Edladd's Blog

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edladd

edladd

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Edladd's Blog

As the Blog space on Simply Cricket is being replaced with a forum-type interface, I've set up a blog on blogspot.com, just to have somewhere to keep an archive of my posts while updating the forum version on SimplyCricket. I reckon a blog layout will be easier to look back on when I'm old and want a good reminisce, whereas the forum layout will be much better for getting people to see the content and hopefully comment and interact. So why not keep both :D ...

For the SC people, my blog is on http://edladd.blogspot.com/, I'd 15 posts before this one, so if you're bored feel free to check it out.

And for anyone that happens to drift across this on blogspot, Simply Cricket is located at http://www.simplycricket.net/

Anyway, back to the cricket! All I can say is ... Thank. God. For. Nets!!!

After the fiasco last weekend, I thought I'd be reduced to begging to have any hope of getting a bowl during this weekends games. But last night? Everything I touched turned to gold (relatively speaking). In the field, I was taking catches left, right and centre and there wasn't a ball got past me. With the bat, I was playing strokes with a semblance of authority for a change - I even managed to put a few away down leg!!!

But it was with ball in hand that things worked out best. I only had a single wide in my two spells, and only maybe two balls were hit past the field. Everything else was right on the spot - probing the gap between bat and pad. In the end I was unlucky not to have 5 or 6 wickets, as a load managed to get through the defense only to squeeze by the edge or the top of the stumps. I don't mean to sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet, (especially considering my performance wasn't spectacular in comparison with plenty of the other players at the club) ... but it's definitely the best all-round spell I've managed to pull off to date. And if I can take the confidence it gave me into the weekends games, maybe I can replicate it in a match situation.

Regardless of anything else, I'm hoping that last night relegates last weekend's "incident" to the status of a blip, and so won't be afraid to throw me the ball if the opportunity presents itself.

Elsewhere, we'd our 2nd session of work-organised indoor cricket yesterday too. Only 6 turned up this week, which was disappointing. But it was fun none the less.
And I've finally ordered the motors for the bowling machine, they should be arriving during next week. I'm reluctant to tell the guys at the club that I'm actively pursuing this idea, as I know it's not going to be up to the standard of a Bola or anything. Best case it'll be OK for feeding my tennis balls so I can practice strokes. Who knows, if it goes OK it might end up being a prototype for a more functional machine :)
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

I'd love to know more about the bowling machine idea!

Had a chance to look properly at the blog and top work! I love Dublin as a place (although a tad touristy) and it has one of my favourite bars, in the Porterhouse.

Look forward to seeing how the season goes and how you progress.
 
LBWho?

I don't think I've ever been this knackered after a days cricket as I am today. Us 4ths were having our 2nd game of the season, and after a good win last week hopes were high of making it 2 from 2. Personally, I started Sunday on the wrong foot. I came up to Dublin from my home in Kildare (About 1 and a half hour drive) on Saturday night, arriving just after 12 :S - only to open the boot of my car and realise I'd left my gear at home!!! Luckily we weren't meeting until 11.45 the next day, so I had a bit of leeway timewise to run back down and get it - thankfully my Da came a bit of the way to meet me, which cut about an hour off the total journey time.

So after a busy morning's travel, I arrived at the meeting point at the allotted time, to find that only two of my teammates had also turned up on schedule. This is hardly surprising though, as deadlines are only really guidelines as far as most Irish people (and most other nationalities I suspect) are concerned ::)

Anyway, by 12 o clock we had 8 of the 11, and there was one other who was meeting us at the away team's ground. The captain decided we'd better start moving - so two cars departed, while he waited for our two absentees (neither of whom use mobile phones it seems - they own them, just don't use them) for another few minutes. However, by 12.30 he was forced to write them off and start the ~hour long journey to the ground by himself.

So at kick-off we were two short but still well up for the game. As it turned out, the other team were short two players also, so they drafted in two kids to fill the gaps in the field. To be fair to them, they both played very well - efficiently stopping anything that passed reasonably close to them. One of them bowled a few overs too, and managed to pick up a wicket, caught at midwicket (he made 2 not out in the batting also).


We were put in to bat first, and knew that the vital thing was to bat the 40 overs out. Which we managed to do fairly comfortably, putting on 158. I was on scorebook duty, and so was batting at 8 - I just managed to get in with 2 balls left in the game, the first of which I inside-edged past stumps and keeper for a single. And the last ball our captain defended down for no run - even though I was three-quarter way down the track backing up. Nevertheless, it was his call - so a "no", saw me turn-tail and hare it back to my crease.

We knew we were in for a hard day's work in the field making up for the two gaps - but we felt we had a total we could defend, (especially since 6 of us considered ourselves bowlers). Their openers were going OK for a while, until our first change came in and one of them knocked up a relatively easy catch to me at mid-off - which I took, but nearly made a hames of it changing my mind twice about which way to take it!! Fingers up? No, fingers down? No, some sort of mishmash of thumbs together but hands still sort of pointing down!!!!? Yes! At least it stuck, I would have looked a right idiot if I dropped it after the tangle I got myself in!!

Soon after that however - our depleted side received another blow. One of the lads pulled his hamstring fielding a ball. Which meant we effectively had 8! He decided though that he was OK to stand on the pitch (at short midwicket), meaning he was taking up a space in the batsmens eyeline, and there was always a chance of a catch. But there was definitely no more running for him, and even picking up the ball was a bit of an ask, so the rest of us had to find another gear to try and cover the field.

Anyway, we got regular wickets for a while. But two of them managed to get comfortable at the crease, and looked set to get the total relatively easily. So after drinks, I was brought on as bowler number 4. With last weeks performance heavy on my shoulders I knew I needed to repeat the form of last Thursday to have any hope of getting a few more overs in the next few games. So no pressure like :D

I decided to come in off my 4 stride run-up, as I wasn't sufficiently confident of my longer faster one - just work the line and length, and try to vary the pace a bit through my action. It occurred to me that the batsmen might assume I was a spinner - so I tried to foster this by spinning the ball from hand to hand while the captain sorted out the field. If nothing else, it might be enough for a surprise wicket on the first ball. However, I got a bit too excited about this first ball needing to be fast to capitalise on any confusion - and ended up pegging it wide :(

After that though, I relaxed a bit, and went back to my original game plan - and it all came together great!!! Both these settled batsmen were afraid to go after the ball very often, as it was consistently on the stumps and was seaming awkwardly. I was even getting some nice variation in the bounce off the seam. On the last delivery of my first over, the batsman came forward - only to have to dodge out of the way as the ball came up at his face from fairly full.

I was quite unlucky from the first 3 overs, with a fair few balls going through the batsman only to just miss the stumps. However, I am thinking this is going to be a factor of my bowling - as it seems to be happening quite often - so I guess if I just concentrate on targeting the stumps I could start taking wickets. Anyway, there was one such ball in my fifth over - where it completely avoided the bat and his front leg. I was sure it was going to hit the stumps - but suddenly his back leg came across and knocked the ball away. I was gutted - but then I heard everyone else appealing and realised - That was LBW!!! Bit of a late appeal from me, but the umpire still gave it, and that was that, my career first wicket in the bag :D

I managed to get another the same way later in the spell - but this time I was wise to what an LBW looked like from my follow through - so I was up in a much more timely fashion.

So I ended up with 8-0-31-2, which I'm delighted with. My first real spell of bowling with an economy of just under 4. And now that I have wickets, I finally have an average - of 27.5.

So after 40 overs of fairly intense fielding, we ended up with 9 wickets to secure the win by 18 runs. Everyone contributed somehow, and it was a great team win. Special mention again goes to my mate that took 3 wickets on debut last week - he got 2 for 20 yesterday off 10 overs.

So all in all, a great away win, especially considering the circumstances. Looking forward to next weekend, hopefully we can make it 3 from 3 :)

Sorry if the post is excessively long, but as you can see it was a long day (my legs can attest to the fact). Thanks all for the comments, and cheers to Dave for the mention and link on his MPAfirsteleven blog.
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

mas cambios said:
I'd love to know more about the bowling machine idea!

Had a chance to look properly at the blog and top work! I love Dublin as a place (although a tad touristy) and it has one of my favourite bars, in the Porterhouse.

Look forward to seeing how the season goes and how you progress.
Click to expand...

Motors arrived today :biggrin, still, don't hold your breath for a working model very soon. Between work and cricket I barely have time to eat and sleep.

Dublin can be quite touristy in parts, especially in the city centre. There are some other cities around Ireland that are a lot of fun, and much more real - I'd recommend Galway or Kilkenny as a good night out ... though they can be quite scary at 3 in the morning when the nightclubs spew out thousands of drunk country folk :)
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

someblokecalleddave said:
I like the idea of the short run up and pretending that you're going to spin it - did that work at all?
Click to expand...

It might have, but as I said, got too excited about the idea and the first one went a mile wide, giving the batsman a free look at my action. I'll try it again next week - I suppose it might confuse the batsman at least for a delivery or two.
 
Welcome to Bolwing 101

It's always been a tenet of mine to try to always train at match intensity. Partially this is because Harrowdrive says so, but mostly it's due to the fact that training is just much more fun if you commit to it fully. So it was with this mindset that I turned up to our first outdoor net last Tuesday. Granted, my fervour was tempered slightly by the fact that I was still feeling the after-effects of the game on Sunday ("On Tuesday!!!" I hear you cry - I know!!), but still, training would be given what I had for it.

Unfortunately though, only 5 of us actually turned up, what with the Man U - Barcelona game on telly. And as I discovered, it's a bit difficult to keep up 100% intensity when you don't get a rest while queueing between drills. After the first few rounds, you start thinking - "No-one will even notice if I'm only giving 70%, or 50 :sneaky:". A slippery slope I think you'll agree.

One other factor that led to the poor turnout was that the park was still on winter opening hours, and so was closing at 8. Consequently, we had to start at 6, which isn't a time that suits most working types. That excuse, at least, will be taken out of peoples hands from today - as the park is open until either 9 or 10 from the start of May.

We concentrated on fielding and straight batting drills for the time were there, and so I never got a chance to work on my bowling. But I reckon the batting drills will stand to me, I really need to put together a bit of a defense if I'm going to avoid as many ducks as I had last year. But all in all, it didn't feel a great session.

It being Thursday, I've just been to our work-organised indoor cricket game. At this I usually bowl off 1 step, try to put it down there straight, and see what happens. But today I found myself thinking about it a bit more. For example, I put 3 in fairly short and noticed that the batsman was starting to go onto the back foot before the ball even left my hand - so the next ball I put it a lot fuller and a bit faster, and hey presto - my first intentional yorker!

It's not a groundbreaking development, and I'm sure for most people reading this it sounds like Bowling 101 - but I reckon that it indicates that I'm starting to think like a bowler, which will make a nice change from not really thinking at all :D

We'll see if this new mindset will follow me to outdoor nets tonight. Although "Nets" may be a misnomer, considering we don't actually use any nets - we just practice on the outfield and on the mat. Still, I think this is probably not a bad way to do things, as when batting we usually have a full complement of fielders which makes things more realistic than batting in an actual net.

Also looking forward to the long weekend - I'm down for 2 games, one for the 4ths on Saturday, and for the 3rds on Sunday. Hopefully we will have full teams for both events, and hopefully we will continue the clubs 100% win rate so far :)
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

edladd said:
We'll see if this new mindset will follow me to outdoor nets tonight. Although "Nets" may be a misnomer, considering we don't actually use any nets - we just practice on the outfield and on the mat. Still, I think this is probably not a bad way to do things, as when batting we usually have a full complement of fielders which makes things more realistic than batting in an actual net.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good practice regieme to me - real blokes in real positions waiting to catch the ball, wish I had that luxury!
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

I think that outdoor nets can hamper more than help sometimes. Nothing better than playing a few small sided games. People tend to get more of the experience of cricket, rather than waiting around for their next turn to bowl or bat.
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

It does fall on it's face a bit when you don't have enough fielders - as was the case last night. We had a 2-1 field :eek:. Plenty of running, but the first 2 guys in were taking the proverbial. They were charging down the track and hitting every ball in the air - the vast majority of which would have been caught if there was a full field. That's no way to practice, as there's no way they would be doing this in games.

Still I agree, it does beat batting in a net in the realism stakes - though I think net batting has it's merits if you're trying to work on something in particular without everyone looking at you and worrying about taking runs etc
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

That's when you need to make use of cones etc, and get them to attempt to hit the ball to gaps and not just smash it out of the park.
 
Re: Edladd's Blog

The other option in those situations is turn the emphasis around and put pressure on them (batsman). Say to them In the next six balls they've got to hit 8 and as "Mas" says (Sorry I don't know your real name) put some cones out and if the ball passes any of the cones within fielding reach or catching reach you score accordingly. Then see how they get on - you might find that suddenly they're not so clever!
 
Sunburn and Wickets - It's also what bank holiday weekends are made for

I've mentioned before about the merits of bank holiday weekends and cricket being coincident - and this weekend (so far) has reinforced it in my mind. Great weather and and two games - 4ths on Saturday and 3rds on Sunday.


First, I'll get the bad news out of the way ... I got two ducks and we lost Saturdays game! On the other hand though, we had a big win yesterday and I've been taking wickets :)


Saturday, we lost the toss and were put in to field first. The club president was captaining while our regular captain is on his honeymoon - and he'd called upon a few of the older players from seasons gone by. Not a bad idea in my opinion, we're trying to field 4 teams this year - so the more people are around the better.


Anyway, we got off to a great start, bowling the opposition out in 28 overs for just 87 runs :eek: I managed to take 3-10 off 5 overs. A bowled, caught and bowled and a caught behind (trying to vary my dismissals don't ya know ;) ) I was even on a hat-trick at one stage - but I did my usual thing of trying too hard and pushing it wide :(


Chasing 87 we were sure of a win - there was even talk of max points at tea. But it wasn't to be - only 2 of our guys made double figures - and neither of them even beat the extras total. Me - golden duck ..... nuff said. 52 all out.

On Sunday then our thirds had their first game of the season against Rush (the team not the band). It's generally a very difficult place to get a result out of - they have some big hitters and short boundaries; and they're well known for their vocal support (only at home though). It was a fantastic day for cricket though - I even managed to get sunburned on half my face!

We won the toss and batted first - got off to a flier with one of our openers scoring 77. A few of the others did well also with scores ranging from 10s to 20s. I was batting at 11 and was determined to improve upon my golden duck of the previous day - which I did ... with a third ball duck ::)

So, all out for 197 in the 38th over was decent - but not necessarily enough against this team. We got off to a good start in the field too - and had them at 38 for 5 at one stage, but they were recovering well to get to 121 for 6 with both batsmen scoring freely. I had yet to bowl at this stage, and dropped a few hints at the captain. Eventually he brought me on and luckily enough - got a wicket in my first over ... and my second ... and my third to finish the game :D. It was a little bit more expensive than the previous day, 3-14 off 2.4 overs, but I'm not complaining (better than 0-15 off 2 from a few weeks ago).

The funny thing is - I am doing nothing overly interesting with the ball - it doesn't swing; it's not fast by any stretch; it doesn't seam when we're on the mat. It's just guileless, straight line and length bowling - and it works?!?! If people try to hit it - they have to supply the pace and have a good chance of mistiming it for a catch; if they miss it - it hits the stumps or it's LBW. I'm sure against a higher grade of opposition they'd have a field day - but for what I'm playing now it's just right :)

So overall a great weekend for me personally with the ball - though not for the 4ths obvioulsly. This week I plan to put some serious work into my batting. It's clear that when your standard out is clean bowled that your forward defense needs some work ... so I'll be seeing what I can do about that.

Looking forward to next weekend, here's hoping that the weather will be as good as this one!!!
 
Repetitive Runs and Random Rants

A (relatively) quick training update ... We had our usual outdoor net session last night - what with it being tuesday and all. Myself and Stephen were there relatively early - so we decided that after the weekend's collapse we'd start doing throwdowns straight at the stumps and just work on keeping the bloody thing out!!!

I have two woeful habits of a) not moving my feet and b) not leaning into the shot enough - among plenty of other things I'm not doing right I'm sure ::) These two major errors conspire to make sure that a) I'm not in line with the ball and b) There's a clear foot of room under the bat for me to get bowled through :(

So after working on this for a while I was happier that I'm improving a little bit, which is better than nothing. To be fair - I'm not bad at putting a ball away if it's outside off-stump - so if I can learn to keep the stright ones out it leaves the door open for my average to get into the realm of natural numbers again.

After that we did some running drills - and it reminded me why I don't partake in endurance sports! Basically the game was for the coach to hit the ball out towards the fielders - then the batsmen have to judge whether a run is on and employ proper calling etc to take it before the ball comes back to the keeper. This was straightforward for the first few - good communication between myself and the other man - but the problem was, as soon as the run was finished, he was hitting the ball out again! So we ended up just sprinting from wicket to wicket over and over - which was crap! I couldn't breathe after about 15 runs - which isn't conducive to good calling and so defeats the purpose somewhat! I reckon the drill would work slightly better if there were two pairs of batsmen so that there could be a bit of recovery time in between runs.

I've spent a while today trying to get players together for a taverners game this Friday - why does nobody answer bloody texts!!! And while I'm having a Random Rant (tm) I realised at lunch today that people who put salt on their food without tasting it really bug me. How can you possibly know that the food you're eating needs salt if you haven't tasted it!!! I saw this behaviour being referred to before as auto-condimenting :) - can't remember where I heard that but I like it.
 
Thursday's Double Dose

I was hoping the warm spell we were having here was going to continue for this weekend - but it's looking a bit grim out there at the moment. Met Eireann - the Irish weather service is forecasting it to be relatively warm (14-19 degrees) but a bit wet :( I reckon we'll still manage to knock a few games out of the weekend though, as long as it's not spilling we should be OK.

So yesterday I had another double dose of cricket, with a work related indoor game at lunchtime; and then outdoor training in the evening. The indoor game went fine - I'd only 1 wide and hit the stumps twice. These games are starting to get a bit competitive, now that we're all over the initial politeness you get when you first meet a group of people. There was a bit of an argument over one of the lads bowling bouncers - it was in Hindi though so I have no idea what the outcome was :confused:

My batting has improved after Tuesday's session, and I'm reasonably confident that I can keep out a straight ball this weekend. Obviously I need a load more practice, but hopefully I can stop being bowled by a slow straight nothing-ball. If I can make the bowler work for my wicket I'll be a lot happier.

Thursday evening then was outdoor training. We spent the first 30 minutes getting the pitch ready for this weekend by rolling the mat and marking the lines and stuff. Then a bit of a warmup and a game of stumpball saw us all ready for action. We'd a few drills to practice throwing down stumps and ground fielding before we went near the crease.

But then the rest of the session was a bit strange - I'm not sure why, there was just a funny feeling in the air. I think it was because we spent so long on the fielding drills , and it was clear that there wasn't enough time for everyone to have a bat, and on top of this - when the first guys were padded up we did a running drill that didn't involve hitting the ball for the first 10 minutes! Considering there were around 14 people there - it seemed to me that an ideal use of the time would be to have a little double wicket competition - 2 people batting; 2 people bowling from the same end; a keeper; and the rest in the field. Then give targets to the batsmen and bowlers and see what happens. As it was, nobody seemed overly engaged in the drill and it was frustrating getting bored in the field :mad:

At least my bowling was OK - the batsman tried to smack the first one I put down, but it hit the seam and he put it straight up into the air. It would have been an easy catch for me, but the keeper came out and called for it - and then didn't make it :cursing: To be fair though - the batsman shouldered him out of the way, so we might have had a shout for obstructing the field - though I don't know how that would go down in a club game with non-neutral umpires. I picked up another couple of wickets in any event, and nothing off me went to the boundary - so that ain't too bad.

I've managed to get a team together for this taverners game this evening, so as long as the weather holds up it's all systems go.
 
Ringers all round

A bit of a stressful match to end a frustrating week in cricket!! Tuesday's and Thursday's nets went OK but they were lacking something. Then Friday night we had our Taverners match, which was OK - but it felt a bit stage managed to make sure it was close. I bowled OK - but I felt the whole time that I couldn't bowl on the stumps - so my head just wasn't in it, and there was no excitment about winning the match.

And then on Saturday we had a 4ths match away to North Kildare. I wasn't in the best form in the morning, and my mood wasn't improved by finding out I'd forgotten to close the sunroof of the car Friday night and it had spilled rain overnight :cursing:

So anyway, I was looking forward to a fun day's cricket to shake me out of a slump. We didn't know what to expect from the team we were facing - but I was a little bit worried by the fact that I recognised a good number of them from a game our 1st team played there last season - what were they doing here in a game about 7 divisions below that one?? To be fair though, we'd a stronger side than normal too, with a couple of guys that usually play for the 2nds turning out for us.

We lost the toss and for some reason they put us in to bat!? We didn't do too bad, certainly better than last week, scoring something in the region if 130. I wasn't at all sure that it would do - but it did give us something to defend. My own performance with the bat was a major improvement over recent games, I still only scored the one run, but I faced 10 deliveries and was able to keep the straight ones off the stumps. Normally the first straight one is enough to do for me, whether I try to defend it or not! So it was a major boost to have my forward defensive shot actually working (to some degree). The ball that got me was a straight one that I thought was going to miss leg stump - so I played across it, missed it completely, and it clipped leg. But at least I was out because I played the wrong shot rather than because I wasn't able to play the right shot! ::)

Second innings then, we opened with two of our "Ringers" who didn't have much success and were getting hit for runs way too regularly. However, the captain seemed dead set against changing anything. There were 4s being hit stright down the ground at least once per over and he didn't move mid off or mid on. Eventually one of the bowlers found his line and instigated a mini collapse with 3 wickets coming in an over (C+B, run out and bowled).

A few overs later then the captain brought on the first change bowlers - who are usually our openers. They bowled without success for a while - with the batsmen never looking in danger and plenty of runs still going straight down the ground. At this stage I was dying for an over or two, I was fielding at fine leg and point and had very little to do ... all in all I only fielded about 10 balls with a few good stops at point and a successful chase to the boundary to save 4 - so it was frustrating to watch the game leaking away and not being in a position to do anything about it!! :mad:

At drinks I overheard the vice captain suggesting a bowling change, but the captain still seemed set against it - opting to continue with the conservative approach he'd followed up to that point. At this stage the game was finely balanced with the score on 80 for 5. There were too many overs left, so bowling them out was the only option. Eventually with the score on ~100 for 6 the captain was convinced to try a fifth bowler, but unfortunately he didn't make the breakthrough in his 4 overs (came close to LBW quite a few times but no luck) and so back came our openers!

First ball, bowled! So 15 runs to spare with 3 wickets to take, it was all getting a bit tense. Our (ringer) bowler was by far the fastest in the game, but not all that accurate. They were able to work singles easily enough by just putting the bat in the way and letting the pace of the ball get it past the field. Another wicket for our pace man made it 11 to win with 2 wickets left. Then our other opener struck with a ball that was hit a mile into the air over the bowlers head and was very well taken after a sprint by mid-on towards the boundary. Three balls later I had a fine view from fine leg of their number 11 playing all around a ball and getting bowled!!! Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!!

Obviously I'm glad we won, but I think we could have made it a lot easier on ourselves. A few more attacking fielding changes and a more frequent rotation of the bowling could have seen them out for less, as they were allowed to get far too comfortable due to a field that was defensive from the off. And we were bowling heavy so the skipper had plenty of options that he didn't use. Personally I was disappointed not to get a chance to bowl at them, having come off the back of two games where I finished with the best bowling figures. I don't know if my bowling would have had any impact - but it would have been nice to have a go. I'm sure the other unused bowlers would echo the sentiment.

Not to worry, there's always next week :)
 
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