008 T20 v Woodam Mortimer evening game

 9/6/26

Evening game - usual rush to get out of work and get there before the start of the game. Tony Keep picked me up tonight at 17.12 from Pitsea and drove me to the ground. Dan Gray Jnr was the captain again. After a showery day, the evening was fine, a little cool but sunny and the wicket had been covered. Woodham won the toss and batted first.

The rule in this game was you retired once you got to 35. There was a couple of blokes in the team I recognised from previous games who I was hoping to come up against and get their wickets and the game panned out so that I bowled in the game at the point when they were batting... Roshan Sharif and Asr Ali. I'm pretty sure I've batted against them in the past and I've not been able to get them, so I was looking forward to the chance to. 

They got off to a decent start against the seam bowlers - batting through the V with powerful shots that evaded the fielders who were set deep. Ben Wilkes being the main batter scoring well through Mid-On. O'Halloran went for 7 off Dan's bowling caught Chris Prince 

That then brought on one of the blokes I was hoping to have a go at R.Sharif, but I was in the field at backward point. I hit a ball out to me which he thought he was going to get 4 off, not expecting me to dive like a bloke a lot younger than my age and I kept it down to a single as I didn't realise where the ball had gone having had it hit me in the body somewhere.

Tony Keep came on for his spell and their main man Wilkes reached his 35 with a six off Tony's 5th ball. Having retired that brought on Asr Ali, so the two blokes who's wickets I wanted, who I felt might be looking for a piece of me, which in a way is what I want, were now at the crease. Dan Indicated that I was to bowl the next over.

The big bloke Asr Ali did as expected and hit me for 9 off my first over. Tony bowled a tight over, going for only 4 runs.

Both these blokes are 1st XI and 2nd XI players with 50's to their names...

The younger bloke Sharif wasn't getting the ball through the field and one of my balls which drifted leg-side a little wasn't dealt with in the way that I'd expected and suggested attacking the leg-stump might be worth a go and it worked, he played a half-arsed sweep which come off the bat near the handle and just looped up into the air and was caught by Shyam as far as I remember running in from fine leg, but it's been credited to Basav? 

Ali, in the previous over had hit me for a couple of fours and I got the sense that he was dealing with the speed I was bowling at easily. For my part I was bowling straight, but a little too full, the over-spin which in theory should mean it dips wasn't coming together, so I thought let's see if he goes for a slower one with over spin. He did and it dipped, being slower, the over-spin had more of an impact and where he was trying to do a measured lofted drive over my head, the slowness and the fact that he didn't get there meant he just dobbed it back to me for a rare bowled and caught with no speed off the bat. 

That brought Mark Broadhurst to the crease. Mark's another batsman who's wicket I want and again he's a bloke who in the nets (Which are total nonesense) comes after me hitting me for what look like 6's and 4's. So, the over against Mark and the other geezer went quietly. Then Dan took me off for the others to have a bowl, which I was a bit disappointed about, because I reckon I could have got Mark. 

Mark went on to reach 35 and retire hitting some nice 6's.

They ended up setting us 150 to win...

The bowling attack was a mix of seemingly fast at the start going into Loppy slow bowling, but our batters stuck to the job and worked their way through the aggressive bowlers and then negotiated their slower bowlers as well. The only bowlers who had any impact where Stuart Careless and Kevin Broadhurst, (Marks dad), who are both slow bowlers. As the game slipped away from them, they started getting 'Aggy' with each other blaming each other for failings in the field and for sketchy bowling and in the end one bloke decided he'd had enough of it and walked off only to be abused even more, which was a shame as it was a friendly game.

 Good though to see the 6th XI players doing well... Me, Nauman, Baski and Sham. 

This now means Nauman's the highest run scorer in the club at the moment. 

003 B&PCC 6th XI v Belhus ME1

Game 3 for me (16/5/26)

Apparently this team gave Rayleigh a run for their money and had a close game, but word is the two Young-uns that took the game from us last week with their 7 wickets for 36 spell at the start of the game didn't play. So maybe we're in for a shout?

A couple of new blokes again, but for the most part the team is starting to shape up with some regulars.

Weathers been slightly different this week, colder with a continuous North wind, so it's likely to be hard and dry again. We're playing away at the Ground in Ockendon. This is the ground my younger son Joe took his 6 fer in an adult game when he was about 15 and that was followed up by a call up to trial for the Essex youth development squad. 

The ground "South Ockendon Leisure Centre" 

key points

Belhus won the toss and decided to field. With rain a potential for later in the game when they may have been batting that would possibly give them the option to call the game off on H&S reasons if it looked like they were being easily beaten?

Weather: Coudy, grey and prety cold with a northerly wind. But the ground with virtually no rain of late and the iccessant wind is like granite. 

Batted first - strange batting order - with Imran down at number 8 or something? 

Nauman scored  110 with a very good display with the bat. I was forced into using the digital system as the Belhus bloke had it up and running with everything set up. I whinged a bit about it being a bit pants, but listened to Joe's and the Belhus captains instructions. It seemed fairly straight-forward, but if you're doing this for the first time, I'd recommend doing it with someone who already knows how to do it, because without a detailed crib sheet and some practice when it goes wrong, that's where it gets a little tricky, but that might just be me being an old duffer? But maybe not?

Fishing around it and asking a few questions relating to previous 2nd hand knowledge about it I found some of its more interesting features which potentially make it an improvement over old school scorebooks... Without any real fuss, just an additional click each time a run is made you can access an interface with the pitch and wicket and indicate where the ball is hit. Okay, so you have to have some ability with spacial awareness, but anyone with a reasonable IQ should be able to visualise the placement whether its a LH or RH bat? So, seeing how easy it was I did it...

This being Nauman's 110. This I think is a game changer in terms of traditional v digital and looking at it on play cricket only quickly it looks like the colours indicate whether the ball is is hit for 1,2,3,4,5 or 6? I'd rather some how it indicated who the bowler was as well? Nonetheless I've definitely warmed to it. But...

I did it for 90% of the game and Joe took over and finished it off. During the break in between the innings I spoke to the oppo's captain and told him we'd done it and asked if he could reciprocate and he seemed surprised that we'd done it saying "Oh, we just turn that off and don't use it". I explained again, that I'd done it and asked if he'd do it and he said he would and then handed it over to what you'd expect to be tech savvy youths and I felt confident that they'd do it, they're using tech 60% of the day (Tik Tok, snapchat and what have you)...

Whilst Nauman laid a solid foundation for us, Joe's decision making re the batting order played out with some odd choices, but he wasn't to know that within our midst and being very low key and modest was Imran Bakth, who I'd played with before and for some reason had a feeling he should be in the middle order. Someone else said (Not sure if they were kidding or not) that at some point in his life Imran had played or had been part of a county set up? Imarn was down as the No.8. Also Ryan Gammidge who is a powerful batsman, albeit new and raw in terms of technical skills, but he's a bloke who doesn't hang around and if he hits the ball it stays hit, he's not worried about losing his wicket, it's just see ball - hit ball into the next constituency and he was at No.7 behind Joe and Adam Doe?

So, while Adam and Joe were taking 61 balls to score 32 runs Imran and Ryan were sitting around like spare parts. To be fair, Joe, after starting off slow did increase his run rate significantly towards the back end of his innings and retired with a strike rate of 65.6 in order to let Ryan "T-off", but this was in the penultimate over, not really leaving either Imran who got to face 4 balls (Scored 9) and Ran who faced 2 balls (Scored 1) to make any real impression. 

Anyway, despite all that we came off after 40 overs with 216 for 6. Which we all felt may have been enough...

The main event... The fielding

Looking around the team, there were some other new blokes in terms of bowling, but no-one placed in the top 20 at the club other than me...

So, it didn't feel like it was going to be a walk-over, we were going to have to take wickets at key points in the game.

The openers, looked like the real deal, the captain Adam Martin and another geezer of similar stature but younger George Maidment -stocky powerful looking blokes who looked like they could hold a bat and sure enough the opening salvos saw the ball being driven back past the bowler through the V and any wide balls out through the covers and mid wicket regions over the players and through the gaps (I was looking forwards to seeing the wagon wheels). Joe plugged the gaps had me on the rope at straight long off. The boundaries were massive, probably almost double the depth of the boundaries at Mopsies, so fielding the ball for those shots were relatively easy and the runs dried up fairly well after the initial burst of runs. But these blokes then changed tack and started to hit the ball into gaps and opted for singles and two's and the swung the game back in their favour. Bibishan bowled well as the opener from the Fen end with Shyam bowling at the Town end 

Shyam AKA "Sham" got the breakthrough and got the captain and another bloke in his first spell and 2 later  on. After wrestling control again, Maidment and the No.3 started play a more deft approach, running singles off of almost every ball and putting away the bad balls for 2's and 4's and the run rate crept up again.

I was brought on earlyish... the 15th over and Maidment was settled and was seeing the ball well and I dropped a ball way too short and the ball disappeared over Cow corner for 6. I then bowled another three balls, before he hit one back past me over my head (Lofted off drive) landing just inside the boundary. I could see already that Joe was looking tetchy. 10 off the over, not the best start.

4 off the over from the other end.

2nd over, marginally better and I'm thinking we need to give Maidment the single and target the other end, but on the other hand if Maidment keeps coming after me and fancies a big score at my expense that means I'm in the game, but can Joe hold his nerve? 

This over went for another 7, so 17 off two, not looking good, where we'd slowed the run rate down we were now leaking runs at my expense and I still hadn't settled, but some of the balls were landing in the right areas, albeit not exactly where I wanted, but the ball was turning off the wicket with the Leg-Breaks. The next over from the other end 1 run. 

A better one from me, taking us into the drinks break. This was down to Ryan Gammidges fielding on the boundary on the Leg-side seeping in the cow-corner to almost deep square leg. 

Joe, despite this was still looking tetchy and I sensed that he might take me off, or was that me being paranoid? I didn't feel that he had any confidence in me, but in the last over with the Top-Spinners I was beginning to settle and the accuracy was coming together. 

As we walked off, I just had that first over in my mind, not the subsequent ones, it felt like I was going for 6 an over and I think Joe came over as we walked off and asked somethiing like...

"What do you think Tomo"? To me I read that as what do you think Tomo, shall I take you off and bring you on later?  I said, 

"Keep me on, I'm getting it on target now and it's turning", he didn't look too convinced. We had drinks and walked back out. Joe brought himself on and went for 3 off his over.

This meant Maidment was on strike and he hit me for another 4 through mid-wicket and Ryan wasn't able to get to the ball, good effort though. I then focused on landing the ball on a good length as I'd seen him come forward with a classic block smothering the ball on the good length Top-Spinners, but this time this was a Leg-Break and it did the trick, the ball dipped and fell a little shorter than he'd expected and the ball turned missing the bat and clipped the top of the off-stump. The main man out! We were in the game again! Joe was ecstatic, he knew this was the bloked that was going to take the game away from use. 

        A couple of balls later and the next wicket went down, I think this one was caught by Joe in the covers. Joe came over as we changed ends congratulating me and I blurted out...

"See, you have to show faith, if you show faith Joe, I'm going to take wickets, it's all pscychological, you've got to be more Dan Gray, you've got to believe"!

So, now I was on  4-0-22-2 I'd dragged it back  I was going for just over 5 an over, but with an important wicket taken. Joe bowled the next over and went for 5 runs.

5th Over. Another wicket, this time Sham at Mid-On. Now I was bowling well. 

5-0-24-3

3 off the next over for Joe and we have at the wicket an older bloke, my age maybe? The first left-hander and see out Joe's over playing really cautiously. No helmet, which always suggests to me that the batter is confident and can play. Left-handers freak me out a bit and I rarely bowl well at them. 

6th over

I think B.Edwards is the older bloke with no helmet. I bowled a Top-Spinner to him on a good length after a couple of Leg-Breaks trying to bowl him through the gate and hit the Top-Spinner through Mid-On for 4 off a nice shot.

6-0-28-3

4 runs off Joe's over and the bloke at the other end - a big geezer (K.Dhannie) who said that it was his first game in years,  like the older bloke played cautiously initially, just having a look.

In my 7th over he again played cautiously as though he recognised I was a threat and was just seeing me out looking for any bad balls. He ran two off a drive through mid-off and I bowled a front foot No-Ball allegedly? 

7-0-31-3

Imran came back on having bowled in the first 15 overs and went for 4 which included a couple of wides and a bye.

My last over (8th) and K.Dhannie had seen enough and new that it was probably going to have to be him to take the game to us and he made a start in my over with 14 off the over, completely destroying my figures, so I ended up with... 

8-0-45-3

K.Dhannie supported by a couple of others including a kid, nearly saw it through, but Imran took a couple including the older Left-hander in the 30th and 32nd over and Sham took a couple in the 35th over leaving K.Dhannie stranded with a small boy. I think we then deployed the tactic of givng the big bloke 1 by spreading the field and then all coming in close to get the kid, but he played OK and they rotated the strike, but K.Dhannie eventually fell to Bibhishan in the 35th over and we won by 22 runs, so it was a close call in the end and our first win. 

So this is where we are in the Table at the moment after 3 games with our next game against 2nd place Ingatestone. 

Sorry no wagon wheels, the tech savvy kids didn't do them. That to me seems mad, all that technology and potential to analyse the game and performances and it's left unused? That's like having a car with air con and opening the windows to try and stay cool? 

006 Tillingham T20 evening game.

This fixture is Aggro for me

I work at the yellow dot on the right and can't get away till 5pm and had been told to get to the ground at Tillingham by 6pm. Luckily Joe the 6th captain had also signed up for this and lives in Benfleet near the other yellow dot (Benfleet railway station). So I was able to get there for 17.10 to get a lift with him to the ground. 

We managed to get there spot on 18.00 to find the rest of the team already there chilling and then discovered the game would be starting at 18.30. 

Being at this game was a miracle. I signed up for it pretty sharpish, but when the teamsheet was released I was the No.12 a spare. Others that were aware of the selection on Sunday when I played a friendly were incredulous that others had been picked in front of me and started a campaign "Justice for Tomo". To be fair I was in the Sunday game, so I'd imagine others were being given the chance to have extra game over and above their Saturday game. Despite not being picked, I didn't imagine anyone would bail out and my only chance might be if I went and watched and took my gear as the 12th man. 

Complicating the matter further was after a week of blazing hot weather with the temperature exceeding 34c in some places, this week was far cooler with predictions of rain for every day this week. Last weeks weather broke the existing record for the hottest May and as I've said before May was also exceedingly dry. 

On Monday I got a message early from Luke saying that I'd got a place in the team and then started weather watching. Monday was showery and grey with some heavy rain and it didn't look promising.

Tuesday morning early, Luke messaged again saying that he was unceratain whether the game would go ahead and that Tillingham would update during the day. In the meantime I confirmed I'd play and started to sort a lift with Joe and he said it was fine, so it was arranged he'd pick me up from Benfleet station, so I had to take my gear into work. The rest of the day in Southend On Sea where I work, I was watching the weather circling us and passing over head. At one point under leaden skies thunder rumbled in the distance and then 20 mins later it was bright and sunny with blue skies. 

I left at 5 and sitting on the platform in a freezing cold brisk wind I realised I didn't have any additional layers, so it might be a miserble cold game in prospect. As the train approached Benfleet massive Cumulo Nimbus clouds were evident in the west over my town, but NE it looked fine, the last report from Tillingham was that it hadn't rained and it was set fair.

Met Joe after a bit of a faff at the station and drove to the ground with him. It was then that he revealed that an hour or so earlier he'd nearly cried off because of a family committment, but was then told there were no spare players and realised that if he did cry off, that would have left me with no way of getting to the game without being really late, I'd have had to go home and drive from my house. 

Thankfully the weather at Tillingham was better than Southend - fairly warm with little wind and sunny with broken cloud. We batted first and the opening bowling looked pretty fast and accurate... back of a lenth on the off-stump and swinging. Nauman took a measured approach and Basky went for it with a strike rate of 100, but was caught having scored 11, but then there was a procession of wickets falling in quick succession and the game looked a bit sketchy. Nauman hung in there and was joined by Scott Noble and then some headway was made with Scott retiring on 25 and joined by Liam once Nauman was dimissed. Liam made a valuable contribution before retiring leaving me and Luke Dawe to finish the last over and a half. Luke was out for one LBW bringing Scott back having just sat down. One of the faster bowlers was back to finish off the tail so I figured I need to run down the wicket at him on the charge to mess with his head and that worked with 5 runs off of 3 balls ending with a not out. 

We now had to defend a fairly low total of 121. 

The captain Dan Gray Jnr got us off to a good start...

He then got Sham & Joe into the attack and they too kept things really tight supported well in the field and Joe made the breakthrough with the first wicket of C.Lawless.

Then Dan turned to spin, first unleashing Luke Dawe, me and Scott Noble...

Luke took the 2nd wicket with his off-spin and then I got into the act. I would say that because of the hip and lower back injury I sustained at the start of the season I haven't bowled that well so far. I also feel that the lack of rain and the dryness of the wickets has made them conducive with batting and difficult to actually get the ball to turn off the wicket on. As a result, I've gradually phased out bowling leg-breaks in favour of Top-Spinners and started this spell with an over of 50/50 "Toppies" and Leg Breaks 

Glen Hylton, was the player that was scoring runs and needed to go as he's a reasonable batter as you can see here left, loads of 50's to his name and at least 5 hundreds. I bowled a couple of Leg-breaks to him and then bowled him with a decent one on middle and leg, that actually turned a bit, hitting the off-stump. 

In the same over bowling to Butterwick a leg-break slightly wide of leg was mis-hit to fall just short of Basky at fine leg (Halfway up). With Hylton gone a younger C.Hylton came to the crease

Butterwick

The second over I bowled at Butterwick who I can remember has had the better of us as a team in the past. First ball a Toppie that he defends and then attempted one that I try and rip harder to get to dip more and it's a full toss which he flicks legside for one. A top-spinner to C,Hylton that he blocks. Then a drag down which he punches down through mid-on for a single to being Butterwick back on strike. Then another full toss which is hit for one through mid-wicket. Then C.Hylton hits a single through point. In the next over from Luke C.Hylton is bowled with a ball that has Rouse right up on the stumps, the ball misses the bat and only just clips the stumps and the bail is dislodged. To the naked eye in real time it's a difficult call even standing 22 yards away. Rouse says 'You're out mate' and Hylton walks, Luke stands looking a bit bemused adding to the potential for the people in the hutch to come to the wrong conclusion. Even the leg-stump umpire concedes "I couldn't say for sure, but he's walked so...". The standing umpire was as confused and adds "If he's walked he obviously thinks he's out and we're a team that walks - we don't cheat". Meanwhile on commentary (Youtube) 70 yards away, they're saying 'That's not out that bounced off the keepers gloves' and are trying to get the batter to contend the decision. But if you watch it back at 1/4 the speed you can see clearly what happened on a PC screen. He was bowled. 

T.Shipton

Shipton comes to the crease (Leftie), he's another young-un who looks like his intention is to hit me back to Basildon, he's the last of the decent batters. Luke has one at him. Then we changed ends. I get him with the next ball bowling a stock ball (Which for him is an off-break) a bit faster outside of his off-stump, he goes down on one knee has a massive swipe and is bowled the ball hitting his leg-stump. 

The next wicket is Butterwick - a leg-break outside of leg which he goes after and mis-hits and is caught by Joe Hill running in from backward of square leg. The next bloke in Riley Campion hits me legside for my first 4. I'm now 3-0-11-3 and into my last over...

Continuing with a mix of 'Toppies' and Leg-Breaks I go 1-1-Dot and get Campion with a slower loopier leg break on leg-stump that turns and hits off. Next in is F.Lawless I bowl another rubbish full toss and the kid hits it to mid-wicket for Sham Patel to run in and take a good catch. I'm on a Hattrick! The next kid in I bowl a Leg-Break to on off-stump hoping for him to defend and edge through to Luke or Rouse. It's a bit too full and he defends it with a good block. I end up with 4-0-13-5.

The team bowling figures.

So eventually a decent bowling performance and nearly a game I didn't play in. But also another example that shows that if have half decent fielders that can catch and make an effort in the field I'm far better than my figures suggest. In the car going back both Dan and Rouse said exactly the same thing. This now means that overall among all the bowlers, I'm now in the top three behind Yannick Leonard 

and Lee Lewis. But the best news is the strike rate now is on par with the rest of the people around me. If I can get these games against better batsmen in situations where they have to come after me and I've got better support in the field, I should be able to maintain this 3rd place overall?

In terms of matching myself against the other spinners, this game was significant and I'm only 2nd to Yannick, but that's down to the fact that I'm playing so much more cricket than most of the others. But, as above. Look at the Economy, Strike rate and averages... I'm getting there, I've caught up massively. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA77-kWyCDY&t=7565s

002 - 2nd game - Rayleigh

 So this game was against Rayleigh 6th XI. As far as I'm aware Rayleigh get 7 teams out at the weekend and generally field decent teams. 

It seems that pitch 3 has been designated our 'Home ground' and it's a ground that I like playing at and I generally bowl from the River end which is at the top as you look at this map.

The weather predicted yesterday was...

Looks like a decent day, there's been a little rain of late, but overall it's been very dry, so expected a dry pitch and one that doesn't turn much. 

As it turns out, it was breezy and sunny, nice and warm and very dry. 

This is the team...

Form for Rayleigh, far more wins than us, so it's going to be a tough match. Looking at who we've got it's going to be a tricky game. With regards bowling going down the list. Waleed could bowl off-breaks, Nauman and Bhaskar are the openers I'd imagine and it looks like Joe's going to have to bowl? It looks like we're batting heavy in this game. We could all bowl 8 overs and that'd do it?

Lee Dutton showed up with his torn calf muscle and did some umpiring. He said he reckoned he'd be another 3-4 weeks before he's playing and that it's been feeling better each day. He just needs to rest it and not be tempted down the nets, but he even said 'If any of your blokes don't show up, I'll field at slip and have a swing'...

We lost the toss and Rayleigh put us in and we got off to a calamitous start at the hands of two young openers, one of whom would normally be bowling and batting in the 3rd XI. They were fast and accurate with varying lenghts as the score card of 7 wickets for 37 runs indicated, with one of them getting a 5 fer in his first 5 overs. It looked like we would be home before the first innings was over at Mopsies, but with the new Bloke Ryan Smith and Prasad Akki at the crease and a change of bowling, the wickets stopped and some runs started to accumulate.

We eventually walked off having accumulated 136. Not without a mishap or two, the worst being the loss of Prasad and the end of the best partnership. Prasad hit the ball through mid-wicket and it was mis-fielded and he called for a single and ran and Ryan shouted no and Prasad kept going till he was about 2/3rds of the way down and had no way of getting back when the kid gathered the ball. That then brought me to the wicket at No.11 and that didn't go well, "Out" off the 4th ball. Ryan at the other end said "To be fair, that was the best ball he's bowled". I was disappointed, I wanted to make some sort of a contribution even if it was enabling Ryan to get us up to 150.

So with 136 on the board to defend we had some work to do, I wasn't hopeful till I saw the first couple of overs and realised the two blokes (Openers) looked like they batted at my standard. As I mentioned we didn't have any recognised and established bowlers of note other than me and I didn't want to be bowling till the shine was taken off the ball a bit. 

It turned out that 'New Ryan' who wasn't exactly new, just hadn't played for about 5 or 6 years was also a half decent bowler, so he opened with "Bhasky" and they created a few opportunities and eventually Ryan got the first wicket the Captain Dave Turner for 10. Then there was a longish phase where the runs dried up with Gopalan and Rothon batting, but no wickets. Then Joe brought in Waleed from my preferred end (The river end) and he had a go with his off-spinners. That came to nothing and Joe brought himself on and he quickly took these two and I had an over from river end replacing Waleed. Waleed warned that the wicket didn't offer any turn and that I'd probably be better off bowling from the Estate end. *Because this was scored digitally I have no idea how that over went, but I vaguely recall it being uneventful and virtually no runs. 

There were some end swapping shennanigans as per Waleeds and Lee Duttons suggestion (Lee had looked at the wicket with me and had suggested that I bowl from the 'Estate End' rather than my preferred 'River End'). This brought a couple of blokes that looked like they might be able to hold a bat and the game looked poised at this point to be slowly drifting away from us with Waleed bowling and not making any inroads. 

Once I changed ends Lee and Waleed were right, it did turn and prospect of wickets increased and within an over or two (No data digital scoring) I had Brad Walker trapped LBW in front of middle and leg with a little Leg-Break having made only 1 run and then one of the youngsters Arvin Ghataura caught keeper (Prasad Akki) off a very good Leg Break pitched on middle that clipped the edged of the bat. I then started to get cramp in one of my calf muscles and then both of them. It wasn't so bad bowling it was in the field that they cramped up and then Joe took me off just as the two opening bowlers started to 'Give it the biggun'. The kid who'd taken the 5 wickets hitting me for 6 and 4 I think in my last over, but I was never to be brought back on to make amends and inevitably the game slipped away from us and we lost. 

I'd have written more, but without proper bowling data it's not that easy to make sense of what happened that well. Anyway, we lost and I didn't get to bowl my full allocation. Joe said it was down to the double cramp situation. Despite the cramp as you can see, I still came away with the best economy and a couple of wickets, so I was relatively happy. 

With weeks of sunshine and northerly winds, the wicket was as dry as the Gabba, making it difficult to get the stumps in the ground. Joe (El capitano) and Prasad working hard trying to get the stumps into the wicket at the River End. 

The wicket looking towards the Estate end

The table of spinners...

So, where does that leave me in the grand scheme of things among the spinners? 

Week two and I've broken in to the top 10 just about, despite my knackered hip and double calf muscle cramp and being taken off 2 overs too early! Kirby had a good game taking 3 wickets in her first over with Joe my son taking a catch for her on the boundary. He took 2 wickets and then Kirby and Dan "I don't actually spin it" Bedford pretty much cleaned up the rest on their own by all accounts. My strike rate has now improved, now that I've taken some wickets, it may have been a blessing in disguise that Joe took me off when he did, but I may have bagged another couple as I was bowling OK. 

Tony Keep is nowhere in the table of spinners yet and he came back to the club wicketless today, saying he wasn't feeling it. He'll be back I'm sure, snapping at the heels of Yannick in no time. Kirby is doing exceptionally well in terms of her strike rate 11.57, so I've got work to do. 

There was supposed to have been a game the next day (Sunday 10th) but the opposition could only muster 2 players by Thursday, so they bailed. I can't see how that works when we've currently got 5 players a week currently wanting to join -how come they're so bereft of players? 

001 - New season 2026 Week 1

 A historic day for the club - we had 6 teams out on Saturday playing league cricket. What with an over-lap with that other game "Soccer", they end thier seasons with important games same as we do, some players don't show. The word is we had nearly 2 teams worth of regular players either injured, or not making themselves available, but we got 6 full teams out. 

I ended up in the 6th XI which I wasn't too fussed about because like last year, I've not had a great start health-wise. This time... A few weeks back I injured my lower back and hip lugging massive plant pots and buckets full of cobbles around whilst wearing flip-flops and something went. 3 weeks later it's slowly getting better, but still a bit sore. Coupled with that I had Hay Fever combined with a crappy cold, making me feel like crap with nose and eyes streaming, but the last couple of days leading into the game today, that too eased up. So by my reckoning I'm working at 65% capacity. 

The game was at Admirals Park in Chelmsford. 

Looking down the list of players there were a handful I'd never heard of, but the captain Joe had said there were kids in the game - under 16's.

Numbers 8,9 and 10 being them. No.11 Bhaskar Nayak is a new bloke I've never played with, Shane was around last season in the nets, but played very little if at all, Nauman is new for this season, but I've bowled with him in the nets this year. All the other lads I know and have played with last season.

I spoke to Joe about not knowing the team enough to know whether they could bat or not and suggsted if possible we'd bowl first and he agreed. 

We won the toss and the opposition were surprised when Joe said "We'll have a bowl". Admittedly the wicket looked good, it was sunny and warm with the promise of rain later towards the end of the game, but we're not the kind of team (As far as I'm aware) that would walk off if it was raining and we were losing to take advantage of the game abandoned rules?

Looking around the team there were no known pace/seam bowlers, Stanley said he was an opener and Shyam "Sham" said he'd bowl as an opener even though he's a slowish medium pacer. Sham got us off with a flying start with 2 wickets in his first 2 overs. Stanley looked threatening from the 'Park End' only going for 13 in his first 4 over spell with 4 No-Balls in amongst the 4 with one of them going for a 4, so without those he would have done exceptionally well. 

2nd change saw M.Baogujar come to the crease and start to assert himself against the young Leg-Spinner Alec Rogers and the faster Nauman Haider. Joe pushed the fielders out looking to restrict the runs to singles, but one boundary was very short and the car-park side boundary for the most part even though it's longer it is down-hill and the fielders have a job on their hands stopping anything that's hit that way. (In the darker zone A). One of the young lads was given the job of covering the diagonally opposite end with Alec bowing from the Road end. 

So in this phase the run rate went up dramatically from 3.62 an over to 6.06 an over by the 16th and then Joe changed it up again, bringing me on with Nauman. Nauman made no impact still going for 6 an over through the next 4 and bowled at 2.5 an over and took 2 wickets one of which was the bloke Baogujar who was taking the game away from us, I got him in my first over bowling Leg-Breaks and then the ball he miss-hit was the Flipper caught at cover point by Joe. The field was brought up forcing them to play more aggressively rather than hitting clean shots looking for singles or glances down the leg-side through A hit with no power that were running away for 4's. I pretty much maintained a middle and off or 4th/5th stump line. With my injuries I wasn't getting the ball to turn much so was bowling small leg-breaks and top-spinners. The 2nd wicket was a small boy and the Top-Spinner did for him - caught by Joe again in pretty much the same place, but coming forward. 

The opposition had put all the kids in first and to be fair the captain had said the best players were the kids, but I thought he was bluffing. I then had a RH kid and a bloke that looked like he had a 50 in him... Northerner, confident looking, decent bat, no helmet, playing in sun-glasses as well. His first two or three shots looked tidy and organised, not obviously looking to exploit the downhill slope down to fine leg (A). I think I got him with a top-spinner as well, that went leg-side and dipped and he tried to sweep it down to fine leg, but with the dip and bounce he top-edge it and it went up above him for Prasa the keeper to take a few steps back and catch him. 

Then the work of the Devil showed up... A left-hander, another kid, but a left-hander, everyone grabbed their crucifixes, but that never works...

My figures at this point were decent and this tends to happen, a kid comes out and ruins them, usually a Leftie. His mate at the other end looked rock solid, no rash shots, rotating the strike with singles, putting the bad balls away, quietly going about his work. I had him dropped off of one ball. But when it came to the Leftie as is the case I didn't have a lot of answers for him. I pretty much bowled at the stumps and he just walked across them, giving himself space and hit through square-leg and fine leg which similar to the situation with the RH bats that area ran off down a hill. At this point I was going for 2.6 an over and then LH kid hits me for 9 + a wide. The same kid made more runs in the final over and I ended up with 8-1-33-3 the maiden was a wicket maiden.

Then Bhaskar came on mixed the kids and Sham. Bhaskar bowled well taking one wicket, much faster than everyone else, he should have opened, maybe with Nauman? Again, once my spell was over the field went out and the kid who was hanging around and went on to get 55 not out just kept hitting the ball into gaps and to the fielders running easy singles rotating the strike. 

If you look at the batting analysis there's a stark difference between our batting and theirs, whereas (Especially at the end) they were looking to continually run singles we on the other hand were turning down singles and twos when they were there for the taking and that came down to either hogging the strike or not being fit enough to run the 22 yars continually. 

In the end we just prevented them from reaching 200 at 197. 

Some of the bowling figures aren't that good. I felt I did OK given that I'm knackred at the moment and I completely messed up with the Leftie and I need to work on them, but I think that'll come with more practice and the return to full fitness. We had another Wrist-Spinner Alec Rogers, not sure how old he is - 14 maybe? Quite tall. I think he bowled well given this was his first Adult game, he looked a bit Richie Benaud with his height and he tossed the ball up with nice loop and I think he was unlucky not to have got more wickets... 6-0-53-1 I tried to speak to him during his bowling but it was a bit tricky, but he seemed to have a plan and seemed very confident and un-phased by how many runs he went for. I also think that was good captaincy from Joe giving him the chance and the wicket he got - it was the Lefty, bowled him through the gate. 

So the table above shows what's happeing after this week - first league game with 2 friendlies preceding today. With Rob Brookes at the top in front of the ex pro player Yannick. This might have changed over-night - Sri and Tony? 

Below, our bowling figures for this game. 

Our Innings

With a bunch of kids and blokes that we had no knowledge of in terms of ability with the bat, Joe was in a situation as to what would be the best approach and so he just put it out there - "Who wants to bat"? and went with that. I ended up number 11 as per usual because of the scoring situation e.g. I'm the only one in the team that can score. 

We were off to haphazard start but with some positive batting by Prasad and Shane, but they were soon dismissed. That then brought on Waleed who we suspected might try and hit every ball for a 4 and he did, but, to be fair 75% of the time he kept the ball along the ground and negated any chance of being caught and it looked like he was on for a 60 and he fell short by six runs bowled by the kid Thakare who'd had a traumatic first over, but then settled over the following 2 and took Waleeds wicket. That was a key point in the game as Waleed was striking at 231!

In the middle of the innings, Nauman took control playing in a measured manner, he was joined by Joe and the runs accumulated with the target increasingly looking achievable. The oppo in the field were silent with their fate seemingly secured. There was a bloke bowling from the park end who had his full allocation of overs who appeared to be their best bowler... Hitchen with an average of 5.13 who came away wicketless. As the game got to the point where we needed less than 30 runs to win, they brought on the smallest kid, he looked about 12 and was about 4'10". He marked out a long run up and then ran in and bowled with a beautiful action (Connor Harrison) within an over or two Both Joe and Nauman were dismissed, Joe by the kid and Nauman by Karunya off a stumping, Nauman saying as he came back to the sheds he was knackered and couldn't get back, Joe to be honest looked shot as well. This was evident because in this phase of the game, both of them were turning down easily achievable singles and not coming back for 2's when they were there for the taking. Looking on I thought they should have done so, the game wasn't won.

When Joe was dismissed I said to the others... "That's probably the game there, they needed to be there till the end, there's a chance of an almightly collapse now" and sure enough (see below). 3 more runs were made for 4 wickets and Springfield won easily. 

Later in the week this got posted on the Club Instgram site... It's a compilation of the best batters and bowlers across all 6 teams presented as "Team of the week". 

At the end of the weekend a rumour went round that my old captain Lee Dutton was coming back to the club to play for the season. Lee's one of the captains in my learning years that would always pretty much give me my full allocation of overs, back then it was 10 as I recall despite much of the time bowling pretty poorly. 

He'd also take things a step too far and field at Silly mid-wicket really close in hoping that I'd bowl a middle and leg line with the turning ball, the truth is the discrepiancy error margin was around 0.3 meters either side of middle and leg and he'd end up wearing the ball off a slog sweep.

So, that was good news for the start of the season. He himself is one of the best finger spinners at the club historically, but also a good bloke. 

So on Tuesday night (Nets) I got there just after Lee had finished batting, I'd liked to have bowled at him! He was just starting to bowl and bowled three good length and line balls and then walked in for his 4th making a concious effort to get up on his toes and 'Ping' tore his calf muscle! He was gutted. Today he's been icing it, but he reckons it'll be a few week before he can even consider a comeback and he's even saying it might be next season. What a shame!

Initially I bowled pretty crap, short and trying to put too much effort into it, I was bowling against Mo Ali who plays 1st/2nd XI. The only balls that beat him were Top-Spinners outside of off. Once he was gone, I began to relax a little more then began to get the ball coming out nicely, more accuracy, better length and turn. But the highlight of the night was right at the end bowling against Koush (2nd XI) batter. He was hitting the ball cleanly, coming down the wicket as well. I then decided to bowl the Flipper out of the back of the hand, this is a remnant of the wrong-wrong un I used to bowl 14-15 years ago. In recent times when I've experimented with it, it's come out with diaganol back-spin with nothing really happening off the deck. The first one to Koush was outside of leg and he came down to it and completely missed it as it stayed really low and it broke to leg!... The Wrong-Wrong Un!!!!

I bowled another 4 or 5 with the same outcome once he'd packed up, but then lost it and it ended up with the diagonal back-spin. The other interesting aspect was the accuracy. My usual mixed seam back-spinners haven't been coming out that well, but this variation did - very full, skidding low and straight at the stumps. Looks promising. I just hope my hip gets better soon as it's still sore and is causing slight issues.