Best season ever?

 At the age of 63, 2023 looks to have been my best season ever. I've never played so much cricket and as a result got my first ever five-fer and came in as the 4th highest wicket-taker at the club!

I've played in two teams, primarily the 5th XI made up of younger kids and old blokes and the 3rd XI made up of the better kids, usually who've got Dads that are cricket players that are generally looking to push on and become 1st XI players when they're 18 years old and blokes in their 30's and 40's. The other teams I play in are friendlies which are a broader mix and often include first XI players down to the 5th X and I'm usually the 5th XI player down to my bowling. These teams I love because the 1st, 2nd and 3rd XI players are often fit, agile and fully committed and therefore take catches off my bowling and prevent boundaries - very different to the 5th XI where the kids are still a bit wary of the ball and still haven't reached that point where they're willing to put their bodies on the line to stop a ball. The rest of the team are usually less than agile older who don't put in the time and effort to stay fit and agile and take their strength and agility far less seriously than I do. 

As a result...

Of the top five here Kirby Jennings is the only other 5th XI player and up till last week she'd been in front of me as she is such a good bowler. As you can see her Strike rate is better than mine which is the figure I always feel is the one to pursue and get as low as possible. She bowls completely differently to me - tossing the ball up really high above the eye-line on a good length. She's often brought on when there's a batter that is destroying us and as you can see from her strike rate she gets the wicket that we need in a matter of overs and seems non-plussed when she's hit for 4's and 6's, she just seems to be un-phased and she bowls the same ball again and takes the wicket - often making the batters look foolish, I love playing in the same matches as her watching her do her work. She bowls SLA and says she doesn't get the ball to turn much and says it's the flight, line and length accuracy that works for her. 

Again as with last season, I've bowled Flippers. Primarily cross or mixed seam back-spinners, I rarely bowl with the seam up. I have a back-spinning off-break variation which I bowl rarely, this season I've taken at least a couple with it. But for me one of the good things about the season having played in the mixed level games is that I've been encouraged to bowl Leg-Breaks by the better players and they've worked with a few wickets which has been nice. The season came to a close with some experimentation with bowling classic Top-Spinners (See previous post) and all through Sept (last night being the most recent) and these are coming out pretty well and look very promising. It looks like I might go in to the 2024 season with a range of Flipper variations and a Top-Spinner, with some Leg-Breaks on the rare occasion, but I'm still wary about bowling my Leggies in 5th XI games. 

Friendly team captain? 

We've had a pretty amazing Sept, today (30th) the weather is sunny and around 22-24 degrees in the South East of the country where I am and every Saturday through Sept we've had very similar weather and very little rain, so we could have easily played right through every weekend. The last league game was back in August and so many people were gutted that the season had finished and were all saying that they'd play through Sept into Oct as the pro's do. This is mainly the Indian lads at the club. We've been netting all the way through Sept - last night included and there may be more to come before the nets are removed on the 7th of Oct. Talking about it there seemed to be a consensus that we should look to somehow continue playing, so I enquired about this with some senior members of the club and got some vague answers; It seems that because our ground is council maintained, the wickets are only prepped during the league season - but there may be some scope to extend that further, but there was a general reluctance to do so as there was a belief that it would be nigh on impossible to get teams out beyond the end of the league season based on previous experience. It was emphasised, that if there was some interest in playing through Sept it would probably be better to make all the fixtures 'Away' games as clubs that owned and maintained their own wickets would have more say with regards the availability of their wickets and not be restricted by Council schedules. 

The conversation then moved on to whether there was enough interest in playing through September and how viable the idea was. Then the key issue was brought up "The club is always looking for people to take the lead on these things and if you would be the skipper and arrange the fixtures, there's no reason this can't happen if you feel there's the interest in it... You could be the Friendly team skipper and sort out Sunday games as well through the season and we'd get more cricket being played"?

So, it looks like there's scope for this if I volunteer to be the Friendly captain and sort the fixtures. I've been the captain before (4th XI) years ago when they were desperate and had an awful season with really small kids in the team and a series of older blokes who were brought out of retirement to try and save the 4th XI side. It included games with only 8 players with 3 of them being only 13, it was pretty awful and I don't think we won one game, so it's not something I have a good vibe about. But since then the club has been transformed and is so much better with so many more players. Add to that I'm a better player now and have more of an idea with regards captaincy, so I may consider it. I've got till Jan to think about it and see if the interest is quantified as talking about it is so much easier than showing up for it. The idea of the mixed level Sunday team is really appealing though. 

The clubs doing really well

At the end of the season like most clubs we had an awards night. I haven't been to many of these for years - not since my own kids were in the frame for awards. I'm not a drinker, so that side of it isn't a draw for me. But having played in the 5th XI with other people's kids who'd done really well, I thought I'd show up this year and have a look and show some support. 

I was amazed! The event was well attended, but the amount of under 16 players was surprising, but even better was there was loads of girls. I new there was a girls team, but the sense I had from stuff I'd seen on social media was that there wasn't enough of them, but there were stacks of them - loads of wannabe Maddy Villiers and Charlie Deans! Girls in the 14 - 15 year old age bracket and all the way down to 8 year olds, so good to see. The club is a different place in comparison to 5 or 6 years ago. 

Highlight of the year

There were a number, but if I was to choose just one it would be the game against Hornchurch Athletic cc. Their ground is at a school and the facilities are pretty basic as the changing room and toilets are inside the school a distance from the ground, so we get changed outside. The wicket's okay though and the outfield is OK too - usually with a very short boundary on one side that is down-hill. In the past we've been absolutely hammered by them - our team being the usual old geezers and young kids finding their way. Whereas they seem to have a good core of about 3-4 decent batters in their mid 30's to mid 40's who play correctly, surrounded by younger and similar aged players of different ethnicities who play far more aggressively. Their bowling is a little erratic, but because of this, they're difficult to score runs off of mixing quite fast with spinners with unusual but affective approaches. With this mix of players all the games I've played in we've lost. Added to this, they come across as having a really aggressive win at all costs mindset and just seem to come across as being really stand-offish. 

In this game, all these aspects seem to be in place, but we had a couple of players 'Harry' an Indian bloke who was playing for the first time and claimed to be able to bat a bit and my son Joe, who hardly ever plays - twice a year, who's a decent bowler. We had a different wicket keeper Tom Tonnison who's about 15 and "Super Kirby" the destroyer of aggressive batters. 

We batted first and there were some major mishaps in the first couple of overs with their bowling - really high full tosses off pretty fast bowling and then our captain copped one on the head (no helmet) almost knocking him out and he had to retire with suspected concussion. We trundled along at a relatively slow scoring rate with Brian Waterman and Reece Eustace playing well, building a good partnership of ones and two's and the occasional boundary. Both almost reached 50 (see below) and that eventually brought Harry Suthar to the crease. The unknown Harry come in around the middle somewhere and then things picked up. It turned out he could bat. We have quite a few new blokes turn up and they're asked 'Do you bat or bowl' and they'll say 'Yeah I'm a batter' and they'll then go into full short format mode hit a few fours and get out, not playing the situation, keeping in mind the need to stay in and accrue runs at a steady rate. We're looking on thinking - damn he was looking good - should have played differently. Not Harry, he was decent and went on to score a solid 50 and then was out bowled S.Hunt the mystery spinner with a Paul Adams bowling action. We came off with a better than normal score of 193 with those three players playing crucial innings. We were buoyant, with the bowling attack we had, we were in with a shout, but we knew these blokes were good and very determined.

The usual two blokes came out and we started with Joe and Henry as I recall. Henry bowled OK, but Joe brought out his A game and bowled accurately and at a good pace. Shah took on 14 year old Henry and hit him for a few fours, but had nothing to combat Joe...

Joe went through them with relative ease and they looked gutted.

Pmac the captain brought Harry on and he bowled well, so not only was he a decent bat, but his bowling looked handy as well. I replaced Joe with my Flippers and Leg-Breaks and took 2 wickets in my first over and another in either the 2nd or 3rd over. Looking at the scores it looks like I took 4, but one of those was a run-out off my bowling.

We went through their top order easily, some of the blokes who came out looked really determined, but between Kirby Jennings and me we pretty much finished them off. One of Kirby's was great to watch, because she bowls so loopy and slow she generally gets some tap, but she doesn't change anything - she just keeps doing what she does. K.Murford came out at number 7 and looked like a man on a mission. But had a look at Kirby, hit her for 4, but at the same time realised that she was potentially dangerous and gave her some respect, not playing expansive shots between hitting her for some 6's and 4's, but on his last big hit he holed out to deep mid-on with a great catch taken by Ted Currington as I recall running in from the boundary. 

Top spinner

 The last game of the season is coming up on the 9th Sept in Chelmsford. Last weekend talking to some of the other lads, there's an appetite to keep playing through Sept and no wonder, the temperature today (6th) was in the 32 degree centigrade and has been the warmest day of the year! Weirdly though this same morning I noticed in the fields of Benfleet marshes 200 + geese having arrived to spend the winter here. Then coming home Chalkwell and Leigh on Sea were doing their best impression of the Costa Del Sol, the beaches and coast line packed with people in swimsuits and bikinis sun-bathing at 5.30 with loads of paddle boards on the estuary.

On the way home Koush messaged me and asked if I wanted to go and have a net? I said yes, he tried Sri, but Sri wasn't answering his messages, so it ended up with just me and Koush. 

I batted first and did okay and finished quite happy with how I'd batted. Then I had a bowl

This is a comment I wrote on Big-Cricket...

Does anyone here ever get to bowl with another spin bowler with 2 sets of stumps one at either end bowling taking turns bowling to each other. I used to do with my sons, but they always got fed up with it too fast. I've always rated it as a good method of practicing - because there's the potential to give immediate and helpful feedback. I've had the opportunity a couple of times in the last two weeks to do this and in doing so was able to work with my top-spinner which I rarely do. Not sure if you recall, but as a variation I generally recommend the Top-Spinner as being the ball you learn next after the Leg-Break, but I rarely bowl it because I don't get to practice it enough. But, in one of these bowler to bowler sessions I had a go and my mate Koush (The other bloke) who's a number 3 bat in the 1st team was like 'Whoa! What was that'? Then it went from there, that was all the encouragement I needed to throw a few down and he was very impressed. 

We netted today - just him and me and having had that little bit of practice allowed me to send a few down among the Leg-Breaks and Flippers when he was batting and he was totally out-foxed by the inclusion of the Top-Spinner. His feedback was because of the Top-Spinner he couldn't play the Leg-Break in the same way and felt with the Leg-Break he had generally 3 shots to work with, but with the inclusion of the Top-Spinner he know felt he had to wait for it to pitch to see whether it was going to turn or not, massively changing his options. He said that he could not read it out of the hand and it also mean that a slow loopy Flipper also took on a slightly different dimension that had him playing differently.

I've got a game Saturday, so I may give them a go in the game. Top-Spinners have never been a mainstay of what I do, but after these to sessions with Koush I might persevere. I've always been aware of their potential - but never had a practice session where it's been obvious or commented on. 

Hornchurch 5th XI v B&PCC 5th XI - May 27th 2023

 Game played at a school ground. (Emerson Park Academy). Nice wicket though.

We lost the toss and despite our form they put us in to bat. It looked ominous when you compared the make up of both sides. We had a few very small boys who were playing adult cricket for the first time and many of our usual players including our strike bowler Nishant Khare were unavailable. 

Looking at the batting we had Mitchell Robinson and that was it other than a couple of potential new batters Muhammed Awais below right and Connor Binstead left.

The batting didn't go that well and their bowling was pretty good and we lost wickets at a fast rate with some ducks... Muhammed did okay, especially given that this was his first game playing league cricket and his first game for ages. I reckon if he comes back for me he could be an asset for our team as he looked good in the field and his one over looked promising for 4 runs. 

I had a decent game with the bat, I'm usually out for about 1 or 2, but I batted quite aggressively and managed a 4! We were all out by the 38th over for 124 runs. Which was a lot better than I imagined, but this was down to Mitchell Robinson's 54, his first 50 in adult cricket. It was a decent 50. He has a particular shot that I've seen him use in all the games so far and he deployed this shot (Slog Sweep) in this game and scored his initial runs, but then they placed a fielder there for the shot and then he changed it up and played a good innings with plenty of singles and drives. All in all very commendable, lets hope he can do this again and again with some support?  

J Then McGhee & S.Hammond were the main blokes with the bat and to be honest I didn't really take a lot of notice of their batting other than it was pretty conventional and effective, nothing flash, just regular shots pretty much all around the wicket and seemingly good enough to pick the gaps. Not really what you'd imagine to be 5th XI players. 

I had to bowl my eight overs at both of them and couldn't get a break through with my flippers and every-time I attempted my Leg-Breaks, they were too full and were hit for 4's. Unfortunately I attempted these a number of times before eventually given up on them. 

The batter I took more notice of was a younger player. Once we'd got McGhee we thought we might be in with more of a chance and that the next bat in might be a lesser player. Yeah... we got that wrong. That player was Rehman (RH) and he was a really positive player and again struck the ball really cleanly and powerfully. When he came on, our faster bowler Barath was brought back into the attack. Barath takes wickets and has bowled in first XI games previously. I was fielding at point and Barath wasn't bowling that well and was bowling down the leg-side and Rehman was guiding the ball to the boundary using a shot that was basically a paddle sweep!

Sitting - the captain Paul McKeon, Mitchell Robinson and Connor Binstead.

Loughton South cc v Basildon & Pitsea 5th XI

 13/05/2023 - Played on Pitch No.3 at Wickford Memorial Park

I'd looked at the oppositions batting stats on Playcricket and had seen that their batters had reasonable averages and the blokes listed as being 3rd XI players had 50's and 100's to their names unlike us, so it was definitely a game we needed to bowl first in otherwise we'd be heading home at about 2.30!

The weather leading up to the game all week was poor - rain, thunderstorms, cold, grey and no sunshine - awful weather. Then on Friday the weather indicated that on the day of the match, by around 11.00hrs it was going to start to brighten up and by 4pm it would be around 21 degrees and sunny.

As usual the team changed from that posted originally and as usual we looked to be short on batting and might struggle. I had a look on Playcricket at their 3rd XI team and noted that it potentially had some strong batting. With this knowledge my feelings were that whatever the toss revealed we needed to bowl first otherwise there might be a good chance that we'd be rolled over for a handful of runs and their openers would wrap up the game and it would all be over by about 2.30pm!

Thankfully having arrived late because of traffic jams on the M25, the toss happened on a soggy looking wicket under leaden skies. They won and chose to bat. 

The weather wasn't shaping up either - cold damp easterly off the north sea with no sign of the promised sunshine. The outfield needed a cut. About 2 weeks ago by the look of it and more recently! As well as being long enough to hide a small boy in there was all the cut grass sitting on top of it so anything along the ground wasn't going to get to the boundary.

The wicket looking towards the River End

Left to right sorting the stumps. Nishant Khare. Paul McKeon, Lee Thompson and the captain Paul McKeon.

The captains at the toss

P'Mac, our captain is shaping up well and I'm liking what I'm seeing and hearing already. Before we went out he laid down the law with regards anyone struggling with their bowling. He's said that the team encourages and celebrates the successes and what they don't do is shout 'Line and length mate... line and length' and other such cliche's, as he said 'No bowler is intentionally bowling wides, no balls or feeding the batter balls that he can hit for 4's and 6's, when they get it wrong, they know they've got it wrong and the last thing they need is you emphasising the fact in the field'. I hope that's how it's going to be the whole season.

Paul opened the bowling from Pavilion end accompanied by youth player Henry in his 2nd league game bowling from the river end. They got off to a really decent start...

This was Henry's first league wickets so he did very well, bowling out his full allocation of overs with 33 for 3 off 8 overs. Paul was misery for his 2 wickets 11 for 2 off of 6 overs. The ground fielding all round was pretty good apart from the catching. We definitely need to work on our catching. Paul got Chris Mitchell who has an average of 95.4 for last year - all time 77.14 with a high score of 123 and the 10th best bat on their team. Paul got him cheap for 7. 

I bowled from the Pavilion end and Lee bowled from the River end. I bowled at the captain and Rohit Taheem. Taheem was another of their better bats on paper. Last year over 5 innings he scored 170 runs with a high score of 46 with an average of 34. He took to Lee's bowling and scored a number of 2's and one of the only 4's in the game. He couldn't do anything with my bowling which was pretty accurate for the most part (Flippers) and a couple of nice Leg-Breaks that only just missed the edge of the bat. He eventually smacked the ball back at me hard and I caught it. He looked as though he couldn't believe it. Somewhere in my spell someone hit one straight at Lee at Mid-On and it bobbled out of his hand and went to ground and then shortly after the captain Andrew Shields trying to cut me, top-edged to Mitchell Robinson the keeper for him to catch and then drop. So, perhaps I should have been walking away with 3 wickets! Oh well - can't moan too much as I dropped one later in the field. 

Kirby Jennings a female youth player (15)? and new bloke Rajesh Podapala bowled at the a kid that came out at No.9 Aarush Rout. He played really well, see this link here for his wagon wheel he looked amazing calm and collected and was making runs all around the wicket albeit predominantly leg-side. I figured him out as one of his strongest and most consistent shots was through forward square leg so I moved into that position and sure enough he hit a good shot off of Kirby's bowling and it came straight at me at head height and I thought I'd got it - but it bobbled out as I didn't have soft enough hands and he got away with it. Rout went on to score 18 runs not out and being the highest scoring bat on their team. He's an under 15's players and last year he played in 21 innings, scored 138 runs with a high score of 35 and averaged 12.5. How he differed from the rest of the team was that he trusted his technique and he came down the wicket and hit the ball on the full cleanly - I stood there wondering why he was so far down the order. But, we hadn't seen the last Rout.

Having looked at the stats before the game I was happy to have finished with them having scored 114. But I knew that given how much they'd struggled, it wasn't going to be a walk in the park for us. 

The openers were Addis and Rout and they cut through us like a hot knife through butter. Top scoring Rout backed up his batting performance with an amazing bowling performance below... 8-4-7-4 with 2 double wicket maidens.

Some of our bats said he bowled straight and wasn't turning it, but from where I was sitting his whole bowling action looked like a Wrist-spinners and then later I think Paul McKeon senior said he was bowling Leg-Breaks. Our batting was dismal in comparison with the oppositions and it wasn't till Kirby Jennings and the captain came together around about the 20th over that we got the run rate over 1 an over! Kirby eventually top-scored with 10 being caught in the slips with a good effort from the fielder there leaving me not out for 0. The captain scored 2nd highest run along with Mitchell Robinson with 8. We were all out for 45 as I suspected we would be. Thank God we bowled first.

Despite the loss, it was another good game played in the right spirit and the captain said that I should be playing for Essex over 60's as I had the right kind of attitude to the game and was a good bowler and player, which was nice to hear. 

As yet I haven't got to know Pmac well enough to know whether he'd be bothered with me making notes on the field in between overs like I have done over the years under different captains. So the wagon wheels here are from memory and from talking to the batters themselves and other bowlers and players...

Andrew Shields No.3________________

Shields was the captain for this match and will be captain for the season as far as I can make out. His data over the last 10 years...

Looked like a solid batsman with a good range of shots around the wicket. Deft late cut, but we had a bloke there that cut that off. A flick off the legs to fine leg was another preferred shot, but generally the sense I got was that he had the ability to hit the ball where he wanted to potentially, but our field we set for him, which was pretty standard worked well. One of his main shots is the cover drive which he hit plenty of, but with the conditions -  virtually 100% of these were simply fielded. Another shot seen quite a bit was a late cut. 

 Our field made use of the conditions and we had everyone on the edge of the circle as such, but this was primarily due to the fact that the grass was so long and covered with cuttings, the ball wasn't going to be going for fours much at all. Given a dryer day with a fast outfield he'd have been far more of a handful. 

We got wickets early and we may have got their 2 best bats cheap and this may have affected Shield's approach. He was very watchful and seemingly un-phased by the very low run rate (1 an over for the first 20 overs as I recall). He was dropped a few times - drive through Mid off (Off my bowling). Cut shot attempt through point top-edged and dropped by our keeper (Off my bowling) and dropped at Gully. Not a candidate for stumpings, didn't come out of his crease as far as I noticed. If you're a Wrist-Spinner with a straight variation and the wicket allows for the ball to turn well, an approach you might find useful is to bowl on a good length given the conditions you have and set him up with straight balls. Balls on a good length he tends to defend with a straight bat, so then bring in the small Leg-Break and the edge might be found? 

He was eventually trapped LBW sweeping Kirby Jennings (Slow Left arm orthodox). 

Aarush Rout No.9 _______________________

Rout is an under 15's player and plays a lot of cricket. 

Rout came out at Number 9 and right from the on-set looked good. I'd been bowled out so didn't get to bowl at him, but he did say that he was glad that he didn't have to face me and felt that he might have struggled.

He was busy, looking to rotate the strike with Shields and others with an obvious good leg glance into the area between square leg and fine leg, which I quickly cut off and had a tactic for. He then changed it up and went for a more aggressive shot looking to pierce the gap between square leg and mid wicket. Again, I reacted moving from a position of backward of square leg to forward of square leg and almost caught him in that position on the edge of the circle - the ball bobbling out of my hand as it was hit so hard and I didn't have soft hands. 

We tightened up the Leg-side field and stymied his shots through there, but he also had some straight shots and late cuts/cut shots through point and backward point, but the fielders and the state of the grass stopped his efforts through there. 

More so than any of the other players he was confident and skilled enough to come out of his crease and hit the ball on the full and he did this time and time again against Kirby Jennings (SLA). 

He survived all of the bowling we threw at him and came away with the highest score and a not out. I reckon he'll be fun to bowl at and I'm hoping that he continues to bat as he does and works his way up the batting order by the time we visit their ground and I get the chance to bowl at him. Not only is he a good batter he then went on to open the bowling with Leggies... 8-4-7-4. A very impressive young allrounder. 

Rohit Taheem No.4_____________________

Taheem came out during my spell while I was bowling with Henry and Lee Thompson as I recall.

Taheem's batting data here suggests that he's new to the club. 

Taheem scored quickly and looked like he was looking to take the attack to us and upset our work.

Thankfully, I was bowling well and I slowed him down. I had really good support in the field especially from Lee Thompson and some of the balls he'd have hoped to have scored runs off. Lee pulled off some superb stops and kept him at the crease. 

I hardly bowled any Leg-Breaks in this spell - out of the 48 balls perhaps 4? One or two of these to Taheem to try and let him see that it was there as an option. After a beauty that he blocked and only just missed his bat he then pulled out a big shot in the style of a bloke looking to not let the spinner settle and hit the ball straight at me at about 100 mph and I caught it clean - bowled and caught... Nice!

I had a chat with him and he's looking forward to a re-match and reckons he's got my number! Love it, can't wait!

Again as with all the others, the wagon wheels are representational of a game played on long, damp grass. In different conditions it would have been a different story, almost 100%. 

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.

________________________________________________________________________

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.