action Plan________________________________________________________________
In the next session try and work on the top-spinner or at least have a look at it and see if there's any chance at all of bowling with the seam relatively straight. At home keep flicking the ball from hand to hand and look at the wrist position adjustment to produce a ball with more over-spin, but with the same amount of revs on the ball seen with the leg-break. 

https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/cricket/10964720/tammy-beaumont-masterclass

Someblokecalleddaves January wrist spin diary

The month starts with very mild weather here in the UK and the grass in the paddock where I practice across the road is actually growing! The temperature during the day has been well in excess of 10 degrees centigrade for the last 2 weeks over the Christmas holiday.

Early Jan made a decent start to the exercise regime and my diet's improved now that all the Christmas food's been eaten or thrown away. The main weakness still seems to be my lower back, but with the little bit of exercise that I did do towards the end of Dec I've now been able to do the head-stands again for well in excess of 2 minutes. Current record still stands at 4 minutes and 10 seconds.

Mid January and the back soreness still prevailed and was starting to worry me, so I upped the exercise regime and focused on my Glutes and core strength. There's a lot of commentary on the internet relating to the fact that if you do a job where you're relatively inactive - sitting at a computer, you lose the muscles in your butt. If that happens, then all of the surrounding connected muscles and joints start to suffer leading to problems with the hips, back and knees. So, core strength and butt muscles it is for me at the moment.

End of January whilst doing a headstand (Good for core strength and balance) I over-balanced and where my fingers are locked together behind my head, my head rolled over the fingers and completely mangled them. That's put a stop to the exercise, it also coincided with the weather taking a turn for the worse so any activities like cycling would have been been thwarted anyway. I reckon it'll be early February before I start again.

Blogs and stuff

I've also started to delete some of my blogs and consolidate them as I'm trying to generate traffic to this one, but it seems pretty difficult and slow at the moment. The other blog with the first series of pitch maps here is still getting loads of hits, but ideally I'll delete these, because I want the traffic coming to the new pitch map and plans blog (See link in the top-right side bar) here, or click on the page image below...
Over the weekend of Jan 6th I discovered that the blogs weren't showing adverts because I had an ad-blocking extension set up and it looked as though I needed to re-set the adverts. So I'm going through all my blogs at the moment checking to see that they've all got adverts on, but I'm only too aware people use ad' blocking software, which is a shame.

Here are some of the other activities that I've been up to.

The batsman's analysis blog has some examples in albeit from the old league (SNEL). I've included these just to see how it looks and establish a way of producing the diagrams that'll be consistent and coherent. Previous manifestations have been very popular with tens of thousands of hits, but they've taken shed-loads of time to produce because of the heavy use of Photoshop. The new approach will hopefully mean I can up-load the wagon wheel diagrams and plans the same weekend as the games.

Click on the image to go to the website.

The other deals with another aspect of strategy and the formulation of a bowling plan and includes a link to a Youtube video you can pretty much guarantee will be deleted because SKY will hunt the up-loader down and threaten to destroy him if he doesn't delete it and then people wonder why crickets decreasing in popularity eh?

That link is here http://wristspinbowling.blogspot.com/2017/10/1-best-of-wrist-spin-bowling-2.html

My other active blogs include…

https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/

http://theoldwristspinner.blogspot.com/

http://wristspinbowling.blogspot.com/

This is an example of some of the bowling vids on my Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBodRls5i80&t=21s

The hits on this blog are steadily growing and the nice thing is I'm getting really positive feedback from different people from all around the world. The original post on the other website where all the batsmen were in one post is gradually being reduced as I transfer them to the blog above.

The club had its AGM on Jan 25th and that was attended by a much bigger crowd than usual. We're almost certainly going to be fielding 3 teams in the new T-Rippon league, but there's an option to field 4 if there's a sudden surge in players as the season starts it seems. There's a real feel of optimism around the club after 2 years of misery caused by the loss of so many key players over one winter. The word is some players who have left over the last 3 or 4 years are looking to come back and play some games on and off and there seems to be a few new blokes. The new blokes also reckon they've got mates that'll play the occasional game as well.

We've lost some key players as well because of the change in game format, but the fact that we're initially fielding 3 teams rather than four offsets that.

We'll find out what division we'll be playing in by mid February and early Feb we'll be getting into the nets. In recent years nets have been a bit sparse with regards attendance, so it'll be interesting to see who turns up? With regards nets Joe and I haven't been to Writtle at all this year other than the one session. This is primarily due to the fact that whenever I ask him if he wants to go he's never up for it.

Other than, that not a lot happened over January.

Leg-spin accuracy drill video

This is a drill that I do all the time - put a mat down and aim to hit the mat. This helps you work with your line and length. In this video I've slightly changed things up and put the mat wide of the leg-stump. This tests your ability to spin the ball hard, the wider the mat, the more you need to put revs on the ball, but all the time you're also working on maintaining your length. Peter Philpott I'm sure would approve as you're practicing with purpose with specific aims and goals...

Basildon & Pitsea 2nd XI v Walthmstow 2nd XI

I have to make it clear this wasn't the usual 2nd XI. For me to be in the 2nd XI means something is up! Apparently 6 blokes in the 1st XI weren't available, so everyone had to shift up a grade or two with me moving up from my usual place in the 4th XI. Also from the 4's... Lee Dutton, Al McIver, Mitchell Robinson.

The only 2nd XI players were Mike and Charlie Blerkom, the rest of the team were 3rd XI players. As a result the 4th XI game was called off for lack of players as far as I can make out. I won't bother with any analysis because the likely-hood of me coming up against these players again is minimal. For a short while I did think there might be some hope because this team were skittled in their last game of the season last year - all out of 14, with one bloke taking 9 wickets in that game against Billericay. 

Before the game was started I was disappointed to hear our blokes saying that they wanted to win the toss and bat, because they had already conceded defeat and just wanted to get it over and done with. What about the bowlers? Why not bowl first and see how we get on and at least have half a game if the batsmen are not up to it. Thankfully they won the toss and put us in which was the same scenario, but at least it wasn't orchestrated by us to the detriment of the bowlers. 

The game commenced in very light rain - spitting and the whole game was played in rain of varying degrees and not once did we come off. As expected it didn't go that well with only Mike Blerkom the captain putting up any resistance. We  were all out for 54 after about 23 overs or so. I survived facing about 5 balls batting with Lee Dutton. I was out bowled by a good off-cutter, Dutton said it was a good delivery.

We made a reasonable start getting two early wickets. Joe (My son) got their captain caught at fine leg and then Joe took a catch off of Alistair Hayton's off-breaks while he was at Fine Leg. Chris Debond took a wicket, but from then on a really good batsman came out and took the game away from us. I got the last over and went for 10 off of 5 balls it, in the middle of the over I bowled a flipper and beat the bat just wide of the off-stump much to Sean Healey's appreciation in the slips. 

The details are here on Play Cricket.

Tea was nice and we came home about 4.30 in the rain. I was very pleased to have played a full match albeit short and in constant light rain, most of the other matches in the area were probably called off because of the rain and we even got a bowling point for the league table.

I also managed to get a picture of their Pavilion for my pavilion project here which was a result. I'll be adding more pictures to that blog page as the season goes on and it remember to do so.

Home Page

Another blog! Yep, another one, the other recent one (see it here ) is fine for some things but other things e.g. daily waffle, rants and similar stuff I felt it wasn't working. In a way a website would be much better, but as I don't sell anything I can't justify the cost of running a website.

So from now on the day to day stuff will be here and the static pages with the wrist-spin content will be accessible via the link above or the one in the side-bar on the right here. So who am I again? Some bloke who bowls wrist-spin at 4th XI club level here in England. Why am I all over the internet? Only because I write a lot about it and have opinions and views that I'm willing to share - none of it supported by qualifications or professional practice, so make sure you take notice of the caveat at the end here.

Dave Thompson - the author 2017

 



All the ideas, views and opinions on here have nothing to do with the club I play for and are subject to change, as I'm learning all the time despite the fact that an old bloke!

Please note The owner of the blog is in no way responsible for you getting carted around the park for 4's and sixes. Seek professional guidance if in doubt.