Knee injury update May 2020

On the 19^th May with a slight relaxing of the Covid 19 ‘Stay at home’ rules I was able to get out and mow the wicket over at the Paddock and have a bowl. With my knee having been bad for months almost a year I’ve got to say in recent months it’s felt significantly better with a slight increase in basic activities such as walking. I started (Before the Covid 19 lock-down) to get off the train at Westcliff, breaking my journey and walking to Chalkwell and then getting back on the train. Since the Covid out break I’ve been walking around the wood and running a little – short bursts equivalent to running up and down the wicket twice every now and then during the walk.

So on May 19^th I bowled 24 balls off of a run-up to see how it went and it was fine. I’ve been watching a bloke on Youtube

 On the 20^th I bowled another spell of 24 balls around 3pm and 30 later in the day 7.30pm. Using the Martin Koban rule, I reckon I came back with a pain level of less than 1. Something like 0.25.

21^st I’ve had a rest day today – some angled board calf stretches, a 20 minute walk, couple of deep squats and I’m feeling okay. Also 10 seat squats.

22^nd A bowling day; So, I know I can bowl 24 balls and not have any negative outcome and it’s likely if I rest as seen before a few hours later I can bowl another 24. Koban says not to accelerate the increase in activity too fast, small gradual steps, combined with your physio regime. The same applies with that, if you increase what you do in your physio this too should be increased gradually, noting what the outcome is e.g. any increase in pain or discomfort.

If anything for me it’s the other knee that feels as though it’s been affected, so I need to keep an eye on that. Another thing I noticed was I didn’t wear the same trainers today. I’ve been wearing newish Adidas Sambas with a cushion in-sole, but today I wore my old knackered Samba’s and it didn’t feel so good – so the cushion in-sole seems to make a bit of a difference.

I think what I’m going to do is bowl 24 each day now and see if that works okay and then after about three days I might then start adding a ball a day and working up towards the 60 balls which as I recall might be the maximum I can bowl in the league I play in.

To make it more interesting I’m going to record my pitch maps, which should be pretty good as, so far this first week has been spot on, so it’ll be interesting to start plotting the data.

23^rd – Had a bowl today, completely ignored the plan – bowled more than I intended, but that was out of frustration that it went so bad. Since the resumption of bowling I’ve bowled with good accuracy, so yesterday I decided that I’d record my pitch map. Isn’t it always the case that when you start to do something, and you want to do it really well it doesn’t work out like that? That’s how it was today. Before I went out, I felt ropey anyway, but went despite this. The weather was sunny but really blustery 40mph winds. The intention was to bowl the usual 24, but there were so many bad ones I bowled extras to try and get it right.

If you look at the pitch map for 23.5.20 you’ll see that generally for much of the time I bowl really full, thankfully most of the leg-side balls are really full mid-stump height full tosses which I usually get away with. But generally, that was a really poor bowling performance. I will just have to see what happens tomorrow. Despite the extra 6 balls or so, my knee feels fine, so the same again tomorrow 30 balls and hopefully better accuracy.

I’m going to make excuses now – the approach to the wicket for my run up is rough – really rough. I might look at how I might be able to level it out a bit, because I’m sue that doesn’t help.

24.5.20

Better today and again more bowling, but the knee seems to be holding out...

.The clusters on the leg-side behind the wicket are full tosses, they tend to be about middle to top of the stumps and would probably be given as wides. The grey rectangle is my optimum length and the measurements are in Yards and feet, Ideally I'd be getting them on that grey rectangle, but I'm okay with the slightly wider option as I can bowl the flippers with a little bit of off-break with some practice. But as yet I've not worked on them as yet, I'm still trying to get it to the point where I can bowl 60 balls with confidence and not suffer any swelling or pain. It looks as though I'm getting there as this appears to have been around 45 balls. 

Red balls are balls that went on to hit the stumps. 

The two sessions over-laid below...

 

 

 

25/5/20 

No bowling today, well that's not strictly true. Got up and did some stretches as I'm having aggro with my lower back and struggled to do some of the usual ones. Yesterday while I was bowling because of the lower-back aggro and feeling my 60 years, I did some work on running and attacking the ball on the ground and throwing down the stumps. Whilst it was a bit creaky, the main issue that arose was that this involved using my knee in a different way and this morning it felt like using the Koban pain index I was probably at No.1, so decided to not bowl properly.

Instead I bowled probably a couple of hundred Flippers off of a couple of steps and my younger cricket playing son Joe joined me and batted against a wind ball and I had a bat as well. It was lovely and sunny and we were out there a couple of hours which was nice. 

I'll see how the knee feels tomorrow and probably have a bowl in the evening. During the day I need to do some stretches and yoga and work on this lower back soreness as today I also suffered back-spasms which is something that has happened over the last 20 years on and off, but it's not something I want happening on a regular basis. 

26/5/20

Again another bat and bowl in the sun with the wind ball - bowled a far bit off of a long run up. The knees fine. I think the issue is side-ways movement - Pliques are required or something similar I reckon might have to look into options for physio with side-ways movement. 

27/5/20

No Joe today he's gone fishing so I had to bowl on my own and do so properly and plot another pitch map.

A lot of balls today and no affect on the knee it seems which is good news. Instead I've seemingly got a really stiff back and never felt that comfortable bowling during the session and it resulted in loads of wides - highlighted in orange and loads of those full tosses on the leg-side, they ranged from a couple of no-balls around chest/head height and the other were all withing stump height.

Towards the end of the session I changed the angle of the run-up and that seemed to help considerably with the accuracy. So now I've got to work on this stiff back situation. It does feel like I've got a weak core - so I'm going to work on planks and see how that goes and other back exercises. 

30/5/20 

Bowled tonight and last night as well. I was going to plot a another pitch map but the start last night was so bad I gave up and tried to figure what was going wrong instead. Towards the end of the session it was coming together okay again. It seemed as though because I was plotting where the ball landed I was putting undue pressure on myself. So, then as soon I scrapped the plotting my line and length came back. 

Tonight like last night I bowled for an hour - yep, the knees doing well and I'm no longer counting balls bowled. I'm probably bowling 60-80 balls a session at the moment with no ill effect. Tonight I went out and just bowled - no pitch map plotting and it went a lot better, probably the best session so far. I did notice that I was bowling far too front-on and had to re-adjust by making sure that in BFC I was looking over the outside of my leading arm at the stumps. As soon as I was doing that my accuracy improved considerably, so that's obviously something I need to keep an eye on next time. 

31/5/20

Last session of May. An hour or so bowling, pretty consistent and accurate - good line and length, worked with varying the speed and moving the wrist position to create variations. Went well. knees fine as well. 

Knee injury progress

Last night (20/2/20) was the first net of the season and I didn't really hold back. Batted twice and bowled for the 2 hours. I was surprised a bit at how unfit I felt generally. The knee held out all night, towards the end it felt affected e.g. not 100%, so I mixed coming off a longer run up (12 steps) with my old 2-3 steps approach.

Drove home and half expected to feel worse getting out of the car, but it wasn't too bad. The rest of the evening it stiffened up a bit and I took some Ibuprofen before going to bed.

This morning I've got up and it feels a little sore, but a long way short of being totally crippled as was the case in the last game in September. Today, I've been continuing with my rehab exercises, but nothing that involves impact, just exercises that build the strength in the muscles around the knee.

I'm going to take it easy over the next few days and see how the discomfort continues. If it takes longer than expected to recover, I'll consider not going to nets next week and up the physio regime as well as general fitness, hopefully bringing in some cardio work. Overall though I'm feeling quite positive at the prospect of playing in May at this point.

I'm going to do this Gibbs style from now on...

27/2/20 - What happened? All week I worked on my physio and slowly the soreness dissipated. This Thursday I batted twice and bowled a handful of balls (9) off of a 3 step walk in.
How do i feel it went? It's pretty much gone to plan with regards the idea that I'd do the physio and avoid bowling tonight as there's no increase in lack of mobility or swelling.
What was good/bad? I bowled 9 balls off of a 3 step walk-in bowling leg-breaks and got a wicket or 2 through a clean bowled pitched outside of leg-hitting top of off and another off of a stumping chance. Nothing really bad, just that I'd rather be bowling properly.
Analysis; The theory is if I work on strengthening the muscles around it'll stablise the knee and make it less susceptible to further injury or consistent injury. Having bowled properly on 20/2/20 and then suffering a minor relapse, I've been happy to rest the knee this week. I feel that if I'd taken Ibuprofen I may have been able to bowl off the 14 step run in at full pelt, but the consequence of that would have more than likely been further damage. Instead I bowled using a sidearm and bowled 9 leggies off of a short step in a la Terry Jenner.
I batted twice and that didn't have any adverse affect.
Action plan; I'm looking forward to the weather clearing up and getting slightly warmer as that'll give me an opportunity to get off the train either earlier and walk from the station before my stop. Or get off mid-way on my journey and walk between the two stations with the nicest views (Chalkwell and Leigh-on-Sea. Other than that continue with my warm up and physio exercises this week, trying to stay on track with it, but I have to admit I find it really tedious.

8/3/20

What happened? Sporadic physio with decent amounts of rest. There's no nets for a couple of weeks which mean no real heavy impact on the knee.
How do I feel it's going  - Pretty well, there was a point just before writing that it felt normal.
What was good/bad? - The weather has improved and I've discovered a new walking route that I'd never considered before that has a number of benefits.
Analysis - I've not been going at it full-on, with a couple of months till I have to play I'm more inclined to take the bowling easy in the nets and focus on my batting, from what I'm researching there's a tendency to recover and then go backwards by over-exerting yourself and being too optimistic about the recovery process. The focus therefore is to take it easy and very slowly re-introduce the bowling and running with an increase in walking and cycling in order to build up the muscles around the knee.
On the Friday just gone the weather was good and I got out of work at 4.30 and there was plenty of light and I got off at Westcliff and walked to Chalkwell via the beach. This is definitely the way to go, the walk is pleasant and not too long it may even be a little short of the 20 mins that I aim to do each time I go for a walk. One advantage though is there is the option to walk across sand and pebbles meaning there's a different dynamic to the way that the knee has to work in this situation and I can only imagine that's going to help as it's low impact?
It also gives me the option of going at it quite fast to work on cardio as well as a general fitness, so it's a win win situation as far as I can make out.

Will I play this season?

Will I play this season? My knee is not 100% so I'm not sure... I've done none of things I would normally have done - nets at Writtle, bowling and batting. Instead, I've tried to take it easy, I've been doing self directed physio and been trying to use the knee as much as possible in an attempt to slowly recover. To be honest I never got a proper diagnosis and should really follow that up and try and establish what I actually did do. From everything I've read and watched it sounds like I might have damaged my PCL, but I've got so few of the symptoms associated with knee injuries I'm left a bit confused. 

Generally it's fine, it feels vulnerable, but I've got full mobility, I'm able to do deep squats with a little discomfort (Not pain) and it fully extends. The little running that I've been doing recently doesn't result in any massive relapse and so generally things look fairly positive. 

With 3 months or so till the first game, I'm going to try and slowly build up the strength and increase the amount of physio I do and hopefully be in a position where I might be able to get through a spell without suffering the next day and the following week. If it does happen, I'm kind of ready for it and will back off for a year and see what happens. I'll go and watch Joe (My son play) and record the oppositions batsman's wagon wheels... https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/ which if I'm honest I'm kind of looking forward to doing and enjoying, the last time I did it, I video's the outcomes as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNCcqLCaXzY&t=9s  

Tomorrow's a big day though in the scheme of things as it's the first net session at the club and I'll be going along. The idea is that I will have a go, but at the moment I don't know whether I'll bowl all night, a part of me says hold back and perhaps only bowl about 24 balls over the evening and see what the outcome is the next day. If it comes off and there's no real issue the next day, I'll continue with the physio and bowl a few more balls the next week and build up slowly. 

Great Berry Open Space cricket - The Pavilion

Great Berry Open Space - Cricket Ground history.


Looking toward Nightingales.

Great Berry Open Space is a recreation ground on the outskirts of Basildon in Essex, just a stones throw away from 'The Rec', which has been a cricket ground for several decades and is still used for cricket by teams from as far as East London.

I shot a load of pictures for Friends of the Earth in this area back in the early 1990's just after the trees had all been chopped down in the Highview Ave and Aylesbury Drive area. The images were primarily of the trees that had been designated to be left. I had the idea that I'd go back later and do before and after images. At the time I didn't wander as far as Great Berry Open Space, so unfortunately have no images or recollection of the space. There seems to be very little on-line about the area...

Great Berry Open space has never been built on and was part of Great Berry Farm. During the areas history when the Plotland buildings were erected, none of the plotland buildings appear to have been constructed in that area on any of the maps I have access to. The 'Open Space' piece of land has changed very little with regards its size and shape since before the 1840's perhaps earlier?

 For much of its recent history it's had trees around the edges, certainly since the 1860's. The avenue of larger trees running along the eastern side of the field follow the line of what was the original Berry Lane. The cycle path looks as though it was the original Berry Lane. Originally it ran from the Railway line and it then turned at right-angles across what is now Nightingales and followed what we now know of as Berry Lane. The Pond down the hill in the far corner diagonally opposite has been there since the 1840's and earlier.

Cricket Field

Despite my efforts, I can't find any mention of cricket in conjunction with this field. It seems that perhaps when the new estate was built, the planners might have imagined that because of the size and nature of the houses and the expected prices they'd command, the demographic might have been different and a cricket pitch more in keeping with the new influx of residents? The dimensions of the field are suitable, the surroundings with the Oak trees typical and so it seems the field was leveled and laid with the option of cricket being played there. The pub on the corner of the field is called the Pavilion; There's a water main in the middle of the field for watering the square and years ago there was an all-weather artificial strip. If you venture into the trees on the Nightingales side of the field, about 10'-15' in from where the grass finishes and dig around in the leaves and under-growth, you'll find a chicken-wire fence. Thirteen years ago when the images above were taken the posts were still evident and in some places the fence still very obvious. 

Anecdotally, I've been told by locals that the local 'footballers' poured petrol onto the all-weather strip and burned it to ensure that the field was never used for cricket. 

It has been used for cricket as you can see from my images. In 2007 I took to practicing there simply because I noticed that the surface was in really good condition in between the 2 football fields. I practiced there so frequently that a couple of local lads started to talk to me and eventually joined in that summer. We were then joined by 2 other blokes Suhail and Nakul who lived on the estate and we used to have a knock about most evenings in the summer. More people joined in and eventually there was about 6 or 7 of us most nights. It got to the point where the bowling was so fast we needed to do something about the surface as it was a H&S issue and I said that I'd get a roller and a mower and I'd cut the grass. One thing led to another and the strip ended up in the middle of the field with the lines being painted and more people got involved. Eventually it got to the point where there was almost 2 teams and we marked out a boundary and played a T20 game one Saturday in 2006/7.

One morning I was cutting the wicket and the Council turned up in a van and 3 blokes got out. I was expecting to be told that I was contravening some bye-law, but I'd read the bye-laws and was in the clear as far as I could make out. But the opposite was the case. The main bloke in the van was the one of the heads of Parks and Gardens and he commended me on my initiative and offered all kinds of support. He there and then tried to get the heavy roller used at The Rec brought over on a low loader to roll the wicket properly, but they couldn't get access to the low-loader. Instead he allowed us access to the Rec ground to practice on for free on Sunday mornings which we took up and accepted.

I continued to cut the wicket on Great Berry Open Space for a several weeks with the councils blessings, until one day I was mowing the wicket and was accosted by a bloke wearing a West Ham football shirt who'd come down from the Pav. This bloke made it very clear that he felt that I had no place mowing his field. He was tanked up and wasn't having any of it from me, telling me he was some big cheese at the Pav in charge of the football club and so on. Diplomacy wasn't his strong point so I left and found somewhere else to practice, never to return.

But, there might be a resurrection! This afternoon another bloke I know who is very much involved in the Pav and its social side has rang me, with no knowledge of my previous endeavors, suggesting that I get involved with him, in trying to get some cricket going in some form based at The Pav. From this first phone call I kind of get the impression that he wants to form a friendly/social team and for them to be based at The Pav. It sounds as though he's got the numbers to get a team together and he now wants to get a wicket cut in between the two football pitches. He's going to contact the council and sound them out with regards how they might be able to help and I'm going to meet up with him some time soon and have a wander over there to see what condition the field is in. Maybe after all these years the field is going to be used in a way that the planners envisaged as below...

Recovery

Still not had a date for the MRI scan on my knee, but generally it's feeling better. The weather was fine tonight and I went out to the Paddock  and had a bowl. A couple of nights ago I bowled 7 deliveries off of a 9 x step run-up and suffered no consequences. Tonight I was over there for about 30 mins bowling as in the video link above, but I also bowled 21 consecutive deliveries off of the 9 x step run-up and again no consequence. I'll have another go in a few days time. I might even get the video out.

12/9/19 A couple of nights later I had another bowl and this time I bowled 28 balls consecutively and that's gone okay as well. So the prospect for recovery does look hopeful. I did notice the following morning a slight soreness - sense of being used. I'll need to watch that and see if that's significant in anyway.

15/9/19 - Good day to day - eventually drew the Ashes with a good game. The weather is fantastic - hot 26 degrees and sunny and I've bowled 48 balls back to back today with no ill affect. Looks and feels promising. Double click on the image below to see the progress...

End of season 2019

It's the end of the season and its been pretty miserable for me as I seem to be reaching the age where my body is not up to it. The worst thing is it seems to have happened when I have had a epiphany moment with the use of Flippers.

The start of the season was marred by issues with my hips and core strength which I put down to the fact that I'd done some building work on my house and nearly killed myself physically. As a result I thought I'd completely rest over the winter in order to recuperate.

By January I was still feeling the affects of the building work and added to that I'd lost all my usual fitness. So I started to work on my fitness and flexibility. That's the point where it transpired that my hips and butt were weak and everything below that point was out of sync. So a lot of work was done trying to get all that sorted. Meanwhile I had the opportunity to net a lot over Jan and February and I bowled my usual Leg-Breaks exceptionally well and looked to be starting the season on a high.

First game went okay with 2 wickets in a pre-season friendly, but thereafter it went down-hill very quickly and my new captain started to leave me out of the attack. Being a bowler I was now turning up basically just to field. The club had changed leagues and we'd lost our fourth XI where I normally resided and basically had moved up a level and I was being left behind. I concluded I needed to join a bigger club with a 4th,5th or 6th XI that played at my level. I started to look around and found a club and my intentions became clear to my own club and they rang me and virtually pleaded with me to stay.

Meanwhile, having been carted around the park by these blokes here I'd already started to explore how I might address the fact that my bowling was so ineffective. It had  been noted in the first game of the season that I'd have done so much better than my 2 wickets if I had a straight ball. So I started to look at my use of the Flipper combined with my leg-breaks. Practicing with my son Joe he said one of the biggest issues was the lack of pace with my leg-breaks. So I started to adopt a run up of about 9-10 steps. The Flippers immediately looked promising with consistency of line and length being markedly better than the Leg-Breaks, so I committed to working almost exclusively with the Flippers as it seemed to be very obvious that I could bowl these with good accuracy.

The red dots went on to hit the stumps

I then bowled the Flippers in a game and was kept on to bowl all 9 overs and went for very few runs. The runs that I did go for were down to attempting to bowl leg-breaks off the new run-up and was easily hit for 4 each time. At one point towards the end of my spell, the bloke that had been freely scoring before my spell ran a single and ended up at my end and commented... "Mate what are you bowling.... I can't get you off the square"! So that then provided the incentive to continue with the Flipper experiment.

But, the run-up was taking its toll on my body particularly my hips it seemed. I then had what seemed like a really innocuous minor accident walking along a dark corridor in my sons flat at Uni. I didn't realise that his dark corridor had a drop down to a new level equivalent of 1 stair step. I stepped down it and jarred my knee with a sensation of a strain in the back of my knee. It hurt slightly, but I didn't think much of it.

I then bowled in a couple more games and the Flippers went well again and I got carted when I tried the Leg-breaks. But I was noticing that I was struggling with my legs - seemingly with regards strength. I then started training with Sumo squats on a wobble (balance board) but going right down to an Asian squat and then one session I sensed a strain in the back of my knee and some subsequent swelling and soreness. This seemed more significant and happened just before my holiday in Cornwall, so I committed to taking things easy whilst away and stuck to it.

Once back in Essex and looking forward to a game of cricket I discovered that this week there was no game because of the uneven numbers in our league and everyone in the league at some point missed a game and it was our turn. So I contacted Orsett and Thurrock who I nearly defected to earlier in the year and got a Friendly game on Sunday.

I bowled superbly - probably the - if not the most controlled and consistent spell I've ever bowled. I got one wicket, that of a significant batsman and bowled my full allocation of 10 overs. Again the only time I was hit was the 2-3 times I bowled leg-breaks and both times I was hit for 4. Again the batsmen came up to me at the end of the game and asked "What the hell was you bowling"?

I realised that I was onto something here, as if it wasn't for the leg-breaks I'd have gone for about 2 an over and realised that in the short term I needed to cut the leg-breaks out totally and work on them in practice. But, that was never to happen.

By the time I'd packed my bag and got in the car my knees were feeling as though they were now suffering from the pounding of the run-up. I'd extended the run up in this game as it seemed a lot more rhythmic, previous games I'd been suffering from stuttering in the run-up, but extending it to about 14-15 steps had resolved that and added more pace. But having driven for about 10 minutes I got home and basically staggered to the front door with my right knee really suffering.

I iced it as best I could and then got it up above my head (Elevation). The next morning it wasn't any better and over the next 4 or 5 days I was in bad way and had even been to the Doctors. The doctors were fairly inconclusive. Xrays indicated that it wasn't arthritis and the doctor recommended I see a specialist and have a MRI scan. This was way back in mid August and I'm still waiting for the MRI scan appointment to come through.

In the meantime I've been taking it easy - no cricket, no running, no bowling and its been slowly improving. I get twinges in the back of the knee and it feels 'Delicate' generally. But I've been doing physio - strengthening the muscles above and around the knee and today I went over the paddock and bowled 7 balls off of a 9 step run-up with a decent bound. I bowled 100 or so balls off of a 2-3 step walk-in as well and I seem to have come away from that un-scathed. The plan is to carry on with the physio and to cycle through the winter and resume light bowling at winter nets. I'm hoping that come May I'll be able to run-in off of a 12-14 step run-up and bowl my Flipper variations and get some wickets.

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.