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...

_______

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. 

Sunday Friendly v Anston St George

 I like these games, players from across all 6 of our teams playing against a similar team (allegedly).

Only 2 1st XI players - Weatherall our International player from Australia - Fast bowler and Lloyd Lambert; Off-spinner.

Travis 2nd XI off-spinner (All-rounder)

Lennon 4th XI wicket keeper/bat

Nishant 6th XI off-spinner/batter

Varun 6th XI bowler (Seam) batter (2nd only game with us)

Me 6th XI No.11 and Spin-bowler

Paul A McKeon - batter

Paul Mckeon seam-up bowler (Opener)

Harry - All-rounder

Pijush - All-rounder

We bowled first against an aggressive/good batter and he looked like he was taking the game away from us right from the outset, but then Harry came on and sorted him out leaving an older geezer (Younger than me) who played in a more considered manner. 

I came on surprisingly early given the situation and the strength of the batters and the fact that the Aussie captain has never seen me bowl. I had a ropey first over where I was hit for a couple of fours through the covers bowling too wide of the off-stump. The Aussie bloke moved a player into the short cover position and that then plugged the gap and the runs dried up.

I then got another wicket caught at slip (The Aussie) Kieran. Two balls earlier he almost took a catch in slips - but only got his fingers to it and dropped it. Two balls later the ball went right at him and with a bit of fumbling as he fell, he kept hold of it. I bowled a couple of relatively tight overs with singles going down to deep mid-on and then was replaced having bowled 6. Because of the earlier 4's I didn't think I'd done that well, but then at the end of the game when I had a look at everyone else's bowling I saw that I hadn't done that bad.

Running total below - Differs from the official figures as the scoring has been shocking with the use of the on-line app thing. The logic seems to be 'It's easy - let some kid so it, they know about technology'. But they don't know about umpire signals and scoring in the first place. 

Another diagram - This time analysis of where I'm getting hit and leaking runs...

https://captaincalculator.com/sports/cricket/bowling-strike-rate-calculator/

B&PCC 6th XI v Westcliff on Sea 6th XI

 18/5/24 - Belfairs park 'North Pitch'. 

This was a win for us by 5 wickets. Again a slightly different team. The core members seem to be Nishant Khare who is now the official captain, Me, Lee Thompson, Akash Kale and Jake Wright. 

The line-up today...

As it was a Friendly the coin wasn't tossed, we wanted to bowl, they wanted to bat, so that's what happened. We didn't get off to a great start, the new captain Nishant said from the outset he was going to get the youngsters into the game early. One of the kids bowled really well and got his reward with a great wicket hitting the top of the stumps taking one of the openers out of the equation. They'd been going at 6+ an over and were racing away. The two kids bowled 4 each and then Lee "Five-fer" Thompson came on bowling his SLA. He struggled initially, but then settled. I came on at the 'Seaside' end bowling 90% flippers with the odd Leg-Break. I took 2 in no-time - possibly in the 1st over? They were youngsters not even having a look - just coming after me as though I was some kind of comedy act. One was caught at Point by Archie Monk, the next was clean bowled with the kid trying to smash me into the River Thames (Its about a mile away) and the last was an adult player "Charls D'Cruz" who hit the 4's; One through cover which was a good shot and the two through deep mid-wicket which were down to me bowling leg-side full tosses - attempting to bowl big turning leg-breaks. Knowing I had to keep away from the leg-side I opted to hang some wide of the off-side as he was flashing at them with little success and the wicket keeper Eoin Mercer is pretty decent and likely to take one if he edged it. I didn't even consider Lee Thompson fielding in slips (5) as being in the game! But then D'Cruz went after one - driving wide of the stumps and Lee did a Dwayne Leverock style dive in the world cup 2007 playing against India and snaffled it. It was a superb catch and probably one of my most memorable - I can only ever recall getting a wicket in slips previously about 10 years ago!

One of the younger kids who'd struggled at the start came on again after the 'Thompson' show (Lee took 1 wicket) and took 3. One of which was as a result of catch by me. I'd been fielding at backward square inside the ring, but having seen the batter intentionally targeting the gap between me and fine leg (Between 6 and 11 below) I moved to a position closer to 11 and outside the ring and within a few balls took the catch. 

The image above is the analysis of where I get hit in the games, this currently is an accumulative version showing what I recall of the three games so far. The catches have been taken at 5, 6 and 10, I've never had so many catches taken off my bowling!

Unfortunately the opposition were scoring on one of those poxy tablets digitally and at the time of writing they'd only posted the final score...

So at the moment I only know that I took 3 wickets and a catch, but have no idea of how many runs I went for. I've sent the details of their bowling and our innings and they photographed it at the end of the game, so there's no reason why the couldn't have copied it up and posted it. I've asked Nishant to chase it up and see if he can get them to rectify the situation and he's said he will. Hopefully the analysis with show up in the next couple of days?

Update, after a lot of faffing Nishant got something together that is an approximation rather than the exact record, but I'll go for it. The details relating to my catch are wrong, I took a wicket off Taylor Millar. My figure 6-1-18-3 which I concur with. 

Other than that, at the end of the games, I'll have to get their scorer to stay behind and read out the details so I can add them to our book. 

Here's our batting. The high-point here is Jake Wright. He also bowled today and got at least one wicket (Details to come apparently). But... look at his batting. This is his 2nd game and he batted recklessly in the first for about 8 runs and was disappointed with himself. It looks like he's learned and he batted really well today scoring 28 not out off of 34 balls and enjoyed it. I reckon with more games he'll get so much better. The only thing is he's just secured a job where he's expected to work Saturdays. 

6th XI v Eastwood 4th XI

 This isn't looking like an easy game either. Last weekend this mob bowled out their oppo for 30 runs, with one bloke who's only played one game for them taking 5-0-4-6 (Hasnain H). Hopefully someone at the club has seen that and moved him up to the 3rd XI or banned him from friendlies? One other geezer (Justin Blenes) who I don't know either, took  2-0-6-3. 

So hopefully our captain will see sense and bowl first so that the bowlers can have a game. I'm not optimistic though as its Mitchell Robinson and he's a batter. 

https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/2020/01/eastwood-cc-wagon-wheels-and-bowling.html

The only player I recognised from last weeks game is Armitage.

The game...

Lovely sunny day, probably a bit hot given the fact that its only May 11th (25-27 c). The opposition won the toss and decided to bat. I had no idea how that was going to go, but given their performance last week with the ball I was happy that we'd be bowling, meaning that at least 6-7 of us will get a game!

Stumpgate. The game had to be restarted mid-way through the second over after one of our junior players Ali Abbass had just bowled his first ball and taken a wicket with it. The captain Mitchell had put the stumps in before most of us arrived and now mid way through Ali's over noticed that he'd put them in on the popping crease! So, what with it being a friendly we just re-started the game, which was a real shame for the kid Ali. 

Bowling figures above (Note my figures are wrong I didn't take a wicket) One of our new blokes (Lee Thompson) SLA dibbly dobbly, took five wickets, this is his 2nd season! He had the Yips last year, but this year has come back with vengeance. He bowls differently this year, loopier and slower, but seemingly more accurately. 

So we were happy to have restricted them to 89 and felt that we might have a chance. I'd figured out who the bowler was from the previous week and he was a junior player and he'd apparently bowled 'Slow out-swingers'. Some of the other players in the opposition mentioned that the wicket was 'Sticky' inferring that it was favourable conditions for the bowlers, whereas today it was dry bright and sunny. 

With the dry wicket the kid (Hasnan) was ineffective going for 4-0-11-0 and wasn't at all threatening. In the same game he took 6, the other bowler J-Blenes took 3 and similarly Blenes in this game came away with 4-0-20-0. 

Our batsman after losing the opener Mitchell Robinson cheaply took their bowlers to task.

I've not done a good job here on the score-sheet missed credited the bowler Reid with his wicket, although its in the analysis. 

Basildon & Pitsea 6th XI

Front left to Right -  Dave Thompson. Lee Five fer Thompson, Jake Wright, Ali Abbass.

Rear row L to R - Mitchell Robinson, Matt Cruse, Shashank Shekhar, Nishant Khare, Akash Kale and  Asad Abbass. 

Pitch for this match (The un-numbered pitch "The sewage farm pitch).

B&PCC v Newham cc 4th May

 Don't know If I'll be to keep this up, but I'll give it a go, I'll try and keep it short.

Home game (Friendly) for the 6th XI. This is quite historic for the club as its the first season that it looks like we're going to get 6 teams out on a regular basis. I captained one game last year and that was the first ever 6th XI. The club is going from strength to strength. 

The game was played on ground 1 on the image above, normally we'd play on one of the other 2. Today the 5th XI were on ground 2. 

Previous few days it had been raining and this year has been ridiculously wet. It had rained all day yesterday from first light to about 4pm. But today the sun came out and there was a bit of a breeze. Time we got there it was OK, but a bit soggy.

I'd checked out the form of the opposition and some of the batters in the games last year had strike rates of around 100! So my thoughts were that we needed to bowl otherwise we ran the risk of being skittled for 30 or 40.

A lot of the players in this team I've never played with before

Just home from the Saturday game, I haven't got the exact scores yet as they did them one of those bloody tablet things rather than doing it properly. But Ball park I reckon I was 8-1-22-2. Bowled a few Leg-Breaks today and they came out well, one resulted in a catch at square leg. I must have bowled 6-7 Leg-breaks of the 48 balls, all the others Flippers.

 I batted long today too. The oppo we suspected was quite strong and I was happy when we fielded first - everyone at least got a bowl and we restricted then to 120 odd, They then turned us over 9 for 50 and I strolled out and joined the captain for the 10th wicket partnership and we put on a another 50 + and fell 19 short with 9 overs in hand. My fault played a more aggressive shot outside of the off-stump and it caught the inside edge and went on to the stumps. Retrospectively I look back at that and think - 9 overs left - 2 an over even I didn't score anymore runs the captain may have got those on his own. The oppo were running around like they'd just won the world cup whooping and jumping up and down like crazy! To be fair they could see the game slipping from their grasp and they were trying everyone and everything. 

A couple of days later when they'd posted the scores on the playcricket website, the opposition with their dumb digital scoring got it completely wrong with regards our bowling

On-line I was credited with an extra wicket, but take that out of the equation and I've started the season with 8-1-19-2 which I'm happy with. Actually I've just checked and it looks like they've rectified the score book...

Check out Adam Walker 4 overs for 0. I think Taylor Millar with 2 has been credited with one of Jakes wickets? I'm not sure though. 

Pre-season nets

 A few more weeks till the start of the season. Winter nets has just finished and I'm on my Easter break from teaching and so despite the horrible weather I've made a start on general fitness and agility. Hopefully I'm going to get out and do some running and interval training but I'm only too aware of all the people in the papers croaking or having heart attacks around my age and younger!

What with having a bit of a scare a few years ago... panic attack that I thought was a heart attack I ended up having my blood pressure read at the hospital and found out that it was high. High enough to require medication for the rest of my life and for me to sit up and say 'Yikes'! I then bought a blood pressure monitor and changed my diet a bit. My readings these days are pretty good and when I'm exercising consistently they're very good. But I will ease into having read John Crace's account of having a heart attack recently in the Guardian. 

The weather though at the moment and over the next few days is wet and windy, so much of the exercise is going to be indoors I reckon. With some luck I might get down the nets with a new bloke at the club for a bit of a bowl and a work out. I want to do some work on throwing from the outfield as that's always an issue and just needs a bit of work and training and it should be good by 3 or 4 weeks time?

The last 6 weeks in the nets I've bowled Flippers and Top-spinners and they're coming out OK. I want to get more variation with the flipper in terms of the speed and length - combining it with better accuracy. I reckon with bowling more top-spinners with their added bounce, I'll have more batters looking to step back into their crease looking to cut me through the point region. This was evident in the nets to some extent and I'd have hit the stumps more if I was a little more accurate with the Flippers, but I also reckon a slower flipper will bring LBW's as the amount of back-spin I get stops the ball and batters play all over the top of it, just the accuracy missing at the moment, so that's what I need to work on. Leg-Breaks I'll reserve for games where I'm playing with better players who can run and catch in the outfield and where the batters are slightly more respectful.