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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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