2023 season

 2023, I'm going to try and write up a game report this year every week. Primarily it'll be with the wagon wheels of the opposition, but I reckon I'm only going to focus on the players up till the point where I bowl. I'll try and do the ones that I have to bowl against as normally they're the middle order blokes that I have to face and so the data is important for my own game.

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06/05/23 East Hanningfield & Great Burstead 3rd XI v Basildon & Pitsea 5th XI

As usual, waited all week watching the weather in anticipation of another week where the game would be cancelled at the last moment. As the weekend approached, the prediction of rain on Saturday stuck and I woke up to a grey rain-heavy looking sky. As I got my crap together I saw on whatsap, that we were a player short and it started to rain at around 10.30;only light rain/drizzle, but continual. It didn't look promising. Lee Thompson who was due to pick me up at 12.00 said that where he was in North East Basildon it was raining hard and he was doubtful as to whether the game would go on, meanwhile the rain in Langdon Hills where I lived eased off a little and the skies brightened. 

This year was supposed to be the return to cricket teas,but after the debacle 2 weeks ago at Southend it seems things have taken more of a turn for the worst. Despite a vote and the majority being in favour of teas, those that weren't in favour have kicked up a fuss and seemingly are refusing to go with the vote. So now we have a situation where some clubs such as ours have put in place arrangements all season. So now prior to the game on Thursday the captains have to check with each other where they stand in the great tea debacle. So its come to a situation where if we play against a 'Pro tea' side we'll reciprocate when they play at our home games. But if we play against an 'Anti tea' side, at home, there'll be tea there because it's been arranged for the whole season, but they're not allowed to have it unless they pay for it there and then. When we play at their ground they're not going to be providing us with a reciprocal tea and we're going to have to take our own tea. It's a bit of a mess, but I'm sure it'll all pan out fine in the end. More aggro for the captains though in situations where people don't get the 'Memo' regarding what's happening...

Lee Thompson and I arrived first and it looked like a nice ground, spoke to some of the blokes and my impression was they were all up for a game despite the grotty weather, so at least they were up for it, question now was will the rest of my team be up for it. The captain PMac turned up and he seemed very positive as well and one by one as all of our players showed up the general consensus was definitely one of... Yeah it's raining, but we all want to play, let's give it a go!

Pmac and Lee walking out to the square to evaluate the conditions.

Nice pavilion - not one that I've photographed previously that I need to go back and do in the future with a DSLR.

The home team lads making it pretty clear that they wanted to play - taking the stumps out and setting up in the pouring rain.

The game underway in persistent light rain, thankfully I was able to sit in the doorway of the pavilion and score. 

Reece Eustace on the long walk back to the hutch having scored 1.

Drinks break in the rain

Look at this for scoring! They had a bloke who scored for them at the start of the game doing my job and he had some good tips which I might implement in the next match. One that I'm going to try is that he had a separate note pad and one of things he kept a note of as he filled in the sheet was the batters runs, so at any time if you asked him he knew exactly who was on what runs. Talking to him he said that there was a local woman that scored for one of their other teams and she was far better than he was at scoring with even more detail somehow. 

We did come off the field at one point when it got much heavier and the game was on the verge of being abandoned, but then it eased up to drizzle again and we were back out there!

Our wicket keeper - Mitchell Robinson below and above soaked through to the skin. In the shot below  you can see Nishant who looks like he wasn't in the same game - not a spot on him!

The wicket was a bit of a mess by the end of the game as you'd expect. Groundsman wont be happy.

Our captain PMac with oppositions Captain and No.1 batsman sorting out the admin at the end of the game. 

We won the toss and PMac decided that we'd have a bat, I'm guessing because it was obvious that the wicket would deteriorate in some way. 

Looking at the team sheet below which was how it stood Thursday before the game, there's not a lot of recognisable batters. Mark Robinson and Akash I guess. Mitchell Robinson I've seen score a few. The rare bones of it though from last year...

Akash averaged 23.36

Mark Robinson 20.14

Nishant 16.13

Reece Eustace 15.33

Mitchell Robinson 10.46

Then if you look at the oppo...

Tiraj Patel 55.50

Hamza Bodiyat 32.75

David Launder 18.63

Cliff Feraday 18.25

Launder was the 6th highest scoring batter at their club and Feraday the 8th. 

I reckon it was always going to be tough whatever the weather.

Father and son combo Mark and Mitchell Robinson opened. Mark scored 15 of 48 balls and was bowled and Mitchell scored 20 off of around 41 balls, but was dropped twice in the first 2.5 overs before being bowled.

 Other than that, no-one was able to get up to double figures. Nishant looked good for his 9 off of 20 before being caught Patel off of Musa's bowling. 

I joined Sri at the end coming in at No.11 and he too looked to be doing well scoring a couple of 2's while I was out there, but the finisher was a ball back past the bowler, an easy two which he called for, but as I set off slipped in the mire and was run out, shame as I was feeling comfortable out there for my single!

With 12 extras added we were faced with defending 74 which was a task. 

There was a lot of bowlers in our team and one Nishant didn't even get a go. Maybe he'd have had a chance if it'd taken more overs to lose the game? 

What with them having the field in the early part of the game when it was 'Dryer' they may have had it easier. For us it was a lot wetter and people including myself were skidding around a little in our run-ups. PMac the captain is a big unit - probably 6'3" and he has a long run-up. He did well, but then skidded and eased up slightly. I'm guessing in todays blame society you might have said it was dangerous, but the choice to bowl off a run-up or a stand start is yours, unless of course you're a kid and you might feel pressurized into bowling when maybe you'd rather not? But no-one got hurt and the game was played. One of  the kids - Henry Englezou did bowl off a run up and it appeared to me that he wasn't wearing spikes - maybe training spikes for artificial surfaces? 

I reckon given the conditions we all bowled really well, especially the kids Henry and Kirby Jennings, she usually bowls Finger-spin and took a wicket today bowling loopy straight ones on a good length and got the wicket of Feraday who was the danger man. Lee Thompson who had a really good day overall because he was the bloke who was involved in the game more so than anyone else. For the most part he was either at Mid-Wicket or the covers, not moving between overs, he pretty much did 75% of the fielding on his own! What with the grass being like an ice rink, he was pretty much on his backside all the time, sliding into the ball and stopping it keeping the runs down to singles or dots. Then it came to his bowling... I've been with him over the last 3 months or so in the nets and training and he's had the yips and only in the last couple of weeks he's ditched the way he normally bowls - left arm medium seam and has had to develop a new action... left-arm slow off-cutters and I reckon he was a bit nervous. But he pulled it off - slipping around like everyone else off of a 5-7 step run up and took one of the 3 wickets today - clean bowling Marlon J. Sri got a nice one - edged to the keeper Mitchell. 

Me? 

I bowled against the 2 openers and like everyone else had to change my action. A two step walk in. I guessed it was going to be tricky and decided that it was going to have to be very full and on the stumps with the flippers and for the most part that's how it worked out. I did try and bowl a couple of Leg-Breaks and I think they're the wides! I noticed in these conditions Feraday (RHB) didn't seem to have an answer for the full ball on the leg-stump into his toes - he was standing on a middle stump guard initially. He then took a guard outside of leg exposing his stumps, but I wasn't able to exploit it. Another observation was that into his heel or just down the leg-side he was struggling with too and he may have clipped just one off his heel to square leg which was risky. The other bloke the No.2 Marlon (LHB) I stayed over the wicket again bowling into his toes on his off-stump, which worked OK.

When not bowling I was having a laugh with the umpire at square leg - who was the standing umpire while I was bowling and he was impressed with my bowling. So, all in all just 5 runs off 4 overs with no wicket, I'll take that. 

My running total now is (2 games)

12-2-32-2 -2.6  Strike rate isn't so clever though, a wicket every six overs at the moment. *Must try harder.

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28/4/23 There was supposed to be a game tomorrow, but it's been called off by the opposition because of the weather. It would have been paid at Rayleighs home ground. 

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Click on image for full report

This was a good game to start with as the mix of the teams was interesting. Looking at the players there was a good mix of ages, but they didn't have two old blokes like our team had (Me 62, Tony Keep 64)? Plus we had 4 kids ages 15 to 17. One of them the keeper. Whereas they had 2 kids about similar ages to ours and a few blokes in their 20's. I had us down as losing this game.

The wicket was damp and green and we bowled well and fielded well. I think I got the bloke who may have taken the game away from us cheaply.

I felt good in the field, nice and agile, no concerns with going to ground, almost took a second catch at full stretch one-handed above my head and it didn't bruise. 

Didn't get out of breath which was good, but TBH didn't have to run that much. Felt good bowling - Flippers were a smidge inaccurate and cost me runs trying to bowl them at pace, may have been better bowled really slow, but was unsure whether they'd be accurate enough to chance - will have to work on them in the nets.

The good news is the Leg-Breaks were coming out well landing where I wanted them and therefore enabling me to take the wickets that I did to a plan. Have a look at the other 'Bowlers Union' blog - double click the image above. 

The weather's predicted to be awful all week leading up to the weekend next and there's another 3 or 4 fixtures planned, but both our grounds are supposed to be in a real mess - the council is yet to cut the grass and they've still got standing water. Last time I was there, there was a big muddy area directly outside the club house and tonight we've had heavy rain, hail and thunder. 

Detailed wagon wheels? 

Last summer, someone moaned about the fact that I do the wagon wheels whilst playing and so mid summer I stopped doing it, but in this game Jon Bonnet and Michael Gray saw me writing up the notes and asking where the batter was hitting the ball and they asked 'Why didn't you make notes in the game' like you usually do? I explained the story and also my suspicions about why I wasn't picked for the 4th XI last year because of my note taking. They both seemed to think it wasn't an issue, so I might resume doing it this year. 

So, overall a good start. One thing I need to work on is tactics for Left-handers. Had to bowl at a few in the nets this winter and need to re-call what worked and what didn't and devise a plan. 

The season approaches 2023.

 This summer I'll be 63 and I'm still looking forward to playing and bowling and I'm still optimistic that something will click with regards my batting and I'll score some runs beating my current best which is up in the 30's somewhere.

The team I play for Basildon & Pitsea have grown in the last few years since joining a different league and as a consequence last year I captained a 6th XI for the first time in the clubs history. We had 4 league sides and our 5th XI played friendlies, but this year the fifth, having won virtually every game last year are now in the league and at the AGM I was asked to be the captain, but I turned it down. I captained the 4's some years ago - probably 10 years ago almost and didn't enjoy at all, I did the club a favour as no-one wanted the job and it would have meant loads of the kids wouldn't have played all year and highly likely would have left.

I turned it down because in the last few years I've suffered from anxiety and just the thought of taking on the role makes me feel anxious and I don't want to be feeling anxious about the weekend coming up I want to be looking forward to it. I don't like things going wrong and I remember in the 4's I was let down so often and left in crappy situations with insufficient players and or playing blokes that had no respect for me. This year the club seemed a bit vague on how teas were going to playout, I know that in the 5's last year we struggled with umpiring and I was the only scorer. All that was fine while it was Friendly games, but what with now being league games I'd have my own expectation that the whole show should run smoothly with everything in place. I just feel that may not be the case, I know I'd end up being the scorer and the captain and I'd find that stressful and definitely not enjoyable. Thankfully they've found another person to do the job and that then leaves me as the scorer. It might leave me in a situation where I might be wanted by the 3rd, 4th and 5th team because of my scoring and as a bowler. 

20/03/23

Nets this year is at Billericay cricket club, they have their own indoor nets (2 lanes). I've been working on Leg-Breaks, Flippers and Top-spinners and it's the Top-Spinner mixed with the Leg-breaks that proving to be the wicket taking delivery assuming the wicket Keeper takes the bails off, because the Top-Spinner is the ball they don't get to having assumed it's Leg-Break and the run past it. I call it a Top-Spinner, but it rarely spins perfectly straight and much of the time it's a decent - faster Leg-Break which I'm able to bowl more accurately. At the moment it looks very promising and it might mean I move up the ranks of bowlers at the club this year? 2022 saw me in 13th place.

24/3/23 -  the penultimate net last night. Went OK. Batting was OK running down the wicket to negate whatever the bowlers were trying to do. It'd be a different story if the keeper was up though. I just can't bat which is rubbish. Bowling went OK though. I think I got everyone out a couple of times mostly stumped and potentially a few catches. I've been bowling at the better batters and it's obvious that slow and loopy works well with a lot of people, but most of them - nice and full on the leg-stump. a little short and it's hit into the leg-side with some power. Shots that were adopted against me - dabs down to 3rd man and through point, some flicked through fine-leg and anything short though square leg and deep mid-wicket. 

Bowling Leg Breaks again!

 Rayleigh cc had a 'Cricket week' last week and we got a game with them. Because it was mid-week... 40 over game on Wednesday our team was a mix of players of all levels with 3 blokes from the 1st XI and the rest of us as I recall mainly from the 5th and 4th XI and mostly small boys. They had a similar set up - perhaps slightly weaker, but a number of good batsmen and as per usual it was me at the fore-front of the bowling against said good batters!

We've had some new nets built at our club and I'm a key holder and not wanting them to stand idle I've been opening them up Tuesday and Thursday 10-12 and bowling a lot and getting a few Leg-breaks bowled with a good degree of success. Seemingly by not over-thinking and complicating what I'm doing other than ensuring I get up on my toes at FFC/BR. For some reason out of nowhere my accuracy has got so much better along with a bit of pace??? I think it helps if I mix them up with the Flippers too which I suppose is stating the obvious.

A key moment came in the Rayleigh game. The captain was Jon Bonnett and he's also the WK and whilst bowling he came down to speak to me at my end and said 'Don't just bowl your Flippers - throw in some Leggies'. Now that was a good show of confidence! Making it a more realistic prospect was the fact that behind me I had a bloke called 'Swiz' another keeper and a 1st XI player. You may have read previously that I stopped bowling Leg-Breaks because despite the fact that I could easily force the batters into rash and mis-timed shots, I never had anyone who could catch the balls. In this game, with Jon's encouragement I bowled a few and the batters were unable to pay them and then one bloke came after me - coming down the wicket and hit the ball back over my head, but far more up than along. Swiz - who was about 1/4 of the way around the ground ran God knows how many yards - settled himself beneath the ball and pouched it... Wicket with a Leg-break!

In recent weeks, I've bowled against some pretty good batters in the nets and done pretty well against them. The unfortunate thing is I think I've only got 2 games left now to try and put this into practice in a game situation and when I do it'll be without the wicket keeping of Jon Bonnett and 1st XI fielding. But... just mixing it up may bring more LBW's and bowled's from Flippers. Oh yeah in that game I had one of the most plumb LBW's I've ever been refused and had a dolly of a catch dropped at fine leg (1/2 way up) off a leg-break. 

Aug 16th 2022

Today, I've taken diagrams to nets now of my field settings and showed the batters and said that's my field, do what you can. This is the one below, I used today against some decent younger players who I always feel have a propensity to show no respect to a wrist-spinner and generally will go for big leg-side shots.

This did work okay, but it turned out that coming around the wicket and bowling a mix of Leg- Breaks and Flippers, the batters suddenly confessed that they found my bowling difficult to face and that in-fact they both felt that their leg-side shots were a weak component of their batting. 

But if I strayed at all towards the off-side they were able to get shots away through the cover region. 

This field is an adaption of the one here which I was bowling to in winter nets with some success https://theoldwristspinner.blogspot.com/2022/03/im-still-here-2022-pre-season-nets.html

I then adapted the field, moving 9 into a deep cover point region (see below) and this simple move made a significant difference.

They, then with the massive gap offered down the ground in the V looked then to score driving straight - coming out of their ground and edging the ball to the keeper. Of all the potential dismissals, I felt that stumped was potentially the most fruitful, but there were caught-behind with balls outside of leg hitting the bat or gloves going through to the keeper and several clean-bowled with the Flipper. The Flipper remember - staying low in complete opposition to the Leg-Break which can be bowled with more over-spin and therefore a lot more bounce. 

I reckon in a game situation you're going to need to be confident and be able to hold your nerve and buy a wicket. During these net sessions in between getting the wickets I was hit for at least 1 six and a couple of fours. You'll need committed catchers at 4,6 and 8 and fast runner at 9 to cut off and gather up the balls through the cover region. Bowling at the 2 batters for best part of an hour I reckon they only scored a few fours between them anywhere between backward of point and deep cover point (9). 

I get another chance on Thursday, hopefully there'll be more batters to try this on...

This is the theory... Right Arm around the wicket bowling into the leg-stump. The field is set with your best and most agile fielders that can catch in the deep... 4, 5 and 8 in this colour diagram. The expectation is that what with you bowling outside the leg-stump the batters are going to try and sweep or nurdle the ball down to fine leg.

Needless to say, try and bowl from the end that gives you the biggest boundary on the leg-side to the right-handers. 

3, 6, 7 and 10 are in close to take catches off of totally mis-hit deliveries and to prevent the rotation of batters off of singles.

B is a massive gap to try and get the batters looking to drive straight. (See notes about experiments in nets). This then brings in the increased chances of the edge being taken and 'Caught behind'. Or advancing down the wicket to drive bring in stumping chances.

I think it's essential that you have at least one variation in terms of line. I bowl basic flippers along with my Leg Breaks. With the Flippers I can then either bowl much faster or slower and because of the back-spin they stay really low in comparison to the Leg-Breaks, so a lot of aggressive batters having seen the "Leggies" which typically bounce far more, step back to play aggressive cut shots or a big heave ho across the line only to find the ball stays low and hits the stumps.

18/8/22 Follow up session - different batters. Again it went well. The first batter really struggled once he'd seen the field and was out 6-8 times in different ways and commented that my bowling was so much better than the last time I'd bowled at him, but I think that was primarily down to the fact that he was batting with the field in mind whereas it wasn't a consideration previously. The first batter was out stumped most of the time and caught at 10 (Above) and 6. This was bowling 80% around the wicket bowling exclusively Leg-Breaks. I couldn't bowl Flippers because early on during the session, just flicking the ball between the fingers and thumb bruised my thumb. I've noticed recently that my hands/fingers and thumb seem to bruise and swell up relatively easily from ball impacts and now just squeezing the ball hard. Probably an age thing? 

The next batter in was a leftie who bats 5 or 6 and he was a lot more troublesome. I got him a few times, but at the same time he scored down the ground quite easily

My field today against the Leftie...

More about Flippers here https://spinbowling-flipper.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-bowl-flipper.html

Just seen this - I wasn't aware... https://thebigkickoff.com/2021/11/01/wrist-spin-godfather-peter-philpott-passes-away/

9th May 2nd game 2022

 2nd game of the season. initially selected to play in the 4's and then at the last minute as I'm about to pack my bag I get a call and I'm asked to play in the 5's. To be honest the 5's were playing at Wickford memorial park and I quite fancied playing there as I've not been there for years and the last we put out a team with 8 players, six of them small boys and it was awful.

This week looked better, it looked as though we were going to play with a full team. There was some faffing as it's not obvious which pitch is what, but the '3rd' pitch apparently is the one in front of the no longer used for cricket pavilion/changing rooms.

The weather was glorious and the wicket looked pretty good. The outfield though was full of cut grass and the surrounding vegetation beyond the boundary looked thick and unkempt. The opposition began to turn up along with our team. The make up of our team...

I've bunged in an approximation of our teams ages. This 5th XI changes from week to week and there's only a core group of players... Farhan, Aariz (Farhan's son), Martin and Kiegan Scannell (Father and son). The rest of us play sporadically - some because they play in the 4's others because of work commitments. Hassan has only ever played 3 times before because of work and his previous scores were 0 - 4 - 7 or something very similar. Muhammed, Sri, Fawad, Umer and me are bowlers as far as I can make out and the only recognised batters as such are Farhan and Martin. Reece has been noted to give the ball a bit of a biff. 

The opposition were proportionately much older with a kid who'd never played adult cricket before but stepped up as they were a player short and few 20 year olds.

We won the toss and opted to bat. Their openers bowled quite well, but were supported in the field particularly well, but the grass helped them out. We got off to a reasonable start and then lost 2 and Reece joined the captain and started to accumulate rans at a reasonable rate. We were going well and then we lost Farhan our best bat. Then Hassan walked in off the back of 0-4 and 7 in the past three games and all hell was unleashed on the Galleywood lads. See below...

Hasson almost dealt in only 4's and 6's and as their bowlers became more and more demoralised Reece grew in confidence and batted his way through to 103 before being run out. Hassan was bowled eventually and we finished on ***

As the Galleywood lads came off the captain said that the game would be over quite quick as they didn't have any batting.

The first couple of blokes went cheaply as one of our bowlers - Fawad Butt looked pretty handy - fast and accurate. Their skipper had to go off, injured having pulled up for some reason and he said he couldn't see himself coming back on again. Then the small boy came out and and his Dad came out with him to umpire and asked if we could take it easy with him as the game was already ours by a long long way and we said we would. Having not batted, I wanted to bowl, so Farhan took off of Fawad and put me on at the "River end". 

This did mean if they had any right-handed sloggers I'd be ending up in the bushes and trees, I was hoping to bowl from the Road end with the advantage of a bigger boundary and put a my new fielding theory into action. I was just desperate to have a bowl so was happy to have the River End. In the meantime the small boy was caught off the first ball and I'd pointed out that "You can't get out on the first ball" everyone chuckled and the kid got another go. Someone else caught him and dropped the ball. My first ball was to the kid  - I bowled him and I'd already said if I bowl him just call a no-ball. These shenanigans went on for a few overs while we worked on the blokes at the other end. 

Two of them took me to task...

J. Brown came out and went for it. I wasn't bowling well at all, I was trying to get the ball to turn from leg, but just wasn't getting any revs on the ball. I tried a flipper and that was a little short and that went the distance, so then started to bowl with more over-spin (Top-Spin). In between overs walking past this bloke he commented "You're tricky bowler - one ball's on the floor (That'll be the flipper) and then the next is up around my neck"! (That'll be the top-spinner). The next over I bowled a couple of the non-spinning leggies and then a faster top-spinner which rushed on and took him by surprise hitting the top of the bat and he poked it back to me for a bowled and caught.

This Bloke (below) I didn't get him, but he was run out and that was the end of the game, but he wasn't a bad player.

The bowling figures...

6-0-40-3 Given the circumstance I'll take that.

First game 2022

I was hoping to play in the 4th XI in a league game, but instead ended up in the 5th XI in a friendly against Westcliff over at Belfairs park on the 'North Pitch'.

Originally it was due to be against someone else at Chelmsford, but they got something wrong and the fixture was called off. Westcliff had the same kind of mishap and in a matter of half a day it seems the match up between us and them was organised and it was game on.

Unfortunately, not everyone on our side got the memo, so on Sat morning some people headed off to Chelmsford!

I've not had the best of build-ups to the start of the season this year as I went down with Covid having already been ill prior to that and since Covid I've never felt 100% (2 weeks ago). So I wasn't sure how I'd go. Looking at the app on my phone I've been averaging 7,330 steps per day and the equivalent of 17 flights of stairs a day per week, so I was probably going to be okay. 

There was some confusion with regards what the start time was and I was under the impression it was a 12.30 start for a short Mickey Mouse 40 over game. Remember girls and boys play 60 over games in Australia over two days at the weekend - can you image that here in the UK? Maybe, Ben Stokes as the new England captain in charge of reinvigorating the test team should have a look at the obsession in this country for playing increasingly shorter formats of cricket? So 40 overs it was - or so I thought. 

The team the night before looked like this...

At 12.15 with the time of the match being confirmed as 12.30 we consisted of Matt Knight, Kiegan Scannell, Martin Scannell (c) and a new bloke Ather. No sign of the others - 6 of us to start the game. Martin was the captain, but had agreed that he would be happy if there was input from others as he'd never done it before. He went out to the middle and did the toss and lost. But on the walk out their captain suggested that rather than play a 40 overs... "Why don't we ease into the season with a 35 overs game and not over do it" or something! Oh my God, I've paid £10 to play a miserly 40 overs and then they go and reduce it to 35. Jeez - if you don't like cricket and don't want to play it - choose to play football - 90 mins job done. Baffled. I surf, when I get to the beach I don't go down get in the water and back out again half hour later. I like surfing - once I'm in it's a 4 or 5 hour session, then a break and back in again for another 3-5 hours and then in the evening another couple of hours. The point is... I like surfing therefore I want to do it for as many hours as possible. Anyway...

12.30 came and we fielded first and they gave us some blokes. Somehow, Tristan another new bloke snuck on the field and I didn't even realise, But we had 11 in the field at the start and their blokes fielded okay. Looking at our team we had Ather who was in his late 20's maybe early 30's and Matt Knight who usually wicket keeps and bats but in response to the question can you bowl said "Yeah I can bowl a bit". I'd seen him in the nets recently and he'd looked okay, so he bowled from A127 end and Ather who had said that he was an all-rounder opened from the "Seaside end".

Matt Knight did well - 7.2/0/21/2 pretty good for a wicket keeper. Ather 5/0/24/0 not bad given this was the first time he'd played in 9 years. From my position, fielding at Mid-On I noted the ball clatter into the batters pads on a number of times and no-one went up for it least of all Ather and the wicket keeper, so I assumed that the ball must have been going down leg or something? Later in the break between innings I spoke to Ather and asked if any of the balls that hit the batters pads looked like they may have been LBW's and he said. "Ah yeah that's the thing, I noticed that when you bowled you got an LBW, I'd spoken to someone before the match and they said at this level people don't give LBW's... Yeah I would have had three or four wickets... I didn't know, I'll do it next time".

The other new bloke - Tristan Holland - who hadn't played since he was 18 (over ten years ago) did really well despite slipping about all over the shop in the rain... 5/0/26/3. He just hit the stumps. Looking at the score sheet though, their scorer has made a bit of a dogs dinner of it and has all the names in the wrong boxes and I'm not really able to make any sense of it, which is a real shame because the bowlers wont be credited with their wickets. But having said that my score sheets not top-notch either.

Anyway I did eventually bring myself on to bowl. Recently I've been thinking that if I get to bowl I might go for a really different field setting and approach. I've generally perceived that batsmen at this level are stronger on their legside and look to slog sweep you for 4's and 6's through the area between deep mid-on and square leg. So I've always advocated an off-stump line.

This year during winter nets I experimented with bowling a leg-stump or outside leg-stump line which I never do. The theory being that if you set a field as the one below...

You're saying if you want the boundary you've either got to go aggressive and hit the ball for a six or through the field. Someone might say, they're just going tip and run and rotate the strike and you'll be going for 6 an over. But, the ball is turning into the stumps and if they get it wrong they're going to be bowled or possibly stumped. Another argument for this line is there's a blind spot in your eyes in the area where the ball nears the point where it bounces which works in your favour to a small extent. 

Warne used to say - "Tell me how you're going to take a wicket". In this case I feel that there's a number of ways... (1) Big sweep shot caught in the deep with the packed leg-side field. (2) Big sweep shot top-edged caught by 3, 11, 8 or 10. (3) Stumped (4) Bowled round the legs. (5) Bowled or LBW from my variation - faster flipper on the stumps. 

It works though, I bowled this line in the winter nets and caused all sorts of problems, bowled a few through the gate or round the legs, but the one that caught them out - especially better batsmen was the flipper. 

In this game being the captain, I started my spell with this field in mind, but had the problem of being a man short. I thought I'd start the spell and set a standard field (a) To see what the batters would do and (b) To see how well I was bowling and to see if I could get the ball turning off the wicket. I bowled 4 overs and I don't think it turned once significantly. I bowled an outside leg-stump line and only got called for a wide once. The image below is an approximation of where I was hit during the 4 overs. 

Looking at it, the positions I would have had the fielders in - again, approximated by the red dots looks as though it may have been effective. But given the fact that I didn't have 11 players I had the backward square leg player at backward point and the bloke at cow corner was in deep cover point and I went with that as it seemed quite effective and I went for 4/0/19/2 and would have gone for less if it wasn't for how unfit and unable to run some of the blokes in my team are - the ones between 20 and 30 years old!

I gave the kids a bowl Barath and JJ Bone and they were okay, Barath slightly better but he was sliding around all over the place with no spikes so I brought him off. I brought his Dad on who bowls really loopy and slow, but accurate left-arm orthodox. He also got two wickets.

Not that I've ever had the opportunity to put it into practice fully, but I'm also an advocate of short spells and after three overs from Sri where he'd gone for 19 I said to him, you have another over - if you get a wicket you stay on and sure enough it worked and he ended up with 5/0/28/2 which was happy about. Then he was instrumental in their last man getting out by orchestrating a run-out off his bowling. They finished with 153 a few runs short of their 35 overs. 

I'm still here 2022 pre-season nets

 I think everyone who plays at our club have come through Covid 19 okay. The next worry is Putin and things like food shortages and the cost of fuels - cars and heating next winter. But in the short term... Cricket!

So, a quick re-cap. The last 2 years I've been bowling flippers. The issue with my knees was resolved through self governed physio and rest and it seems the likely issue was weak glutes and and core. That exacerbated by over doing extreme exercises. The man I follow for my strength and conditioning is this bloke here... (Double click the image). 

The Flippers worked well and I bowled them 95% of the time and people just couldn't deal with them. But last summer my run-up went wrong and I developed a stutter in the run-up that I couldn't resolve. Towards the end of the season I started to bowl off a 2-3 step walk in and it worked okay in some instances. 

So, week 2 of pre-season nets I've been bowling primarily off of 2- 3 steps and it's working for me. I've tried a couple of long run-ups for the Flipper bowling, but the run-up is still a mess. The interesting thing though is that I've bowled a line that I've always avoided in the past. Over the stumps into the leg-stump area with leg-breaks. There's an awkward blind spot there where the ball can potentially disappear for a split second and this can be exploited to an extent. Added to this I'm also attacking the stumps with the ball turning.

My normal perception is that bowling this line is a high risk strategy as most batsmen fancy themselves to be able to hit the ball over the boundary. Before he died I watched a video or saw Warne on a SKY program saying that when you bowl you need to be able to tell me what your plan is... "How you going to get me this blokes wicket"? Thinking this through in terms of my own bowling, my approach has always been wholly reliant on good wicket keeping, slips and fielders on the off-side with no hope of hitting the stumps as I'm always turning the ball away from them. 

So now my response to the same question would be...

(1). I'm trying to turn the ball into the stumps and bowl the batter round their legs.

(2). With the ball outside of leg and spinning, the batter is going to sweep/slog the ball leg-side to a packed field (See below) and someone's going to take the catch.

But add to this approach the fact that I've been bowling Flippers now for 2 seasons and they have a handful of attributes as I bowl them in a number of variations...

(a). A conventional back-spinner with an upright seam which is a much faster change up and is straight. (b). The same ball but stupidly loopy and slow that almost stops because of the back-spin - LBW or bowled option. (c) The same back-spinner with a crossed seam and again much faster or slower - but straight again, but with the addition of the crossed seam comes weirdness off the wicket and swerve in the air. 

(d). An off-spinning flipper which I used tonight against one of the best bats at our club and I clean bowled him as he played for the leg-break, but the ball had just a little off-break to it.

Finally my top-spinner is back and that keeps the batsman on their toes and a few of them bounced and were hit high up the bat for potential C&B.

The interesting thing though was the better batsmen struck the ball as expected through zone A in this diagram and the really good bloke back up the wicket past me tight or an on-drive to "7" (Long Mid on), so the chances are they may have been singles or I may have attempted to catch them in a game scenario. 

I think next week I'll show them this field diagram and say play me as though I had this field set and see what they do. I'll record where the ball goes as well and see if this works. I know that if I get the line wrong I'll go for runs through the off-side.

21^st March nets.

It didn’t go that well. All my plans went to pot and I bowled poorly and there’s nothing to report.

28^th March nets

This was a different story though. Had some decent bats in my net so potentially a real challenge. I didn’t dabble with my run up and kept it simple coming in off just 2-3 steps. Going with the loose grip, cocked wrist and lowish arm angle – the aim was to get it up above the eyes just around 6” – 12” outside of the leg-stump on a good length. It’s pretty obvious that the length is key and getting the ball turning. Taking a leaf out of Warne’s book to some extent I bowled the initial ball on the off-side just to see if I could get the ball to turn. I guess this would be a good approach in a game when you start your spell as the batter doesn’t know what you’re about to do and if it turn’s you’re already getting in their head potentially? I did that and the batter played and missed trying to cut the ball.

Thereafter I went either straight or on my intended line and pretty much bowled with good accuracy, a few wide balls, but for the most part where I wanted it and yes it caused problems. The only other balls I’m using are the off-spinning Flipper and a Top-Spinner and the combination works. The off-spinning flipper looks particularly dangerous with the batters saying they can’t pick it. Varying the speed obviously helps and causes problems too. It all looks promising. The only thing I can put my finger on that I did differently was some stretches? 

Knee update - ongoing through the 2021 season

 It seems that if anything is going to stop me playing cricket or at least stop me from bowling it's going to be my knees.

Back in February I mentioned that the left knee felt like it was the more susceptible to further issues, but after the first game of the season where I've only bowled 5 overs, the right knee is the one that feels sore and the soreness is in the back of the knee rather than the front and it's still sore 24 hours later. Not swollen, just sore I might roll it and see if that make it feel any better, but I check to see if that's a good idea first!

8th May 2021

Played a couple of weekends on the trot and both games got through with no real flare ups or swelling, but some soreness and feeling of being 'Full' in the back of the knee, sort of a water on the knee feeling. Was scheduled to play this weekend (8th), but the game was called off thankfully as towards the end of the week my knee grew ever more sore with some limited swelling which I kind of reckon would be described as possibly being 'water on the knee'. Looking at all the description of what it might be it seems most likely to be connected to the popletius. Anyway it's the right knee and it's sore rather than painful and at the moment (8th of May) it feels as though I'd be unlikely to play this coming weekend. 

https://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/popliteus-assessment-and-rehabilitation/

This link above has got some useful stuff. 

And this one in particular https://www.cricketgraph.com/knee-injuries-and-cricketers-a-better-way-to-prevent-knee-injuries/

I need to use inner soles with a higher arch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhYwEr4BgRE

Warm up before bowling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYfbmqdpjkI

Bowling warm up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3c2HmCzYr8