Pre-season

Our pre-season nets has been announced at last, disappointing though as there's only going to be four sessions, but it is at a venue that is 20 or so miles away, so I expect that take up of the opportunity will be relatively low - hence only 4 sessions have been booked. Not sure how many people will turn up though as we're having a bit of weather at the moment...

This is the paddock where me and Joe practice in the summer.

The snow's about 4" deep (10cm) and the country seems to have ground to a halt which is mental. I've not been to work now for 2 days and was sent home at midday on the first day of the snow. Makes you wonder what would happen if we had a repeat of the kind weather we saw back in 1987. It snowed off and on over two weeks, there was one day or night where it snowed seriously for a prolonged period and it ended up about a foot or so deep, the most snow I've ever seen. The snow then stayed because the temperature was held pretty low at sub-zero temperatures during the day and at night it was frequently -10 to -18 degrees. See here You'll have seen that 1963 was pretty cold as well, that year it snowed on Christmas Eve and snow then laid on the ground till march with the average temp over that period being 0.5 centigrade. So what all the fuss at the moment is about I don't know? I'm guessing it's the fear of being sued if someone falls over? 

Needless to say Joe and I will make a big effort to get there as it's £5.00 for a couple of hours. I can't wait having been cooped up indoors for the best part of 4 months now. 

I need to go with a bit of a plan though. Batting - I'm going to try and be a little more positive with the batting - look to score runs more rather than defend all the time.

Bowling... I'm looking to develop a couple of straight balls having watched a fair bit of Adil Rashid and seen how successful he is with them...

I like the fact that Sky have called these deliveries "Straight balls" and none of those daft names given to these ambiguous deliveries that many Wrist-Spinners bowl. I'll be working with a top-spinner and another which is more like a poorly executed off-break delivery and because this it what it basically is, it has a tendency to either (a) not spin at all and just go on straight - quite a bit faster than my leg-breaks. Or (b) I get something on it and it comes in a little to the RH batsman - again still slightly faster and flatter than my leg-breaks.

The other thing I want to work on is getting my arm lower for the leg-breaks as that helps with dip and drift. 

If we get there I might post something up after Sunday.