someblokecalleddave's Blog

Top Contributors
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

I haven't updated much of late - it has kind of got very diary like and also the content has been directed very much at our old team players from the MPA 1st XI days as we've been challenged to a match so I'm trying to get the old team together for a match in Sept or possibly sooner for a quick 20/20 match.

The kids wicket has been cut and is being nurtured in readiness for the school holidays, still being cautious with my own boys so as not to put them off with too much cricket. Anyway if you want to see all the details and the images you need to have a look at the main blog at http://www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/ it looks as though you all are because I've got a counter on there and in the last couple of days it's had almost a 100 hits!

Cheers

Dave

Big update tomorrow as I'm playing at home and I may use "The Gipper"......
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

This Sundays report - as always the version with the images can be found at www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com

Sunday, July 06, 2008
Jaguars (Woodford) v G&CCC July 6th (Home)



Shed loads to write here to night including a load of stuff relating to the MCC match. Again this'll probably be posted over 2 nights.


(Apologies for any spelling mistakes of names - I copied them from the scorebook and/or getting peoples identities mixed up. Send a comment with any corrections and I'll rectify them).


Anyway - initially I was called up for another away match in Margaretting but then a couple of days ago Neil sent a text saying 1pm at home. It seems as though I drew the lucky straw as you'll see later on. I arrived early which was a mistake as the game was ages from starting because the opposition didn't turn up till late, at one point it was looking as though there wasn't going to be a game and Super Dave said to me "Get your whites on you're going to have to play as one of the Dads" as there was a Dads and Lads match going on over at the 2nd pitch.


Eventually Neil turned up and we were just discussing the potential of a quick match with the MCC (Modlife cricket club) in the next 10 days or so when Boffa turns up with his little boy. I ran the idea past him and he seemed up for it in essence but he did add that he hadn't seen the rest of them and didn't know how they'd respond but he said he'd probably be able to get them together. So the plan of action now is this -


Some time between now and July 17th he gets his crew together for an evening match - 20 0vers or something and I get a team together comprising of as many MPA blokes as possible and as many Grays blokes as it needs to fill the gaps. Cat said he'd be up for it and no doubt some of the others? While that was being discussed Neil then mentioned that if I could get the MPA or in fact any team together so that could be a combination of the MPA and MCC he also wants a quick match against the Tilbury Taxi Drivers in the next week or so? So it could be busy? With regards the MPA v MCC in the next 10 days Boffa said "Give me a date"?


So eventually the Jaguars from Woodford turned up and the coin was tossed and somewhere along the way the decision was made that they bat first. The weather was doing it's usual July Moonsoon attempt with showery rain and drizzle but not enough to dry what with the relative heat and strong blustery wind.


The team was made up of some usual faces along with some blokes I'd never seen before including one that sounded like an Aussie (Johnny Kale)? Cameron McCennan and Russell Groves. Unfortunately I'd forgotten my notebook so I wasn't able to make the usual extensive notes. The bowling was opened by Lovejoy (With the wind behind him) and Yorkie into the wind (Yorkie is another player who I've only played alongside possibly once before).


The bowling generally looked good getting claps of approval from one and all but the two youths that were batting stood their ground well and got their batting average going at just over 5 runs and over. I can't remember who took the first wicket but there were some spectacular near miss dives performed by "The Cat". Cat had a bowl early on in the overs and had a near miss with bowled and caught opportunity which he could keep hold of. He also had another chance with a ball that came off the bat while he was at first slip? The rest of the team said he'd dropped it but he maintained it didn't carry. While cat was bowling from the pavillion end one of the bats hit a ball that nicked the edge of the bat and flew out to me high at somewhere between Leg Slip and backward short leg. Thing was it went to my left side and was obvious to me that it was just out of reach even if I made an attempt at a diving leap. Cat said that it was there for the taking (Maybe if you're a cat) I'm a bloke that's nearly 50! Other than that I generally stopped a shed load of balls going to the boundary - possibly one getting passed me other than the one I needed to leap for, so I felt my fielding today was okay.


One of their openers went on to score a 50 and the first few bats hung in there for some time. Lovejoy almost got a lovely low catch that he seemed to anticipate at mid wicket, before the bowler had let go of the ball he seemed to have made an exaggerated move forward as though he'd read the bats intentions and despite his efforts to come forward so much he was just unable to get there and fumbled it at full stretch and diving, but very well read.


Neil had a bowl with the wind behind him and I think it was him that took the first wicket, but then he retired himself after only a few overs. Unusually for him he was cursing himself when he was getting the bowling wrong. He then brought me into the attack bowling into the wind with Cat coming from the other end. After a week of bowling alternating off and leg spin in practice using wrong uns and the Gipper I bottled it and stayed safe with the Wrong uns and some top spinners. I tried to get the ball up around 4 or 5 feet short of the bat down the offside and for the best part managed to do so. But going into the wind it did seem very slow, I was also flighting the ball quite high but the good thing was that there was a bit of turn. I also used a few flippers, but they were less accurate. So as far as I was concerned the bowling seemed to be going okay. In my 3rd over I bowled a longer wrong un that the bat left and the ball turned into the stumps and I took a wicket. In the moments waiting for the next bat to come out Neil said that one of the new blokes "Russell Black Shoe" had been standing in the outfield saying things like "What the F**k kind of bowling is this"? And then the wicket came.


Next was an older bloke. He played cautiously for a while but then hit me for a couple of fours. I had a few wides but by the end of my 5 overs I'd gone for 25 runs and taken a wicket, so I reckon that was my best bowling performance so far for the team. "Chirpy" (C.Scott) bowled next he's a young-un 14 or 15 I reckon. He took some wickets and Neil came back on and took another. Because of the weather we'd had a bit of a 10 minute break and one of their players - who I think was their top scorer had to keep cleaning his bike because of the rain (His glasses) which meant taking the gloves and helmet off wiping the lenses and putting it all back on again and this he did several times so it was agreed we'd play 35 overs. By the time we all walked off the pitch they'd scored 203 with a few blokes spare which was a healthy total especially considering at the point when the first wicket went the rest of the team were talking about cleaning up quick and getting away early.


Teas


Teas were good this week and this is at home! The Jaguar boys had brough their own not realising that we'd be laying teas on, so this caused a slight financial issue - with the sharing the cost of the teas between both sides. It seems the teas were good this week because of the matches happening over on the other pitch. One of the Mums had knocked up the teas and the quality had increased somewhat in comparison to what was on offer last year - although I'm not complaining about last years offerings it's just that this spread was good. It included Pizza, fruit, Jaffa cakes, a variety of sandwhiches, 2 pasta dishes, sausages and sausage rolls and tea.

Then it was our turn............


So it was our turn to bat. Surprisingly Neil put me up the batting order in front of Yorkie, I can only assume Yorkie didn't want to bat or maybe he's a first team batsman and the Jaguars are a Sunday team and it wouldn't be "Cricket" to play Yorkie further up the fielder as it was they were jokingly referring to the new Aussie bloke as a ringer. To be honest not ever seeing him before I don't know what team he would normally be playing for? The order of play providing I've got all the names right along with the scores was thus -

The forum only allows 1000 words or something so you'll have to check the rest out at www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com cheers for reading this if you've got this far!!!

Dave
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Dave,
Did "Black Shoe" bothered u again after the inngs and what wsa his reaction considering he got a golden duck and u scored 7 important runs and took one wicket.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

No, "black shoes" didn't say a thing! I've got feeling he was a Decoy player only there to make up the numbers, but he was further up the batting order than me so I don't really know who is and how long he's been involved in the team. The thing is this year the club seems to have adopted a strategy of mixing the Sunday teams up so that some of the younger players get to play against some of the much stronger sides. So whereas last year I was with the same Sunday 2nd XI throughout the season I'm now finding I'm in teams with different 1st team players each week and I don't know them all. Most of them I recognise from club money raising nights and the likes, but there does seem to be a bunch of new players and "Black Shoes" was one of them. I'm just wondering whether I've been a bit disparaging in the blog towards him? I'm sure he'll not mind?
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Dave,
There is nothing to feel bad as he was no saint.
His statement before u took the wicket was not encouraging one.
U r putting up a spirited effort in playing cricket and that needs to be acknowledged.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Virender, did you see the cricket pitch on the main blog? As I predicted July is our nearest thing to a monsoon - check those clouds! Fortunately it passed us by, but it has been raining all week on and off and yesterday here in Essex it rained for at least 14 hours continuously!

Should be nice on Sunday though!
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Dave,

I have seen the photos of the wicket and match and player including the "Black Shoe".
after raining for 14 hours is the wicket in ur neighbourhood better for playing.

Also the photo of kid hitting the square cut was lovely.It is good to see the kids are able to play cricket because of ur efforts.Keep up the good work and post photos of your progress.
Since u mentioned that July is nearest to Monsoon so when the monsoon starts and ends and is that the off season for cricket or u have any tournament or league matches going on.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Virender our "Monsoon" as I called it is nothing like as dramatic as yours http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoon but there are similarities. If you plot a graph of rain in the U.K. There's generally a peak through Dec, Jan and Feb and then it tails off through spring - March, Apr, May, June, July, Aug with the lowest ebb being through June, July and August or summer. Then through Sept, Oct and Novemeber the rain increases again as we head into our winter. But it's a pretty safe bet that somewhere in July there will be a series of big storms with loads of rain and last summer and the one before 2006 there was national flooding on a serious scale. But usually it's marked by thunder storms and more rain than you'd expect for the middle of summer. Then as I said August then is generally drier and sunnier and September is nice too but marks the end of the Cricket season. October it turns colder and more general rain occurs and that's our Autumn. November marks the start of winter.

Our cricket season is April through to the end of September.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Sunday, July 13, 2008
Grays and Chadwell Vs Runwell commoners
Not a lot of notes for sections of this match namely the bowling and when I requested the info from Neil at the end of the game he said the oppo had screwed up the bowling figures and that he'd have to sort them out and he'd forward them to me at some point in the future.

"Super Dave" at the start of the match said.
"Why don't you send this into the local papers"? Well, my dealings with the Thurrock Gazette in the past have not been exactly amicable and all my experiences with local newspapers everywhere is that they are the scum of the earth and I'd not give them the steam off my P**s if they were dying of thirst. They breach copyright, they lie, and they steal your pictures and finally after doing all that they use your images and then don't pay you or answer your calls or written requests for your work/pictures back. So has that cleared that up?

I like this pitch (See earlier match for ariel images) Lake Meadows, Billericay. Some of the others said similar things
"This is a proper cricket pitch - no trials bikes riding up and down the field being chased by Rottweillers and Pit Bulls, like back at our home ground".
"No-one hanging out of the flats shouting 'you f******g W******s at us while we're playing". Added Chris Buckers.
Nope - none of that stuff as you can see from the pic's this pitch is lovingly maintained by Basildon Council and is surrounded for most parts by large Oak Trees meaning that when the ball hits the bat it resonates in that special "Warm Bitter and English cricket greens" way that John Major has spoken about in the past.

I was dropped off at about 1pm and got there first, which meant that I could have a bit of a warm up and set a couple of single stumps up and bowled at them. That went okay. But this morning I'd been bowling "Gippers" that were turning massivley and I seemed to have sussed that it is primarily the wrist position that dictates the amount of turn I get and I was getting loads, but as usual in a situation where I've got to do it - it doesn't quite work out. Swiss Tony (Danny Groves) turned up next followed by the rest of the team and some of the Runwell Nutters. A bit of a bowling fest ensued with everyone diving in with a bit of bowling on the outfield as we all waited for the oppo to turn up in full.

When I left the house I threw the last of my favourite white balls in the bag the EBAY pakistan balls. There's 4 of them left. Unlike most of the EBAY balls these white ones are not rock hard and despite being almost 2 years old now have maintained their shape. So once everyone was knocking them around I was a bit paranoid that they might get lost and began to realise they were probably not the balls to have brought along.

Super Dave turns up having read last weeks blog "You spotted the Decoy player then - I noted on the blog"? A reference to "Black shoes" last week. It turns out to be Swiss Tony's younger brother as I suspected and yes he is a decoy player usually coming along about once a season to make up the numbers. Swiss Tony agreed that if he'd been taking the P**S out of my bowling in the game then he deserved some come back in the blog.

I'm assuming that we lost the toss as we were put in first to bat.

The team today consisted of - (In batting order as far as I can recall)

1. Lee Downes
2. Nick Buckley
3. John Buckley
4. Phil Downes
5. Danny Groves
6. Dave Gaylor
7. Reece Downes
8. Chris Buckley
9. Ross Fullbrook
10. Dave Thompson
11. Neil Samwell

After the recent rain we had the prospects of a nice day and as the game commenced we had virtually no wind with cloudy bright conditions with 85% cloud cover. The openers were Lee Downes and Nick Buckley facing "Williams" from the Pavillion end. The first ball was terrible bouncing twice before it passed the stumps and this is off of a seam bowler. Williams settled himself with the next ball and followed up a better ball on the 3rd which Nick clipped and was almost caught at first slips. The other opening bowler coming from the Tree end was "Butler" and he was bowling to Lee. The bowling from Butler was better but Lee had the better of him hitting a ball out to Deep Cover point that was stopped enabling 2 runs. Lee within the first 2 overs was into the 4's putting his first ball down to Long Off from the pavillion end.

Nick in the meantime was persevering with little glances off legside balls that he wasn't getting the bat onto. A few of these that didn't come to anything and then in the 4th over he's clean bowled having scored only 2 runs. John Buckley makes his way out to join Lee.


3 Wides later and Lee hits a ball from the tree end out to square leg, the fielder makes a leap for it but it is just out of reach. At 5 overs we're on 19 for 1. In the fifth over from the pavillion end Lee hits another 4 out to Long On that is almost stopped but passes under the fielder. In the 8th over John now settled hits a four out to Deep cover. Lee continues with some nice strokes but the oppo are up to it preventing him from reaching the boundary.

















John Buckley smashes another 4.

At the end of the 8th over Lee batting from the Pavillion end smacks a ball out towards Gully and the fielder ends up wearing the ball but stops it going for another potentially well executed 4.

Meantime at the scoring table on the boundary line Swiss Tony, Super Dave and Sammers are discussing Swiss Tony's recent change in his approach to his cricket. Swiss Tony (Danny) normally plays his natural game - he's had no formal coaching, just has a good eye for the ball and timing and simply smacks it hard. But invariably he gets dismissed relatively easy and as yet hasn't made his way to a 50 with his highest score being 32 or similar. It seems he either convinced himself or someone advised him to try and take a more considered approach to the game and try and play the ball properly. Needless in the last few weeks he's been giving it a go and it hasn't worked. So sitting at the table waiting for his turn he declared he was going to drop the "Test match" approach and return to his T-20 approach. It was agreed that this might be for the best?

In the meantime Lee and John settled in and the fielding seemed to disintegrate a little bit. By the 19th over we were on 67 with only 1 wicket lost. The 19th over featured a nice little flick down the legside from John that brought him up to 22. The last ball of the over went to John he hit it and shouted for a run, the ball was fielded quickly and it looked as though he wasn't going to make it, but the fielder went for the much longer throw down to Lee's end, but Lee was well and truly home anyway whereas the ball was passing Lees stumps John was still yet to reach his crease!

Prior to the 19th over I'd been throwing balls at Phil and Ross. Once that was all over I then collected all the balls together and bunged them back in my bag only to then discover one of my beloved white Pakistan balls had disappeared! I looked around and asked if anyone had seen it but no-one had and I couldn't find it. Gutted! 20 overs and drinks and we were on 82. It's not looking like I'm going to get a bat today because Lee and John look as though they're there for the duration.

More to follow tomorrow...........

More details and the pictures to be found here - http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/2008/07/grays-and-chadwell-vs-runwell-commoners.html

Part 2 to follow tomorrow.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Gipper G&CCC
How good is that! If I type in either Grays & Chadwell CC or G&CCC as an abbreviation one of the top 10 sites and in some cases 50% of the links listed in google do so via my Blog!

So anyway...... THE GIPPER wrist spin variation news.

I've not had a lot of luck or incentive to look at this much of late or concentrate on it as a bowling option. I still try it and have sessions where I bowl 50/50 wrong uns and this variation. If you've not been following the blog here's the run down on what the "Gipper" is.

The Gipper

This is a potential spin variation that I'm developing and it derives it's name from the concept of bowling the Flipper out of the back of the hand in the same way that a Wrong un would be released from the back of the hand. It may look like a wrong un at the point of release but with the ball gripped like a Flipper so Googlie/Flipper = Gipper. It's a slower delivery that turns acutely from leg to off.

Recent practice sessions seem to have followed a similar pattern, initially when I start to use it, it works well and it produces the massive turn characteristic of it, but then as the practice session goes on I've found that I become more accurate with it and faster but the turn seems to decrease so that it eventually has the same characteristics of a normal flipper. Not being able to fathom what is going wrong and the same pattern happening every time I practice I've not been that focussed on developing it.

A couple of nights ago just throwing the ball around outside my house up against the wall mucking around with the gipper grip and wrist position I threw a sequence of balls that turned massively time and time again and relatively accurate. I stopped and thought about what it was that I was doing that was making the difference and it seemed to be the wrist position. In this instance as I held the ball by my side with the Flipper grip. My wrist and arm were twisted inwards 180 degrees round from normal with my wrist cocked at 90 degrees to my arm. It is the ugliest looking grip and bowling variation on the planet I reckon and it is obviously the most easily recognised variation too if you ever face me. But I found that maintaining the wrist position and twisted arm throughout the rotation of the arm means that it imparts the ridiculous amount of spin characteristic of this variation.

Thinking that this was a fluke, I decided to go out into the road and bowl it over 22 yards and see if the extra exertion undid the spin. So as Philpott advises - I applied total concentration on maintaining the wrist and arm through the execution of the rotation and tried it over the 22 yards and it worked with a massive turn and relatively accurate. Tried it again - and again it worked and again and again and again! 18 balls later everyone one of them had turned massively and for the most part all of them on an acceptable line.

So tonight thinking that it might be due to the fact that I'm using a non seamed Hockey ball on tarmac and for all I know Hockey balls and tarmac work together to produce massive spin I took a few balls over to "Valence Way cricket pitch" and tried the gipper on grass and it worked! Not quite as brilliant as last night but turning to off from leg in a way that I have never witnessed anyone do in my life. The line and the length were inconsistent but I also noted that the run up needs to be slightly exaggerated in that I lean in as I bowl the ball and this keeps the line in control. On the field tonight it was wet after some rain and it was dusk when I got over there, so I wasn't able to bowl that many balls. But it was extremely promising once again and I feel like I've discovered the key to getting the spin and now all I need to do is practice in order that I get the line and length sussed. I've got the next 2 weeks off and I will mostly be bowling Gippers!

Other recent blog postings can be seen at www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Sounds like a good variation youve got there Dave, you should write a book about leg spin bowling of your own:biggrin Have you been practicing your normal legbreak aswell so you dont lose it?
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

1. Jack have a look at the wrist spin thread - I talk about my plans for the leg break there.

2. Wolf - yeah you're right it is slow, but I can vary the pace and when it's faster it doesn't turn so much and sometimes and I'm not sure why it simply skids in like a normal flipper. It's still some way from being usable I reckon, but over the next 2 weeks I'll be practicing it a lot and I'll be looking at getting it a lot faster, I'll let you know how it goes in a couple of weeks.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

The game against Tower Ravens CC had been called off by the time I turned my phone on this morning at about 11.30, just after I'd finished ironing all my kit and stuff. Still, one consolation was that Michelle was happy as she'd had the raging hump that I'd said I'd play. I was still a bit miffed, but then as the day went on the weather changed and later there was some heavier rain that would have meant the match would have either been called off or curtailed severely. What it did mean though was that I was able to go over to my practice wicket and throw 60 or so balls at the stumps.

What with hardly bowling any Flippers this year except for the last couple of weeks in Cornwall I'm thinking about re-instating them amongst my line up as I've been able to bowl them quite well and very accurately. Last year I'd have been bowling them all down the Leg side hoping that as they did in practice they'd in from Leg towards off. Which now retrospectively and with a little more knowledge of the game that was in fact a fatal error. I have noticed that I can bowl them a lot more accurately and bowl them at or just wide of off at will. I can also adjust the length and because of the prolific backspin the shorter balls seem to have a tendency to bounce up high rather than skid in low as the longer balls do. So maybe I need to bring these back in as a variation occasionally - or perhaps try it in a match and see if I can get a result?

So today using 18 balls - 12 reds and 6 whites I bowled the balls randomly as they came out of the bag - the 6 whites as flippers and the 12 reds as Wrong uns and it seemed to work out okay. I've noticed also that if I get the fingers dragging across the ball right up to the last milli-second on the wrong uns that I can get them to really spin massively, which is encouraging. I just need to be able to do the thing with the fingers dragging quickly in the spell, rather than bowl a bunch of duff balls for the first 2 overs before getting the release and flick right for the Wrong uns.

I did the thing where I record my bowling in a book making notes as I bowl as to whether they're wides or not and just making the notes made me realise that I am improving all the time and the difference from a year ago is massive. I think one of the main improvements is that I'm not so phased by getting it wrong or being hit for 4 and this has just come about through playing this year and seeing that everyone has thier bad days and how they also get really frustrated and angry at their ineptitude when it happens. I also feel a lot less like it's a life or death situation when it happens as I was last year. I'm a lot more relaxed and gradually getting more confident in what I do. What I'm really looking forward to is the winter now when I'll stop bowling Wrong Uns, Top spinners, Flippers and Gippers and totally focus on getting the elusive Leg Break fully sussed. I'm pretty certain that by the summer I'll have learned all the variations to the point that when I want to in a game I'll be able to produce them at will. The thing is by summer 2009 I want all the variations to be the back up to a big fat lairy Leg Break ball!

More on the main blog at www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

I think I'm going to change the nature of my blog here. The normal stuff I put on here will be at the usual place www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com so if you are vaguely interested in what I get up to check it out. Note that the main blog has been massively updated recently.

As of Sept 30th what I'll be doing is addressing the fact that I suffer from "Wrong Un Syndrome" that's where you bowl the wrong un so much that it undoes your ability to bowl the leg break. So from Sept 30th once the season finishes I'll stop bowling all the variations and start at year zero with the Leg Break and re-learn it with the intention of not bowling anything else until the new season starts in March April. So the nature of this blog here will change leading up to that date and I'll record how I get on with.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Will be interesting to see how you go. Will be worthwhile making a note of what you do, as I'm sure others suffer/go through the same problems as you seem to be having in losing the leg break.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

mas cambios;29041 said:
Will be interesting to see how you go. Will be worthwhile making a note of what you do, as I'm sure others suffer/go through the same problems as you seem to be having in losing the leg break.
Click to expand...

That's my exact intention, I've already shot some images of the wrist positions and written the intro, I'm in two minds whether to cease writing this blog and maybe start and completely new one on here or elsewhere. What I want is to procduce something that ends up so that when you do a search on google using Leg Spin bowling or wrist spin bowling my blog comes up in the first 10 options!

Added 8 minute(s) and 55 second(s) later...

Actually I've just done a search using "Wrist spin bowling" and my page on my blog -
http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/2008/05/10-top-tips-for-wrist-spin-learners-leg.html

comes up as an option within the first 30 searches which can't be bad considering I'm not even trying yet!
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

The Blogs been updated at..........

http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/2008/08/grays-chadwell-cc-v-mccc.html

Here's a sample -

"Then the game went through a really settled phase for them, both of them especially Claricoates just kept the runs ticking over and Claricoates reached his 50 making that his 2nd in 2 games I think? I noticed that the boys in this kind of situation start to lose interest - they start to sit down in bewteen deliveries and stop walking in when the bowlers running up. Wayne in the meantime was going through each of his bowling options, giving each bowler 2 overs it seemed and then if they didn't perform he made it clear that they were out of there which I felt was fair enough. He didn't bring Reece on till quite some time into the game and the same with me. The game was slipping away from us and nearing the 100 mark after less than 20 overs. John Claricoates was still there and we needed a break-through, all the bowling options were drying up all that was left were the very small bowlers - James, Callum and Billy the Kid (As they marked him down on the scorebook). It was Billy the kid that made the break- through bowling out the giant Penn for 15 thus ending his supporting role with Claricoates. Claricoates was now exposed to the less experienced bats and possibility that they fancied being on strike as much as he should have been. Billy the kid was ruthlessly removed by Wayne for bowling a non wicket taking over and out came the small guns - Callum the Kid and Jimmy the Kid the spin bowling double act. James with his tiny stature came up to the crease through a loopy top spinner looking ball that was more than likely slower than mine at Claricoates and totally did him for speed, Claricoates swung at it and it wasn't there (yet), his bat was somewhere up level with his head when the ball arrived at his bat's position and being straight with no speed hit the stumps bang in the middle. Claricoates was gone for 57."

Check out the main blog for images and more....
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

31st Aug

One month left till ground zero (The day I stop bowling off-spin). No cricket match today as I was in Derby. But While I've been there I've been throwing tennis balls and hockey balls and purposely trying to not bowl off spin balls (Wrong uns). I've been keeping Philpotts Around the loop theory in mind and trying to turn my wrist and flick the ball in the manner to impart leg spin rather than off spin and it does seem to be working, albeit producing straight balls and very small deviation from leg to off, but it is there and it does feel odd as I am trying to program my brain in doing something that feels wholly unnatural. I was further bouyed by watching the England v Sth Africa match and a comment made by Simon Hughes with regards Samit Patel's bowling http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/18632.html Simon Hughes made the comment that he felt that Patel's strength lay in the fact that his line was consistent and all the balls were delivered on target to hit the stumps and in doing so forced the batsmen into playing defensively, they eventually snapped in the psycological war because of the need to produce runs and eventually were forced into trying to hit the ball and it's then that he had two that were caught on the boundary and in the field some way out off of balls that were miss-hit.

So if my endeavours to bowl Leg breaks are slow in producing results with regards getting the ball to turn lots, I'll be happy to get a good line and length.

Check out the main blogs at

www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com - for general cricket obsessiveness
www.greatberrycc.blogspot.com - For wrist spin bowling obsessives
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Obsession is a weird thing, If you follow the main blog at all you'll know that I do things in an unorthodox manner. Got no cricket pitch? Then find a flat field and make your own one - start buying lawn-mowers and rollers off Ebay and go and start rolling and cutting fields under the cover of darkness - that's my answer. You think I'm joking - check out my main blog at www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top