Cricket week game v Rayleigh

 Lovely sunny and hot day 26 degrees - blue sky and fair weather clouds. Friendly game with a mixture of adults and kids, ranging from old duffers like me who play 6th XI cricket to girls of 16 to early 20's and 1st XI players who can smack the ball for sixes as easily as I can eat my Cornflakes in the morning!

Looking at our team see team sheet it looked as though we were in with a real chance and to be honest I was expecting a win for us. We had the bowling, but we also had some big hitters who were in form... PJ and Harry, backed up with good batters such as Somnath, Michael and Dan Gray and an appearance from 'Vanders' who I thought wasn't playing this year, but he's no slouch with the bat.

The first surprise was we batted first but then it transpired that in such scenarios (Their cricket week) you let them decide what to do. The wicket was a 'Road' apparently and they decided to bat. The game was recorded on one of those Micky Mouse digital systems and there's no detailed record of details, not sure why, you'd have thought that would have been possible? 

I can't recall all the details, but two 1st XI blokes (See below) got set reasonably early in the game and rattled through the runs at around 4.5 an over. This may have been down to the fact that one of our players 'PJ' didn't show up till an hour into the game, so the fielding was more difficult than it needed to be, then when he did take the field within the first few minutes he had a ball hit into the air directly to him, gentle arc, you'd have bet your house on a squirrel being able to catch it and he fumbled and dropped it and I think it may have been one of the two blokes that went on to score the 50's? All of the early wickets were taken by the wicket keeper Keagan Scannell off of the bowling of our fast bowlers who bowled well. By the end of the game Scannell had taken 8 catches and the wicket were taken primarily by our young bowlers Dan Gray, Zach 

Dan Gray - 7-1-30-2 both caught Keagan Scannell

Ted Currington - 8-0-43-1 caught Keagan Scannell

Zach Swain - 6-0-46-4 all caught Keagan Scannell

Hiralkumar (AKA Harry) 7-0-39-2

Me (Dave Thompson) 5.5-0-43-1 caught Keagan Scannell

My figures are pretty bad, but see content below and you'll see the explanation. Also the context... Some old duffer, 64 years old v a young bloke in his 20's who plays first XI cricket and the clubs 4th best batsman with a strike rate of 125 and three 50's this season. He's their all time 15th best and yet he's still young, so he's pretty good. If only I got him figured out a bit earlier, or if the umpire had given the 3rd ball to him LBW! read on...

They were all out for 223 off 37.5 overs I took the wicket of one of the blokes that had retired and come back on. 224 with our batting line-up looked like the game was there for the taking. But they had other ideas...

Somnath and Vanders opened and they started with an older bloke - Duncan Bond bowling off-spin. Following Bond was one of the 2 girls Chloe Martin bowling medium pace from the pavilion end. Somnath started off with a promising looking start and fell to Bond having scored 10. Vanders at the other end was doing well, the occasional 4 interspersed with 1's and 2's running with Daniel Gray who started off steady. Vanders who had said he wouldn't be playing this year found it difficult in the heat and eventually retired on 14. That brought in PJ with the opportunity to redeem himself and it looked like he was on track with a big one of his sixes over the pavilion and into the road almost. Then a ball or two later he was out bowled by Chloe Martin who looks about 16 -17 years old. 

All was not lost... We still had Hiralkumar Suthar (AKA Harry) and he got off to a promising start, but then they brought on the 2nd girl a wrist spinner Katrina Mayfield) and he was out caught by Richard Noble. Mayfield also got me batting at 11 with a ball that pitched on middle and took my off-stump as I went back to defend. If I'm batting it usually indicates we're in trouble and we were. There'd been a collapse after Harry was out for 6 with only Michael Gray batting at 9 making 41 and Dan Gray batting with his Dad getting 53. We were all out for 190.

Might it have been a different story if we'd had all 11 of us for that first hour? It surely would have been closer? 

The wrist-spinner Katrina looked really good, far better than last year, so much faster than me. It always baffles how girls who are small of frame and stature bowl so fast and bat so well. Watching her it seemed to be arm speed, as she came off the same kind length run-up to me, but had what looked like another 7-10 mph more than me and the key difference was that she whipped her arm over so much faster than me. She went for 6-0-34-2.

Looking into this and researching further, it seems that all is not lost and that if you have a training program that uses plyometrics, bones, muscles and tendons can adapt to potentially improve arm speed. 

All in all it was good game played in the right spirit and there's potentially a return game at our ground in late August, so I'm looking forward to that already to see if I can get Lynch.

Steven Lynch 1st XI batter

The majority of this content has been copied over from my other blog https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/

Friendly game against Rayleigh on their main pitch on a beautiful day 29/7/24. This is the 3rd time I've played in this game and they're good competitive games. The majority of the players are youth players and they had a couple of girls this year including the player 'Kat' who bowls leg-spin. (To be continued). 

This was a game during Rayleigh's cricket week and the 3rd time in succession that I'd been involved and I came up against this bloke again (Steven Lynch 1st team bat see details below), having faced him last year and got the same treatment again this year. 

So I was brought on around the 20th over after drinks with both players batting well nearing their 50's at which point they'd have to retire. The wicket was either the end wicket or '2nd in' over to one side meaning one side was very short and the other big. I was brought on to bowl from the northern end meaning the off-side was short and the leg-side big. 

My first over was eventful, opting to try and bowl at the stumps, the first few balls were decent and singles were had and a dot ball. Then I bowled at Lynch... leg-stump line-pretty full and got his pads, went up for it and the umpire... a kid - looked flummoxed as though he new it was out, but was more than aware that this was their best player and the consequences of giving him out were the game would probably be gone, after a few seconds of going over it he said 'Not out'. I don't bother questioning these decision, it happens so often and there's not point. 

That kind of threw me...what am I supposed to do I thought? The decision seemed to be that he was susceptible to a ball on the leg-stump and that I should continue, completely ignoring what happened last year. The next one was fuller - too full in fact - a full toss on leg-stump and he thumped it for 4. I persisted with this same line as the other bloke Same Keene looked lost as what to do. But Lynch was in my head and I couldn't seem to bowl at him and eventually in the 3rd over he hit me for a massive 6 over the leg-side and Michael Gray pulled me out of the attack, which I was fine about. 

The game progressed and both of these blokes reached their 50's and retired and I said I'd come back on if needed. But in the time, the rest of the team were bowled out, I was able to reflect on what had happened and decided that if I bowled at him again I'd bowl a mixture of Flippers and Leg-Breaks on an off-stump or just outside line. Which seemed risky with the short boundary. The last wickets fell and coincided with coming back with these two batting again and it worked. For Lynch everything was either off-stump and just outside and he was seemingly only able to hit singles down to deep mid off and to covers on the boundary, which was fine as it meant I was then able to bowl a more attacking line to Keene and he was lost as to what to do and eventually a ball on a good length targeting middle was edged as he defended and Keagan too his 8th catch behind the stumps to finish the game. 

In conclusion, for next year, or if I'm in the return match at our ground in August during our cricket week the key points are (1). Just don't bowl anywhere near a leg-stump or wide of leg-stump line. Otherwise its going for 4 or 6. What worked today even with the small boundary was to bowl a channel or off-stump line. (2). Vary your deliveries; I just bowled Flippers and Leg-Breaks, but I've got a top-spinner which I had tried earlier that didn't work out - that would be an effective delivery. One of the other players I was speaking to about how relaxed he looked while they were retrieving one of his 4's said that if he was going to get out it would be to a slow spinning ball and that what I was doing was what normally got him out.

On the off-side, the shots weren't expansive, he seemed to have a lot of time and played the ball late well within the crease. Looking at his records he has never been stumped, so that's not an option!

This is an approximation of Steven Lynch's wagon wheel from this game - all bowlers. TBH the majority of the leg-side in front of square were mine, but anyone who strayed legside was hit. He hit 10 x 4's and 3 6's and scored 84 off 50 balls for a not out. 

The ariel photograph shows the position of the wicket/strip and the shortness of the boundary. Once I'd figured out that it was a lost cause trying to bowl at the stumps with leg-breaks I then went for the off-side line as mentioned and this then restricted his shots to the green zone. The field set is a suggestion and not one that I used. The field I bowled to had 9 and 10 on the boundaries on the leg-side deep mid wicket. Maybe someone also in conventional mid-wicket. 

This is based on a vague memory of last years game and this game. It could well need modifying, but my analysis was that he didn't look to place the ball short leg-side in order to rotate the strike, it was either 4's or 6's. 

Some of his data...

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3rd XI game at Holy Cross 27/7/24

 27/7/24

Venue - Holy Cross

Team - 3rd XI - captain - Farhan Malik.

Weather 25c fair weather cloud, light breeze.

The strip used was the most easterly one as in the image below with a very small boundary on one side.

I had no idea of how weak or strong they were, but it was apparent there was one really strong player "Ross" who apparently played for B&PCC some 15 years ago. It seemed this bloke was the one that might potentially take the game away from us. 

Farhan won the toss and opted to bat and looking around the team I could see there was some decent bats in our team... Harry, Mike, Charlie, Hassan and Farhan himself. 

A couple of hours later, making some use of the short boundary we walked off having set them a total of 320 off of the 40 overs with a few wickets in hand. I didn't get to bat at No.11. Hassan and Harry both batted well with Hassan in particular hitting massive sixes. The 2 kids at the start did well as did the off-spinner. See score sheet for the breakdown.

Then came the bowling. I wasn't sure whether I'd get to bowl as there was another wrist-spinner "Zadran" - a young bloke who was with Hassan. Our openers Chris Prince and Vignesh Manjunath bowled well with most of the runs being made with late cuts through 3rd man where I was fielding - the first 4 bounced off a lump and nearly took my teeth out, so was put further back. That cut off the 4's but enabled a series of singles. Most of their top order made the majority of their runs through a region between forward of point and an almost straight fine 3rd man. They tried to capitalise when the bowling was from the Church end (Vignesh) and to some extent did so despite three players at deep point, deep 3rd man and fine 3rd man. The main man "Ross" had the shots for this area, as did one of the openers G McDonald. 

The first 7 players were dealt with by Chris and Vignesh. Vignesh getting the raw deal bowling from the church end and two of the key batters having the shots to exploit the small boundary. Chris ended on 8-2-29-4 and Vignesh 7-2-43-3.

Then Farhan brought on the spinner Zadran. He came in off a longish run-up and bowled fast. I was fielding at Gully at this point with a bad back and feeling less than agile - somehow I'd twinged it running (Old age I guess)? At Gully I couldn't see what he was doing, but Charlie (Keeper) and Mike (Slips) could see and they were very impressed. Zadran was "Turning it big" said Charlie, Mike said his Wrong-un turned a little bit, but it was the bounce that he was getting that they were impressed by, they also said that he had a top-spinner as well. Bowling so fast in comparison to me the trajectory which I could see looked flat and I asked about whether the ball dipped and it wasn't apparent to them or me. They also said there was no drift. He bowled his first three overs from the church end and what with mixing it up he had Charlie all over the place... "Best wrist-spinner, I've ever seen". Said Charlie and Mike concurred. 

We had a break at the usual 20 overs and I was able to get some Ibuprophen down my neck. Farhan had asked what end I wanted to bowl from and I said the Church end and he'd offered to get me in prior to drinks, but Zadran was bowling from that end. Over the break he swapped the ends around using Harry Suther and I came on for the 22nd over.

The main man "Ross" was still there and going well Farhan had said 'Whoever can get him, I'll pay your match fees'. Zadran, despite his fast Toppies, Leg-breaks and Wrong-uns had gone for 3-0-15-0 at this point. I changed the field (see diagram) leaving a big gap to tempt the cover-drive and his late cut looking to potentially get a catch.

As with most, this bloke would hopefully think 'Just another workaday run of the mill wannabe leggie, I'll have a look and then destroy him'. The other batter was a kid as I recall and I bowled a Flipper so "Ross" could see that it wasn't turning. The kid played the late cut and slavering at the prospect of facing me Ross called him through. I then bowled a series of stock ball Leg-Breaks which he kind of played with some caution and then the last ball he needed to hit to get on strike to face Zadran and protect the kid. The last ball was the Flipper, on the stumps, he rocked back, went to cut it through the off-side and heard his stumps rattled as the ball skidded through low. He fell short of a 50 by 5 runs. 

The other blokes, I don't remember to be honest, but again the one that got the wicket was the Flipper and then Zadran finished the game off. My wickets were appreciated by the rest of the blokes that I usually play with.

Zadran (Wrist-spinner) 5-0-20-1

Me (Wrist-spinner) 2-0-7-2

All in all a great game and  good to play a league game against decent batters and make a valued contribution.