Short spells strategy

A few years back I was watching the IPL and watched with interest the strategy of changing up the bowling almost every over. In 10 overs, 6 or 7 bowlers were used and in some cases they had bowlers changing ends. The intention was that, at no point was the batsman able to settle and get used to what the bowlers were doing.

I thought this was an interesting strategy and anecdotally at club level it seemed to make complete sense. It seemed to me that the majority of the wickets in all the games I played in, fell in the bowlers first few overs. I asked a few people initially about the idea, other bowlers, my captain and people with a lot more experience than me and they were sceptical. Bowlers especially, seemed to be in denial arguing that once they got settled they were more effective. I wasn't convinced, so I started to photograph as many score-books as possible at my own and other clubs and in the end gathered together data for 565 wickets taken.

I then counted all those that were taken in the first 10 overs and here's the results from my sample...

By quite some way, wickets are taken most frequently in the first 2 overs when the batsman is trying to figure out how he's going to play the bowler. Whether the bowler bowls better in the those overs is a moot point and it maybe in part down to relatively poor bowling that the wickets fall? Once a bowler settles he/she potentially settles into a pattern - but that might also play into the batsman's hands because it then becomes predictable?

Could we adopt an approach whereby the bowlers are rotated every two overs as well as being deployed from different ends. The bowlers might argue that they don't get into a rhythm, but if we're trying to win who cares - just look at the data! We might make a concession and meet the bowler part of the way by giving him/her additional overs say if they bowl an over that returns 2 or less runs? But as soon as they've gone for more than two we're looking for wickets and if they've not got wickets in the next 2 overs they're out of the attack and its in with the next bloke. You could also as a concession to your bowlers adopt an approach where 1 or more wickets in an over buys another over.

The Flipper as your stock ball part II

After May 15th I continued bowling Flippers. I tested the change of shoes idea (See previous post) and it seemed inconclusive. That following Friday I bowled 200 + balls wearing my cricket shoes and there didn't seem to be any significant difference in whether I bowled well or not.

I've been trying to get my son Joe to bat and face the new bowling, but as yet he's turned me down every time. So it looks like the proof will have to come in the game this weekend.

Tonight the first over or two were a bit scratchy, some wides, but once I got going it got better. Tomorrow I'm just going to practice hitting the stumps or hitting the target length consecutively and see how that goes. What I'll do is set a target of doing either 40 times in the session and see how long or how many balls it takes to do it.

Follow up
_______________________________________________________

On Saturday 25th we played against Great Waltham and I deployed the Flipper as my stock ball see the account here and it went well. So at the moment I'm enthused by the situation and I'm going to keep working with it looking to improve further.

Over this last week I've continued to practice every night bowling 150 + deliveries and I've started to mark out the wicket with markers so that I can monitor the consistency of line and length  as well as calculate the percentage of wides. Interestingly, I read last week in the Guardian that Jofra Archer wanting to get into the England team realised that one solution might be to practice on his own and he cut his own strip somewhere across the road from his house, just as I have.

“He went away and trained incredibly hard, to the point where he rolled his own wicket in the yard across the road and put a net around it and did all his drills into that. He came back nine months later and he was a different-looking athlete – pretty much the bowler you see today with that speed and accuracy".

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/19/jofra-acher-england-bowling-cricket

Once back indoors the rough diagrams that I mark while I'm practicing I then digitize using Photoshop. 

This is the result... 

Pitch map - SomeblokecalledDave practice with Flippers 27.5.19

The coloured balls represent the following -

Red - Are balls that go on to hit the stumps.

Blue - Are deliveries that are decent, these vary quite a bit, as the Flippers I bowl vary in a number of ways. 90% of them are cross-seam flippers, so they have the potential to break either left or right especially if its a diagonal seamed release. There's also the bounce variation potential - if the ball lands on the seam it can rear-up dramatically and if it lands on the smooth surface it does what a Flippers does - stays low. The back-spin that is imparted on the ball makes it act differently through the air and when it hits the surface it actually stalls noticeably. So even if the ball goes down when it hits the surface its anyone's guess where it'll deviate to.

Yellow - These are wides. You'll see from the pitch map below and to some extent the two above I have this proclivity to bowl yorkers right onto the bowling crease out-side of the leg-stump. Not so clever if it's right-hander, but might be useful against a left-hander? The only issue is, its not something I have control over at this point. That's something I'm working on at the moment.

Black - These are the Leg-Breaks (below) which at the moment I'm still bowling few and far between, but as this week goes on I'll introduce more of them. So far almost all of them turn much more than the Flippers that break to leg and in practice my control of them is pretty good.

The measurements are imperial - No.s across the bottom are yards and the grids are 1' (12"x12"). The green rectangle at 4 yards is my target mat that I use which is 20" x 39". At the moment you can see that my bowling seems to vary without too much intervention from being really full to a good length. 

The batsman in the last game  said that he was unable to get me off the square and if it wasn't for trying to bowl two leg-breaks which went wrong and were hit for a 4 and a 2 my figures would have been decent. I'd like to think that it's the back-spin that makes the Flippers difficult to hit. I'm not tall, so they're going to come in from a low starting point and if the physics of the back-spinning  ball holds up they're going to hold their line through the air despite the relatively slow speed (Bernoulli affect)? They then vary in the way they come off the surface dependent on what delivery I use!

So at the moment I'm quite pleased with how they're working.

 I haven't bowled Flippers so consistently in a game since the days when I was bowling Googlies as my stock ball and then I used them as the variation to the Googly and this was one of the most effective periods of my bowling. So the plan is to carry on with the Flippers and hone them further and then start to introduce Leg-breaks off this faster approach to the crease. Initial experiments apart from the two in this game at Waltham show real promise.

28.5.19

Today 28.5.19 I've bowled two session both around about an hour with a 3 hour break in between. The 2nd session below was about 80 balls so I guess the one above was similar?

You might have noticed the weird cluster of balls on the leg-side right up on the bowling crease. If I could somehow get my radar right these would be bottom of the stump yorkers, so this is something I need to look into and rectify as mentioned earlier.

I've started to introduce more frequent Leg-Breaks and these seem to be working well with this run-up and as you can see in the middle pitch map, I'm landing them on the mat. 

What I might do in the next day or so is cut the mat down in size so that it's 3' x 1.5' so that it fits into the grids more accurately and I can an even more accurate assessment of what I'm doing when practicing. 

If you're looking to do this yourself I'll post a picture in the next few days of the set up showing how I manage to figure out the length and width.

Update September 13th 2019

After years of bowling primarily leg-breaks and Googlies and doing so with a lack of control much of the time, this summer has been a revelation. As the summer went on I bowled more and more Flippers and as I did so my economy went down and down and I got to bowl more and more overs. In the last game at the end of August, I played a friendly game for another team and got to bowl 10 overs back to back. I only bowled 3 leg-breaks, the first being a good-un and the two follow-up leg-breaks got tonked for 4 through the leg-side. Other than that I reckon I went for 2 an over on risky runs. The conclusion at the end of the game was that next season I'll bowl exclusively Flippers and work on combining the leg-breaks as a variation in practice. Then, and only then - when I can land the leg-breaks consistently on, or about the off-stump I bring the leg-breaks back and see how it works. (Providing I'm fit enough to play next season).

The Flipper as your stock Ball

Originally drafted May 15th 2019

If you’ve read the post about the game with Rainham, you’ll see that I wasn’t happy with my bowling and the fact that I primarily have to rely on people taking catches... I was dropped 3 times. Any of the 3 if they'd been snaffled would have won us the game with the final wicket required. At the end of the analysis of the game I concluded that this week I’d focus on bowling exclusively Flippers.

Years ago, I spent 2 or 3 seasons bowling loads of flippers coupled with Googlies as I had Googly syndrome and couldn’t get the ball to break to off. As a part of re-learning the Leg-Break I had to scrap bowling Flippers and lost them. Since then and more recently, I’ve started bowling them in practice, but have rarely brought them to the game scenario. After the Rainham game and on reflection I made the decision to only bowl Flippers this week with the idea that, if I got it right and it looked like it might be a delivery I could execute with more consistency, I might bowl them in the next game?

I started on Saturday as soon as I got home from the game because I wanted to look at whether my poor bowling was a fitness and stamina issue, it wasn’t. I got through 240 balls that evening and went back to the 20’ run-up and bowled with far more pace.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I did the same thing 200 - balls at least each session. Thinking about why I bowl so badly in the game scenario compared to the practice, I made the following observations. In practice you generally bowl ball after ball – up to 200 and you get a general sense of consistency over the 200 deliveries. What if you focus on the first 6 deliveries in isolation as in a game? In a game it matters – those 1^st six deliveries are judged by you, your captain, your team and the batsman and if you get it wrong it’s a long psychological haul back that you might not make or you may not get the chance to pull back because you could be taken out of the attack.

So, in the practice situation I started focusing on the first 6 balls and the subsequent 36 or 42 that followed as in a spell. I then thought that there may be an argument to replicate the game scenario further still and by tonight I was doing the following...

(1). Before I even started, I did some vigorous exercise to replicate the faster heart rate that I get as a result of being nervous about bowling the first delivery. I then bowled in that ‘Excited’ condition.

(2). I then did further exercise – throwing a ball and catching it, in doing so, delaying the time between each delivery, trying to replicate the delay between each delivery you see in a game scenario. Thus, not bowling one ball after another developing a rhythm as I do in a usual practice situation.

(3). Once the ‘Over’ was bowled, I then did fielding drills for several minutes -run and pick up a static ball and throw down the stumps for the amount of time that would constitute the other blokes over from the other end and then repeat form stage (1).

I did this for 6 or 7 overs before going back to general practice where I bowl one ball after another. Overall it went well, and it has been going really well as a rule. Coming off a 7-metre run-up, my movement through the crease is far more dynamic and my bowling is considerably faster than my usual 2-3 steps to the crease.

There have been leg-side balls that would need a bloke at fine leg and some might evade the keeper and go for byes, so I was thinking about what I might do to reduce the frequency of those as it was about 1 in every 6 balls which could easily spoil a decent over. I then recalled some advice from Stuart MacGill about bringing your leg through towards the batsman up and over your front foot – Not around your front foot. As soon as I implemented this, there was a marked improvement in both accuracy and speed, so tonight was a good session.

The only other aspect that I’ve not explored is whether there’s any impact with regards what I wear on my feet. When I practice, I wear trainers, so there’s difference in the grip compared to cricket shoes with their studs. There’s an analogy that says you can’t fire a canon-ball off a rowing boat as there’s an obvious stability issue. Theoretically with cricket shoes and their studs when I bowl there’s a potential difference in the torque that is generated compared to when I bowl in Adidas Sambas. Might it be that my bowling is honed to work effectively wearing trainers, but then once I don the cricket shoes, the additional grip suddenly increases the torque so creates all the issues?

So, this might be the next step in trying to ascertain what the issues are. Can I bowl as well wearing cricket shoes or is this a part of the problem?

That aside though, the way it’s going at the moment I’m looking at bowling Flippers primarily in the next game off this 7-metre run-up. With the Flippers there’s sub-variation – the ball I’ve been bowling the most is either a cross-seamed or scrambled seam ball. That’s mixed with the off-spinning version which does come in like an off-cutter. I then also have bastardised version of Grimmett’s Wrong-Wrong Un which just seems to do what it wants it goes either way. But all of them bring LBW into the game and more pace and… I can bring in the occasional Leg-Break with this extra speed as a variation and so far it’s looked useful.

Great Waltham cc 3rd XI v Basildon & Pitsea 3rd XI game 26/5/19

Another lovely venue up the A12. Most of us got lost following those bloody Satnav's. I knew exactly where I was going but the bloke in my car had his one on and it started telling us that the A12 was jam-packed and that there was another option. Initially I dismissed the idea, but the traffic was bad as we approached the A12 and we were running out of time so over to the Satnav and then it began going really wrong.

I knew from the direction of the sun and the fact that we were predominantly going west something was going awry, then when we pulled up at the entrance it was obviously wrong. After much faffing and some good old turn right turn left, turn left again at the Bull and Duck we set off in search of a Satnav signal. In the meantime the captain Alistair had pulled up and he opted to follow us. Eventually following the old school style instructions getting closer to the A12 we picked up a signal and that allowed 'Satnav boy' Tim Brown to put the correct post-code into the phone and I got a look at where we were on the map. If he could get me on the A12 all would be solved and after a few miles down winding lanes we got on the A12 and the Satnav was no longer required, although we did initially drive past the entrance and had to back-track a couple of hundred feet. But, eventually we arrived.

Someone who'd got there on time had done the toss and we were straight into bat...

As you can see it didn't go that well again other than our captain Alistair Hayton getting 53. Al McIver did okay too, but the rest of us fell short of our expectations. One of their bowlers did well taking 6 wickets and he was also the top scorer with the bat - Joel Barker, I can't imagine that he'll be hanging around in the 3rd XI that much longer at 17 I'd imagine he'll be in the 2nd XI at some point this summer?

Quite rightly on the basis of my performance so far this season I found myself at the bottom of the batting order with Tim Brown. I did get the opportunity with about 5 balls to go. So with 5 more balls left I walked out and as Alistair approached I asked what do you want me to do - try and hit it? "What do you think - yes hit it". I thought - fair enough with Tim Brown the No.11 after me, even if I miss it, he might do some damage - he's known to hit 4's.

As I got to the square Josh Debond approached -
"What's the bowler like"? I asked.
"It's okay it's not doing anything" was his reply. I didn't even take a guard I was just going to skip down and hit the ball with a straight bat. There's was one thing Josh Debond forgot to mention though... The fact that the bloke was bowling off-breaks, so I found myself on the way back to the pavilion first ball. Tim Brown followed and I made sure I told him that the bowler was an off-spinner. It made no difference.

As we walked out on to the field I looked around and it looked as though we were also a bit thread-bear in bowling dept as well.. Tim Edmonds, Alistair Hayton, Tim Edmonds son Ben and me. Last week and the week before I'd bowled poorly, so this week looking to address this I've been working on my Flipper bowling as a way of simplifying things. I've added a 8 step run-up and a few MPH in speed.

I got given the nod to bowl quite early and at one point in the over before my spell I almost bottled it and nearly scrapped the idea of bowling Flippers. Thankfully I didn't and it went really well. I was only hit for 1 for and that's because that delivery was an attempt at a Leg-Break as a variation and it came out of the hand completely wrong. The batsman

G.Reed who was going at a fair lick when I came on was halted in his tracks with my Flippers and eventually got a single. When he arrived at my end he said something along the lines of "At last, I haven't been able to get you off the square"! Which I felt was a pretty good endorsement of my bowling. I almost had him with some ridiculously close play and misses and he almost chopped one onto the stumps off an inside edge. I was taken off after

six over I guess because I hadn't taken any wickets. I was happy though with the way it went only a bit miffed because the 2 leg-break attempts were hit for 4 and 2 respectively - if it hadn't have been for them I'd have had pretty good figures.

Having posted a score of 147 Waltham had reached that by the 29th over almost.

So once P.Rolfe came out pulling off reverse sweeps for 4 we could sense were dead and buried.

Over on my other blog you'll find a number of wagon wheels for some of the key batsmen and a suggestion as to how you might go about bowling to them if you're a wrist-spin bowler or a left arm orthodox bowler. Double click the image below.

The detailed analysis of the batsman is here https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/2019/05/great-waltham-3rd-xi-batsmen-analysis.htmlsix or double click on the image above.

Basildon & Pitsea 2nd XI v Eastwood 2nd XI 27th April 2019

What happened?_______________________________________

First game of the season played in the 2^nd XI against Eastwood 2^nd XI at Belfairs Park just outside of Southend on sea. Weather was grim – westerly at 35-45mph with the temp around 12-15 degrees e.g. bloody cold, whereas the weekend before had been 25 degrees

 and one of the hottest Easters ever. Both sides were short of players and we both played with 10 a side. More details can be found at www.bowlingplans.blogspot.com where you’ll find detailed analysis of the batsmen.

How do I feel it went?___________________________________

Given that over the weeks and months leading up to this game I’ve been feeling really old and unready, it went surprisingly well. In the last 2 weeks or so I’ve been bowling and getting fit and it seems to have paid off as I bowled relatively straight and got myself 2 wickets… One bowled and one stumped.

Evaluation – what was good/bad?_________________________

Despite the fact that we lost by about 30 or so runs it was an enjoyable game. The rain didn’t dampen our enthusiasm and we stayed out through the handful of drizzly episodes. For some reason, given the short format of 40 overs I thought I wouldn’t get to bowl especially as they had two other spinners (Finger-spin)... John “Moondog” Beford and Rob Brooks, but in the end I had 6 overs which I was happy with. I took two wickets and bowled relatively good areas which I was happy about. The opposition were a decent bunch of blokes as well and the game was played in a good spirit. The only bad aspects were the previously mentioned weather and the fact that the games are so short in this league, but we'll just have to get used to it.

Analysis______________________________________________

From my perspective as a slow bowler the first observation on arrival was that the cut strip was over to one side meaning the Westerly boundary was short, so I really wanted to bowl from the southerly end so that leg-side shots had to be hit harder to get to the boundary. The night before I’d checked the weather and knew that the wind would be westerly, so there was also the fact that bowling from the southern end would mean that although there was a much bigger boundary the batsman had the wind behind the ball, whereas at the other end they’d have to hit into the wind with the short boundary. In the end I was given the northern A127 end so had the short into the wind boundary to contend with.

Click on the image to open more detailed image and analysis of individual batsmen.

With 10 players the field which was set by my captain Chris Debond was pretty conventional with no slip. See diagram here above. I had no input and the only change that was made was a slight change in square leg – he went deeper onto the boundary and that worked really well keeping shots through there down to singles.

Almost all of the players with the exception of the opener (who I didn’t bowl at), seemed to have as their primary shots the clip off the legs through the area which is hatched on the diagram below. For more detailed analysis of individual batsmen see 

www.bowlingplans.blogspot.co.uk

I was kind of caught off guard a little as I didn’t expect to bowl, but in the end I got 6 overs which was nice and I went for 6-0-31-2. 

The key here was to bowl a middle and off-stump line turning the ball away from the outside edge and I didn’t really notice quickly enough how effective this was until I’d been hit a few times through the leg-side. As soon as I adopted this approach the runs dried up and almost every ball was either threatening to be caught behind or hit the off-stump. There were a lot of play and misses, primarily because the variation in turn off the wicket, this wicket turns if you’re spinning the ball hard!

My wickets came about in both instances through the batsmen taking an aggressive approach. The first one occurred seemingly after a conversation between Ciaran Turner (7) and R.Ruffell (4) where it appeared that they agreed a more aggressive approach was required. This is at a point where Ciaran was hitting Finger spinner Chris Brooks for 4’s and 6’s on the leg-side. Ruffell's momentum  at this point had stalled slightly.

Ruffell then came out of his crease a little looking to play a big straight shot and the ball might have drifted? As it seemed to be on around leg-stump. The ball turned and hit middle and off having gone through the gate.

The 2^nd wicket was very similar. I bowled the final over and it started with the score on 194 and the umpire was saying that they wanted 6 off my last over to get to the psychological target of 200. By the last ball the bloke needed 4 and he too came bounding down the wicket and ran straight past the ball for Daniel Vanderputt to whip the bails off. 

There was a really daft passage of play against P.Bartlett who scored a number of 4’s off of me and I didn’t make any adjustments for it. On reflection I can’t remember being that bothered by it, seemingly because I had my mind focused on getting the other bloke out? It might have been that I realised the Flipper would have been the solution, but I've currently got a cut on my finger and couldn't deploy it. So I kept bowling the same ball for which he had a solution for. I’m blaming it on the cold and saying that my brain wasn’t functioning at full capacity because of it! But I’ve got a plan for the next encounter. The important thing is to at least have a plan.

During the game one of our players came up to me at the end of an over and said something along the lines of… “It’s like you’re getting too much turn… you need a straight ball as well”. Absolutely! John “Moondog” Bedford in the same game took 4, bowling off-breaks and arm balls. I was fielding at slip and saw so many ball go past the outside of the bat when I was expecting them to be beating the inside of the bat! So it appeared that he’d shown them the ball that comes in and then from then on they were looking for that ball and instead it was just missing the off-stump. So he’d created utter confusion with just one variation supporting his off-break.

I do have variations – Flippers x 2 – The standard bog standard up-right seam back-spinner and a back-spinning off-break. Both very different to the leg-breaks. The other variation is a Top-spinning leg-break with a lot more over-spin which can go straight on with a lot more bounce and pace. This is the one I’m working on in practice all the time at the moment as I’m looking for it to be totally up-right… e.g. a pure Top-Spinner. The only reason I didn’t use these in the game in this instance was that I’ve got cuts on my fingers that need to heal before I can bowl the Flippers and I’m not quite happy with the over-spun leg-break at the moment.

My practice regime at the moment involves bowling sequences of 2 flippers, followed by a leg-break ad infinitum. The flipper is a far more accurate ball and much faster. A slower variation bowled at the pace of the leg-breaks has so much back-spin that it almost stops and often bounces a 2^nd time before the stumps, so would be called a no-ball!

Eliminate the bad balls: I was thinking about the reasons I and others bowl bad balls at the start of an over. You might have noticed elsewhere on the blog I’m concerned about my heart at the moment and I’ve become far more aware of my heart rate in different situations. In this game as soon as I was given the nod that I’d be bowling I noticed that my heart rate went up dramatically and then calmed slightly to go up again as my first over arrived. Aware of this and having watched so many Shane Warne videos where he endorses the need to relax it kind of make sense that the more up-tight you are and tense you are the more likely you are to get it wrong initially when you bowl your first over. With what we do, we know far too well that there’s a massive expectation that you’re going to be spraying the ball all over the place – wides, too full, too flat, drag-downs and more. I would imagine every wrist-spinner has had these situations occur and looked at their stats at the end of the game and seen that their average compared to all the other types of bowling is way higher. Often you’re left looking at the data thinking we lost the game because of my bowing.

Generally we know that if we can have 3 overs there’s a good chance that we’ll settle and get into a rhythm and bowl well. Trouble is, that usually relies on having a relatively decent first 3 overs in order that the stress doesn’t go up during that phase. If we’re smashed for 6’s  or 4’s in those three overs it’s very difficult to keep a lid on your psychological state and therefore your performance as you’re far from relaxed and you can see the captain weighing up whether he’s going to allow you to continue.

So what can we do to try and alleviate this problem?

(1). Bowl at your mate.

(2). Be aware of your heart rate and try the idea below.

One thing I’ve adopted in the last season and now do every time now, is get the attention of one of my fielders mid-off or Mid-on and bowl a couple of balls at them. I’ve found that it settles the nerves a little and makes you feel more confident that you’re going to get it down the middle on the wicket when you bowl that 3^rd ball at the batsman.

Recently and I’m talking literally in the last day or so I’ve adapted my practice regime to try and explore the idea of bowling with an increased heart rate to try and re-create a similar scenario when you’re standing at the top of your mark with your heart pounding. I now run up and down the strip as fast as possible and then rest for a moment and try and bowl accurately with a fast heat rate. I then bowl six balls and then repeat that 3 or 4 times. In practice it seems to be okay and I’m still able to execute decent deliveries despite the fact that my hearts beaten so fast. I’m going to continue to do this over the coming weeks and see if it transfers to the game scenario and makes any difference?

Looking around the internet I found this which suggests that there is some substance to these musings…  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230647121_Study_of_the_Heart_Rate_and_Accuracy_Performance_of_Archers

I’ve also found these which are far more specific to cricket and offer solutions and ideas.

http://www.cricketlab.co/cricket-mental-training-relaxation.html

http://www.cricketlab.co/cricket-mental-training-breathing.html

There’s a lot of useful info on this website, so it’s worth having a look around.

Action Plan

·         As above, I’ll continue to practice with the excited heart rate at the start of my practice sessions.

·         Work on the Top-Spinner trying to get it so that it’s a perfectly straight Top-Spinner as opposed to an over-spun leg-break.

·         Look to practice at least an hour a day.

·         Continue with fitness and agility training.

·         Try out some of the approaches mentioned on the website above and see if they have any impact on the next game.

This is their pavilion. Double click on the image to see a Typology of pavilions from different places within the country.

Pre-season fitness.

Another quick blast around the local woods today as part of my fitness regime. I have to admit though I've been slack with this - partly down to the fact that it's been cold and the other thing is I'm doing the usual pre-season DIY chores.

I've got a blood pressure monitor so that measures other values... Diastolic and Systolic blood pressure. In my chart below the last 2 digits are my heart rate. In each column the row at the top is the measurement as soon as I get in from the exercise. The number on the right highlighted yellow is my heart rate. Then each row of numbers beneath the top row is the measurement done at minute intervals.

From what I can gather, what you do is take the 3rd measurement e.g. 2 minutes after finishing the exercise and subtract that from the top number. That difference is an indication of how good your recovery rate is and how healthy your heart is. 

• Less than 22:  Your biological age is slightly older than your calendar age.

You can see therefore when I first did this around April 1st my recovery rate was 9 so my heart is 'Biologically older than my age, but you can see with each days it seems and the increase in activity the number is going up, so I'm quite optimistic, I'm happy with the jump between 14th and 15th April, and I'm hoping this'll improve as the week goes on. I'd like to see it somewhere near the 50 mark as that'll mean my heart/biological age is younger than my actual age. But in the short term anything over 22 will be good. 

Another value that you need to look at is your heart rate after exercise...At my age my heart rate after exercise should be between 102 and 136, it seems the faster your heart beats the younger you should be... See a chart here As you can see here below this figure is improving too, so for the moment as I write 15/4/19 things are looking positive. 

With the season coming up I need to get on this a bit more, so I'll endeavor to do this once a day from now on, with an increase in the running.

My circuit is around a wood and takes around 18-20 minutes. It has a few hills, with two biggish hills and the aim is to run up as many of these hills as fast as possible as I get fitter and then to run and walk sporadically throughout the walk, to recreate the running and pausing when batting. 

I'll update this post as the days go on.

16/4/19 - Thinking about this and looking at the data, I realised there may be an issue whereby the last bit of running I do before coming in and making the measurement is a couple of hundred yards short of my house. Therefore I'm already in recovery from a period of intense activity when I take the first measurement, so today I made sure the last 200 feet or so was a sprint to the front door and the data is significantly different...

 You can now see that having sprinted at the end, my heart rate is far higher... 127 and then two minutes later the recovery far more significant... 35! So, from now on this'll be what I'll do as I reckon this is far more realistic. Another thing you'll see is that I'm doing this twice a day at the moment.

Old dog new tricks

So tonight was the last net session before the start of the 2019 season. This was a Basildon and Pitsea club net facing the bowling of Phillip Took, Joe my son, Harrison Birch and Craig Thompson who are 1st and 2nd XI bowlers and I did pretty well against them. Craig who I've not batted against since last winter was the first bowler I face and I adopted my new approach which I've developed over the winter. He was surpised. Joe said when he got back in line he said "Whoa, I wasn't expecting that" and there-after in stark contrast to last year when he bowled me again and again I kept hitting the ball back past him again and again irrespective of any change ups. Phillp Took  was a different prospect he got me first ball, but thereafter was frustrated.

I'm hoping that the standard and speed of the bowling I'll be facing in the new league will of a much lower standard than seen in the nets over the winter and therefore this new approach will put me in good stead? The theories there and the practice has been put in, all I need to do now is execute it in a game situation and I'm aware that is very different. We'll have to see...