Edladd's Blog

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A good workman always blames his tools

A week of lows and highs so far cricketwise! Tuesdays nets didn't go particularly well, and again we'd a shortage of players, so there was a fair bit of running during the fielding drills. But early on I was just knackered! I'm not too bad with burst activity usually, I've done some work to try and improve my recovery time during the winter and that has helped - so I was able to get my breath back quick enough. But the problem was, my legs just felt too heavy for the whole session! When I was bowling it was all far too slow and the batsmen were cracking it away to all corners for fun.

On the plus side though, my batting really has improved hugely in the last few weeks. Now that I'm confident enough that I'm likely to keep out the straight one I feel that I can afford to go after a ball that's off the stumps. I'd a few nice drives and an intentional late cut past slip :) I'm still not likely to be getting my first century any time soon - but if I can beat my previous best of 4 this weekend I'll be happy. Hell, if I can get 1 run with a shot I was trying to play it'll be an improvement!!

After the session I had a bit of a think about why I was so tired so quickly. Partially, it was because I didn't get my full quota of sleep at the weekend due to highly important drinking commitments, and I was still playing catch-up. But mostly it was because I hadn't eaten well that day. Due to the time training is at, I don't usually have a chance to have dinner between work and nets - so the only meal I'd had during the day was at 12.30.

So Thursday, I made sure I had an extra sandwich to eat after work - and it made a huge amount of difference!! I was much livelier during the session, and both my batting and bowling were better for it!

As I've mentioned before, my bowling isn't spectacular in that I don't get the ball to do much. Occasionally it seams, and sometimes it swings a bit - but for the most part it's just straight down the line slow line-and-length stuff. It's surprisingly effective against batsmen that aren't 100% concentrating, as they have to put more work into timing the ball to get it to go anywhere. Initially, one of the batsmen was coming after me and having some success at hitting over the field - but then he mistimed one that fell just short of mid-off - and suddenly the cat was among the pigeons. He was unsettled and got caught the next ball, followed by getting run out the ball after. For the rest of my spell I think there was only 1 run off the bat (the rest being byes), and I picked up another few wickets, and we ran them out another few times. It's funny how simple consistent bowling can create enough pressure to make people do silly things ::)

My batting was good again too - although (no offense to the guys) the bowling wasn't up to much. One of the bowlers was unable to put one down straight, and the other was putting them outside leg and slower than mine :eek: - so I felt comfortable enough sweeping a few, and even played my first leg-glance (a la the Bob Woolmer video). When I was coming off the club captain asked me "Is that a new bat Ed?" (I've had it since August) - so I must have made a good impression on the onlookers :) It's funny how people assume that new equipment must be responsible for a jump in form :D

I'm currently lined up for two games this weekend, so we'll see if this run of relatively good form carries onto the pitch - fingers crossed...
 
On a Minefield

Another double-header weekend for me ... with a 4ths game on Saturday and a 3rds away (faaar away) game on Sunday. I also had a hectic bit of socialising to do around this, so as you can imagine I'm a wee bit knackered today :)

Anyway, on Saturday we won the toss and batted first (which is the standard response of course) and were all out in the penultimate over for 131 (40 over game). Again, this isn't generally a sufficient total in 40 overs, but we have some good bowlers this year and I for one had faith ;)

For my own batting - another duck :( but at least it was a new mode of dismissal with a caught behind rather than bowled. I was facing a spinner with a wierd action, and playing at balls well outside the off stump. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that he wasn't turning the bloody thing at all and I could have been leaving them all - or whacking them. Ah well, live and learn.

For their innings I was fielding at backward square leg and gully and pulled off some good stops, one of which led to us running out their opener who was going well. After that we got wickets fairly regularly to keep the game under control. I came on just before drinks and took a wicket with my first ball :D Again, it did nothing - just straight at the stumps on a length. The batsman just played way too early and tried to slog it because it was so slow :)

I got to bowl my 10 overs straight through which was a first for me, ending up with 10-2-26-3 (O-M-R-W). I had a chance for another few, with a good LBW turned down; a tough C+B that I just got a fingertip to; a catch from the number 11 put down and a slower (than usual) ball getting through and just over off stump. Another good thing was that I was seaming the ball into the stumps regularly - meaning that they couldn't afford to leave anything close outside off. As my pace picks up I think this will give me a chance of slip catches.

So we won well, bowling them out for 87. Obviously I was well happy with my 3 wickets and a good economy.

On Sunday then, we had a game about 80km away from home - which meant getting up early(ish) after being out fairly late the night before. As it turned out, the captain had over-estimated the traffic, and we were there an hour early :(

As the game went, I didn't get to bat or bowl - but I didn't mind too much as I was fielding in the covers and so was involved in the game a lot more than last week. We were fielding first having lost the toss - and the game seemed to be getting out of our grasp a few times with them having a few big hitters sticking at the crease and whacking boundaries through the leg side. To be fair, our bowlers put too many on leg - which gave them the freedom to do this. But in the end, we managed to restrict them to just 139 in the 40 overs. I was happy with my fielding again, with one catch and numerous stops - which were made difficult by the state of the outfield which was literally a rugby pitch :eek: One of our guys was fielding on the boundary behind square leg and on two occasions misjuged a ball that passed him for 4. One of these was all along the ground - so he got into a textbook long barrier - only for the ball to suddenly jump about a metre in the air, right over his head and out for 4!! It looked like it had hit a landmine or something!

We knocked off the runs for the loss of 2 wickets - with one of our openers getting his 53 not out in the last over. We're a club that normally chase totals badly - so it made a nice change to get this so easily. Although their bowling was pretty bad, with ~30 extras and far too much slow bowling that just sat up outside off waiting to be hit. It says a lot that both their wickets were caught in the deep.

So a good weekend for our 3rd and 4th teams, but unfortunately both our 1sts and 2nds were beaten in their games. I'd half intended to go for a bowl myself this evening - but the weather isn't holding up so I might skip it and get some rest instead.
 
The more I practice the luckier I get

There is a poll this week on our club website - www.sandyfordcc.org - to see who people think will win the infamous Duck Cup this year, and aside from the novelty choice I am runaway favourite!! Not without good cause obviously, I only just missed out on picking this up last year, and I already have more ducks this year than I picked up in the entirity of last season :embarrassed:

I'm still working away at it though, and there are signs of improvement. I was hitting the ball cleanly towards the end of last nights session, and my defence has soared from "non-existent" to "streaky". The only bowler who really gave me trouble was the first-teamer who took 7 for 25 two weeks ago. He's got a great action, where he sort of jogs in and suddenly the ball is on your feet! He was also swinging the ball with a slingy action from outside leg onto middle stump.

I'd a fair few lucky edges, where I just got the bat in the way at the last moment and it squirted off to third man or fine leg. But the way I see it, a few weeks ago the bat wouldn't have been there for the edge to come into it. I remember hearing a quote from some golfer saying - "The more I practice the luckier I get" [Gary Player according to Yahoo answers]. Which is to say I'm taking the credit for my streaky shots - better than no shot at all.

When I was bowling then, I was getting fairly tonked for a while, until I decided to just have fun and try a few different things, most of which, surprisingly, worked quite well. I even threw in an off-cutter, which I've never done before, and it moved off the pitch and through the gate - just missing the stumps somehow! I also threw in a few of my slower yorkers, (which work a bit like the SLOB that Manee found on Mavericks Cricket, but with a different action).

With regard to the duck-cup situation, it doesn't bother me nearly so much as it would have last year. At least this year I have the excuse that I'm a bowler :p. After last weekend, I now have as many wickets to my name as I have runs :D. My fielding has been sharp this year too, with 5 catches and a run out in 7 games. They say you should be good at 2 out of the 3 disciplines of Batting, Bowling and Fielding - so I'm relatively covered...

No cricket this weekend, as I'm off to Wexford - the Sunny South-East as it's known here - for a weekend's drinking with my college friends ... in fact, looking back at the last few weekends you'd think I was a big drinker, when nothing could be less true - normally I'll not be drinking at all, or if I do it's usually very tame as I'm a complete lightweight. Still though, one of these weekends I'll have to make up my sleep quota.
 
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Nothing much to update about here, as I said, I'd no cricket this weekend. My team did well though, with a big win by 115 runs. I reckon we could have bowled them out for a few less if I was about ;)
Practice is thin on the ground this week too, with our 1st team away on a 20/20 cup on Tuesday evening - so we'll be pitching up over there in support rather than going training. I was thinking about grabbing a few balls and heading to the pitch by myself this evening. Though I haven't left work yet (17.55) and I am a bit tired. I'll toss a coin for it when I get home :)
Also, after missing a game I've been relegated to 2nd in the catching league for the season so far - I'll have to get 2 next week, fingies crossed I'll get a game!!
 
The sneaky leg-glance

So, as I said previously - it's been a relatively quiet week cricket-wise. Tuesday nets were cancelled as our 1sts had a game - which was then rained off :( Luckily, I'd dragged myself off the couch on Monday evening and down to the pitch to do some bowling by myself so there was no loss in terms of practice time. This bowling went quite well - with at least one out of every 6 actually hitting the stumps. And as I got into it, I was bowling faster without losing accuracy - which was nice.

I did hit a bit of a wobble mid-session though, where I bowled one wide and then started to overthink - resulting in more wides :cursing: But at that stage I just went back to basics and it came good again before the end. I really need to get my hands on a camcorder so I can see my action - it feels OK, but I'm probably doing loads of stuff that's slowing me down.

On Thursday, I'd a good long bat, and things are still on the up in that regard. At the start of the season, my problem was that I was playing back to everything - so I fixed that by going forward to everything (which is obviously a problem in itself). But last night was the first time that I was able to pick some of the balls to go forward or back to. And at the moment, I have 5 shots that I'm reasonably happy playing - in that I can sometimes play them without having to think about it or premeditate it. The two I've always been fairly happy about are the cover drive and the late cut - which obviously leaves a bit of a gap for the straight ball or anything down leg! I could also manage a sweep - but only against spinners, and only if the ball was overpitched or really short.

Now, however, I've picked up the forward defensive - and somewhere along the way the leg glance snuck in there. I think it's because after learning the defensive stroke, I play the ball better with a straight bat - and the leg glance is basically just that with a twist of the wrists. And as I've said before - now that I'm less likely to get bowled by a nothing ball I'm more confident with the other shots. I'm still not at the stage where I can pick gaps, or even hit it to the boundary (though with shortish boundaries and a good outfield you never know) - but it's progress.

Quick update on the bowling machine - I've hit a bit of a roadblock in that I have the mechanical element sorted, but still haven't got wheels. To be fair I haven't really looked all that hard. It's a bank holiday here again this weekend, so hopefully I'll get a chance to go to a few hardware stores or something to see if I can find anything suitable.
 
Sunshine and winning - also what bank holidays are for

A great weekend for the club - and an OK one for me personally. We had 4 games, one each on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and (Bank Holiday) Monday; and we had good wins in all 4. And it was all topped off by glorious sunshine for the entire weekend.

Friday and Saturday were straightforward wins, although our 2nds made things difficult for themselves by reversing the batting order and giving a bowl to all and sundry! They could have had the opposition out for under 100, but ended up giving them 140. Luckily they knocked off the total for the loss of just 6 - would have been very interesting if they'd lost though :?

Sunday was a fantastic win for our 1sts - chasing 200 against a good side, and just scraping home with 9 balls to spare and 9 wickets down!

Monday though was a rollercoaster of a game! I was playing with our thirds, in a game where both sides are unbeaten so far this season. We had, on paper, a nicely balanced team with plenty of batting, and too many bowlers - which meant I was unlikely to have much of a role to play :( We won the toss and opted to bat, but got off to the worst imaginable start - a first ball duck. So 1-1 at the end of the first over. And then, worse again 2-2 at the end of the 2nd :eek:

We did manage to steady the ship a bit, but still lost wickets too regularly, and at 20 overs we were only 51 with 5 down. I was batting at 11 (which suited me fine), but all too soon it was time to go in - 34th over with the score on 97. The other man in was quite a good bat - so I took on the job of blocking out an end and let him do the business at the other end. Our number 1 priority was to survive to 40 overs, as the opposition get to bat any overs we don't use. We managed to do OK, getting the score up to 110 in the 37th over before my batting partner was stumped trying to get a quick single off the last ball of the over. He started running before the ball was bowled, with the plan being to just get a touch on the ball to kill it, and we both scamper through to keep him the strike. Unfortunately the bowler pushed it a bit wider, and the keeper did the work behind :(

Still though, 110 gave us something to bowl at. As it turned out though, we needn't have worried too much. They got off to pretty much the same start we did with a collapse at the outset - and unlike us they didn't get to stabilise at all :D We got them all out for just 53. The only downside was that we got the winning wicket one over before I was due to come on. Still, a win is a win.

So not much for me to do, I'd a few stops at gully and at point, and one chase to the boundary. Obviously I was happy with the not out, especially as it gives the captains a little more confidence in me being able to hold up an end if nothing else; and it's better than a duck. I can't really expect to get a bowl on the thirds too often, as the bowlers above me are getting the wickets, it would be a different story if they weren't. It is dissapointing though - as my last spell for the thirds broke a troubling partnership and I ended up with 3-14. The stand-in captain on the day thought that I turned the game too.

I think the problem might be that the 3rds captain has never seen me bowl in a game. I've mentioned before how in practice I tend to get tonked, but in games the extra pressure leads to a good few wickets for me. Hopefully I'll be getting a few more overs with the 4ths in the next few weeks - and maybe he'll notice that I have a role to play in his attack.

Also, I've just found out that our 1sts have a cup game this evening - it was supposed to be on thursday but there was a scheduling mix-up, and the other team will claim a walkover if we don't field a team!! The captain got 11 at short notice, but a few of them are 50/50 available at best, so I've been put on standby! I played for the 1sts twice last year, but I reckon that this would be a different kettle of fish - it being 20-20 and the result actually mattering and all. Not completely sure if I want to get called up for that, but needless to say I'll do my best if I am.
 
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Keep it and I'm sure you'll get a chance to shine when in the 3rds. It must be hard when chopping and changing from team to team but they'll find out your strengths etc soon enough.
 
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Cheers, there's a few 4ths games in the coming weeks so I should get a good few overs in.

As to the game last night - we got 151 in 20 overs, which looked like enough. There was some very shoddy fielding on display from the opposition, and we probably got about 30 runs from overthrows and dropped catches. However this was slightly offset by the dozen or so runs that they cheated us out of with claiming balls didn't cross the boundary or bounced short when they clearly didn't. I know this sounds like me being bitter, but this team are well known for cheating - and their opposition teams regularly insist on neutral umpires (even though there normally isn't at this level.)

Anyway - unfortunately they managed to get the total off the last ball of the penultimate over :mad:

Ah well.
 
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Hi Ed,
I checked ur club website i.e.Sandyford.C.C.
I guess i saw ur name(Ed Connell) in the poll survey for Duck Cup.
I have voted for you.
Enjoyed reading ur club website.
 
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Virendersingh.berthwal said:
Hi Ed,
I checked ur club website i.e.Sandyford.C.C.
I guess i saw ur name(Ed Connell) in the poll survey for Duck Cup.
I have voted for you.
Enjoyed reading ur club website.
Click to expand...

Great!!! Now I'm getting international votes for the duck cup!!!

It's not a good thing you know!

Well, it's the thought that counts I suppose ::)
 
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Oh I voted for you too, I thought it was some fancy cup for most runs or best player or something. Just realised what the name really means. LOL. Still, lucky you're not winning :laugh:
 
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The guy that is winning is like the "Joke entry" - he was our top scorer last year ... but he talks about how good he is so much that everyone voted for him in this. He's a really good batsman - just hard to listen to :laugh:

Not to worry though - it's not the votes that decides who wins the cup, it's the person that gets the most ducks over the course of the season. Unfortunately I'm joint top in that as well with 3 ducks from 8 innings :embarrassed:
 
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Woeful game at the weekend :( We were all there at 1.15 for a 1.30 start ... but there was no sign of the opposition. Cue a bloody HOUR of sitting around waiting! Eventually they turned up after 2.30, and they didn't seem too apologetic. They sort of moped around until we herded them into the changing rooms - and even once we got them on the field they were in no hurry to make up for the fact that they were an hour late.

It wouldn't bother me so much if they were a team from down the country that had to travel to get there. Even in that scenario, if they were late they'd probably ring ahead. But these lads are from a club that's less than 30 minutes away - and they never contacted us once to let us know what was going on!!!

I don't think I'd ever been so fired up for a game - but alas revenge was not to be ours! They had two very good bowlers, who were firing it in quick and straight and picked up 7 wickets clean bowled between them. The rest of the team were pretty much rubbish from a bowling point of view - and were our only source of runs. Having said that, there weren't many of said runs - with our side only able to put together 65 :embarrassed: And for me? You guessed it - a duck (one of 4 from our side)

So as you can imagine - defending that total was never going to be easy. I think the fact that we were all gunning for them for holding us up was our downfall in the batting - where clearer heads would have been better. But in the field, a bit of adreneline can only be an advantage, and to be fair we didn't do too badly. It took them 24 overs to get the 66 runs, and we didn't give them any easy runs through misfields or lazy chasing. On the flip side, they were under no pressure and didn't need to take risky runs - usually taking singles off balls that could have gone for two. Again, they only had two batsmen that looked really good - with one of their openers playing through the innings. It's not often at Junior C level that you see a player that can split the field as easily as he could. Normally, a lad might have two shots that he can place, and anything else he uses could send the ball anywhere in a 60 degree arc.

Our bowling wasn't as good as it could have been either - with only one of us firing (he picked up 3 of the 4 wickets). There was too much going down leg on a day that we could ill-afford byes. My own bowling was a bit mixed. I hadn't bowled in a game for the 3 weeks previous, so I'd kinda forgotten what was working for me. My first over was waaaay too expensive - I was being overly cautious and putting it down too slowly. The line was good, but the length was a little too full and their opener was driving it well (again which you don't normally get - usually batsmen are leg-side sloggers).

Second over was much better, with a couple of chances coming off it (an inside edge, one that seamed in and was just blocked and two that went in the air but dropped just short of fielders). But two was all I had time for, with the game finishing a couple of balls later. On the plus side, I did take a catch - which as someone pointed out puts my catch tally at exactly twice my run tally for the season. That has to be some kind of record?

It turns out though that we were well within our rights to claim a walkover after half an hour of the start - if we'd decided to. Obviously there was no way we were going to do that, we all wanted to get a game in - but looking back on how it went ........

Nearly forgot!!! On Friday evening I'd a game of taverners cricket where I made 11 runs and took two wickets. We still lost, but it's the first time I've made double figures in any form of cricket :D
 
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Cheers Mas! Bit of a woeful training session last night too! I started well enough, putting every ball on a line and length - and then I had a bat that went really well. But I was a bit knackered and when I came on to bowl again I just couldn't find a length ... My run-up felt all wrong, where I'd be reaching for the crease one time and having to hold back the next time - meaning I wasn't concentrating on delivering the ball. My run-up is normally very consistant - so it was a bit annoying.
 
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Tiredness, I get like it after having a bowl, stopping to bat, then bowling again. Batting takes more out of you than you realise, or it seems that way.
 
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Yeh I agree, totally puts you off your line and length and you can't find any rhythm in your run up because you're tired.
 
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mas cambios said:
Tiredness, I get like it after having a bowl, stopping to bat, then bowling again. Batting takes more out of you than you realise, or it seems that way.
Click to expand...

I suppose it's more mentally tiring because it doesn't come to me naturally at all - I really have to concentrate to have any hope of getting bat on ball.
 
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mas cambios said:
Tiredness, I get like it after having a bowl, stopping to bat, then bowling again. Batting takes more out of you than you realise, or it seems that way.
Click to expand...
That is a problem I had faced in the nets.
Once my ex-coach said it is good for All-rounder's to bat first and then bowl because bowling first and then batting will cause more exhaustion.
 
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