someblokecalleddave's Blog

Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Haha after reading that i have an urge to mow the lawn! cant wait to see the pics:)
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Jack I shot some pictures on the way home and then had a game with my kids on it and then as it got too dark to play we went and got it out again. We straightened up the edges and generally tided it up and it looks lovely - so I'm going to have to do some more pictures in order to do it justice before I post them on the website! I know for the next few days we've got rain, so you may have to wait till the weekend before we get a bit of sun and no doubt what with all the rain and the current weather there's going to be a lot of grass growing going on? Damn - I'll have to cut it again! So while it rains I might have a go at adapting another grass box that I've got to collect the cuttings and look to see if I can lower the blades.

I hope you enjoy mowing yours and I reckon you'll appreciate this.....

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02b_xMIi3vg"]YouTube - Backyard Cricket [Ultimate pitch preparation][/ame]
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Top effort in that video. Wish I had a garden with grass - I could almost fit a pitch in but the decking at the one end ruins it.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Yeah I love that video it's one of my favourites along with the "Drop Bears" beer advert on youtube. I love the car being used as a roller I even contemplated doing that myseld on a field near me where I practice at 3am in the morning so no-one would see me doing it! I bottled out in the end and a couple of days later the council blocked up the access route - I reckon they must have read my blog where I'd been writing about doing it.

The field I cut the wicket on at the moment is a prime target as it is fairly secluded, but they lock the gate every time they come and go. But even there I've thought about jamming somthing in the padlock while the boxing club blokes are all inside so that when they go to lock the gate at the end of the night they can't close it meaning that it would then probably just be pulled to for the night enabling me to get in there with my car and roll the wicket!
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

I have heard of people taking a barrel, filling it with water/sand etc and then using that to roll a wicket but not sure how much truth is in that. Also, you'd need an extra pair of hands to help move it.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

we did the car thing a few years back, wicket was wet ended up with tyre marks down the middle like
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Yeah I can see the problem with the car if you're not careful, the ground has to be so wet that it gives a bit but not so wet that the tyres sink in - I suppose it's pot luck? On the roller front a mate of mine who practices with me on rare ocassions picked one up off an old neglected allotment. It's fairly big and it's parked outside his house. It's too big for one man to get it in the back of an Astra estate and then I'm not sure whether it's a good thing to have such a weight in the back of my car, but I think I'd chance it. The 2nd problem would be getting it from my house to the field which is only a matter of 150 metres away, once on the field which you have to access via a slope I don't think I'd be able to get it back out of the field unless I had some help and this isn't a particularly big roller!

I thought about making my own one out of concrete - but it's the same issue - once it's on the field it's pretty much stuck there and if left I reckon the bloke who maintains the field would have it away and lock it in his container meaning all that effort making it would be wasted. I reckon over the winter we'll get it over there and see what happens, maybe we'll be able to stash it up in some bushes and just accept that it may get nicked?
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Rollers tend to be pretty hefty but you'd be surprised in how easily they seem to go walkabouts. You'd need to chain it to something but if they can't get a car/van over there then you may get away with it.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Thanks for the Video Dave,
I wish my backyard was big enough :D
Id be doing that right now!
I wasnt to sure if it would work when I saw that car go over it
but as you said it depends in the moisture of the ground
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

mas cambios;29658 said:
I have heard of people taking a barrel, filling it with water/sand etc and then using that to roll a wicket but not sure how much truth is in that. Also, you'd need an extra pair of hands to help move it.
Yes, Scott,I use to do it with a Hard Plastic Barrel filled with Wet Sand from the nearby creek and rolled it on the watered wicket but it was done for the tennis practice.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

The barrel idea I've seriously considered a few times. I saw on ebay a few weeks back rollers that could be filled with water or sand and there was a chart thing that indicated the best option was in fact sand. The thing was getting the sand into the thing was a job and half as it had to go into a hole only just big enough for a hose pipe and the bloke said it's easy enough if you have a funnel, but then conceded that getting the sand out was a nightmare. Fortunately I've managed only this afternoon to get a roller form my mates house and it's now in the garage. It's heavy and initially I was going to keep over at the field, but it's a good roller and as the bloke said previously even though the things are heavy they do get nicked. So it'll stay in garage i reckon till early spring and then I'll do a week of rolling when there's a damp period.
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Season Review
You can't teach and old dog new tricks. Well I'm an old dog and I reckon this season despite my sporadic appearance I've learned some new tricks.

Just to recap; I'd never played cricket till August 2006, my only prior experience was probably bowling a tennis ball up against a wall with stumps drawn on it and even that's a lost memory. With regards watching cricket and having some idea of the rules - again a similar experience. When I came to the game two years ago my understanding of the rules was very limited.

So having mucked about with the game and forming my own team at work with a bunch of similarly clueless blokes on the whole for 11 months and having played 2 games where we'd been thrashed I joined Grays and Chadwell Cricket Club with a view to playing the game properly. I joined in July 2007 and played in a handful of games which was great but traumatic. Winter 2007-2008 saw me practicing continuously in order to try and make some kind of valuable contribution to the team and here we are at the end of the 2008 season and it's time to reflect.

At the end of last season I'd watched in awe at the likes of Ross Fulbrook and Neil our captain bowling seemingly flawless overs getting maidens and taking wickets. I was amazed at the bowling of an old bloke older than me in one of our last games against us, he'd bowled 12 overs and had got 5 maidens or something in that region totally dominating our batsmen and all he appeared to have done was bowled straight balls 95% of the time on a line and length. So I'd started the closed season with the intention of learning how to do that - bowl line and length and also look at the possibility of re-learning the Leg Break as I'd lost it over the summer of 2007. By around the end of October I'd given up on the Leg Break it was lost. Even my Top Spinner was more like a Googly than most peoples googly's. My Leg Break more often than not ended up looking more like a Big Googly than a small googly and despite the cries of You must be able to bowl the stock ball Leg Break to be a wrist spinner on many a forum page on the internet I threw the towl in and gave up concentrating on Bowling Top Spinners and Googly's.

By the end of the winter I was happy. In the games I'd had with G&CCC through July, Aug and Sept 2007 it was pretty usual to have bowled 3 maybe for 4 wide balls per over. Once I'd bowled one I'd then go to pieces, the panic would set in with the sense that I'd let everyone down and my bowling would fall apart and if I then got through the over not bowling another wide after the initial one that would be abnormal and accidental. Once my confidence was shot I just went to pieces. This season having spent the whole winter spot bowling I went into the new season with a new sense of confidence and in my first game against Loughborough in the pouring rain not only did I catch a ball that was a foregone conlclusion drop but I took a wicket whilst Neil our captian dropped 3 easy balls and failed to take a wicket?

The season then carried on pretty much the same - a massive improvement on the first season and all this with only 2 sessions in the nets as our net sessions fell on the same night I have to work late which i was devastated about. Looking back I think one of the key points is the wides issue. Simply not bowling shed loads of wides has made so much of a difference. Last year when I used to get the nod to bowl a spell I'd have been s******g myself leading up to it primarily because of the wides. This year I've been able to enjoy my bowling a lot more and have been nowhere near as apprehensive as I was last year.

So last year I was aware that the wides was the main issue and over the winter I was able to address this. There were other things that were mentioned but I simply didn't understand why they were and what people like Fozzy and Neil were driving at. Through the 2008 season I've now grasped concepts like the neccessity to bowl at the off-stump. Last season thinking I was Shane Warne I was bowling down the leg side trying to get the ball to turn into the stumps. Needless to say that approach tied in with the wides didn't work too well! I've also realised that bowling Googly's all the time is fairly flawed, I know this from playing with my sons, they know exactly what to do with them - they just step back and play the ball off the back foot knowing it's going to turn into their bodies.

The other realisation that I've come to terms with is that where I practice


On concrete with Hockey Balls
On football pitches with long grass
I get a lot more turn than I do on a cricket pitch. This means that it's even more important to bowl a good line and length at the off stump. Not one of the wickets that I've taken this year has resembled the kind of turn I get during practice, so it's pointless bowling wide of off with the intention that the ball will turn massively - it's been far more affective to bowl at the off-stump as this then causes the batsman to play a lot more defensively and the net result is that the run rate is massively reduced. Then on the odd ocassion when the ball has snuck through the turn off the pitch has meant that it has turned in and hit middle and leg ocassionally and that in itself is satisfying.

I've also become aware of the fielding in relation to my bowling - my Captain sets my field and because I now bowl down the offside he has players on the off-side ready to take any balls, but the reality of this is that unless he or some of the more experienced players are there, the likelyhood of anyone catching a ball on the off-side is pretty slim. So I've realised that bowling a ball slightly wider trying to entice the bat to play a square cut or a front foot drive into that area off a safe looking ball that's not threatening the stumps is usually pretty fruitless. So the last few games the intention has been straight balls down the wicket at the off-stump and it's been working. Again these revelations have come about not through people explaining the theory but me just analysing and reflecting on the games.

One of the last realisations is that it's useful to look at your bowling figures. Again this is obvious but it's not been that much of a concern to me because I just want to bowl straight and on a length and to start looking at my stats so early would have been demoralising. But I reckon next season I may feel confident enough to look at them and to be honest I wouldn't have known where to look and what I was looking at! But my second from last game I bowled 10 overs, took two wickets, 1 maiden and went for 45 runs which is my best performance ever and I knew it was as I was going through the spell. So next season I'll be tracking that closely looking at things such as economy and strike rates (Is that right)? I'll also be looking at my figures in comparison with my contemporaries - The Wizard and Ross Fullbrook. I'm not even going to imagine I'll get anywhere near Neil.

Batting

Well - towards the end of the season I started to get my head round the idea of supporting the other bloke at the other end e.g. make sure he gets on strike. But I still need to be able to hit the ball and not feel so intimidated by the whole thing. I'm just hoping that I get some net practice this year? The upside though is that although I didn't beat my all time highest score of 9 with the MPA team I have hit 2 or 3 fours this season.

The Leg Break

Bowling Googly's all season it's obvious that I need to bowl the Leg Break, but there has been a break-through in that I bought and read Peter Philpotts book The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling in amongst the chapters he writes about something I call The Googly Syndrome which I'd come across before. It's the process of losing the ability to bowl the Leg Break simply because you bowl too many Googly's and it's what has happened to me. But since reading the book and understanding what has happened I've comitted myself to re-learning the leg break as of Sept 30th. But this weekend not getting a game I've already started and have made a massive turn round in bowling the Leg Break see Wrist Spin Bowling so it looks like I may be onto something that will lead to a better season next year?

Goals for 2009

Be able to bowl the Leg Break - good line and length
Be able to bowl my Gipper on a good line and length
Increase my speed with my bowling
Get better bowling figures than The Wizard and Ross Fullbrook
Maybe look at bowling the Doosra if the others come together
Attend the nets sessions and get better at batting
Score more than 9 in match next season
Keep fit
Try and get my kids playing for G&CCC colts
Try and play more games next season
Get all the local kids playing cricket right from the start of the season
Learn as much as possible about the game
Try and see at least one of the Ashes matches live
I don't know how well Ross Fullbrook did this season, but I know his attitude is erratic so I'm not sure whether that goal is realistic or not? I may have to back track on that if his economy is ridiculously good.

So all in all I reckon that I've done okay. I think I may have been less positive about this if it wasn't for 'Super Dave Gaylor' as I'd said to him in a match something about how good Ross Fulbrook was bowling and he said something along the lines of 'Yeah but you've only been playing for 18 months whereas he's been playing and getting coached for the last 4 years'. So maybe I'm doing alright for an Old Dog?

Check out the main blog at www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Both my other Blogs have been updated loads recently. The big issue for the moment is retaining fitness through the winter and not slacking off on that front see MPA First Eleven for all the news and views on that front.

On the Wrist spin bowling front I'm having a bit of traumatic time trying to get my Leg Break back. The Flipper is coming along fine and all the other variations are good but the Leg Break situation is very frustrating. Check out the news at Wrist Spin Bowling and see the diary pages as that's where the news is.

Dave

Just another thing.... What do your reckon to this new website? I'm here via David Hinchliffes forum, which then seemed to be taken over by simply cricket and now we're here. It kind of feels too big now to me, people no longer join in with the forum it seems. Was a reason given for the amalgamation?
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Big Cricket was an existing forum before sC was assimilated into it - so I suppose there are two groups coming here for different things. It's going to take a while before there's a lot of crossover I'd say. It is starting though, and I'd say the lull in blog activity might be something to do with the season here winding down and the southern hemisphere just getting going. Keep plugging away at it, BC might even throw up a leg-spinner that's more obsessed than you are :p (yeah, right ;) )
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Ed you just saved my life! I was just going through all the entries I made last night thinking - what's the point - there's no-one there anymore that's interested in the actual 'Doing' part, all they seem to be on here is a bunch of blokes talking about cricket celebrities and how that's got any significance to their lives I don't know? And there you was - a voice amongst the millions - like an old friend!!!

It does feel too big. It just feels like East Enders/heat magazine of cricket (Don't know if you have those in Ireland) but it's not a good earthy cricket roots thing anymore?
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

We have them both alright, but I don't watch/read either of them :p As far as I'm aware, BC was primarily an Australia/New Zealand site? - so we're only coming into the start of the season now. I'd expect that the 'doing' aspect of cricket is going to be a bigger issue for those members of the site in the next few months. In the same way, I'd say that a lot of the English/European members of the site here may experience a lull for a while. I myself haven't written anything in my blog for a week as I haven't had much to talk about yet. Might stick an update on it later.
There's plenty of people on here that are still interested Dave.

I do agree that it feels too big now though, I used to go through all the new posts on sC as often as I could - but that isn't even an option here. There's just far too much stuff, so I'm just tending to read the stuff I always did and then use the "Mark all forums read" button :rolleyes:
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

Right Ed,

This site is useful to understand cricket and cricketing system of each others.
U have a "Off Season" and we have "On Season".
So sharing of exprience with each other helps in keeping in contact.
It also helps in our game....right:):)
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

It just seems that there's not a lot of activity and comment?

Anyway my latest installment with a bit of a revelation -

October 10th Session No.8

The nice weather continues but the night draws in too fast now to really get out on the field for any length of time, so I was pleased to be asked to go and get something from Michelle's freinds house realising that round the corner from her house was one of the new style basket ball courts with the vandal proof fencing. I'd used this one once or twice last year and new that it had a nice smooth and flat tarmac surface but wasn't sure whether there was any floodlighting? When I got there I was pleased to find that it did have a floodlight and that it's more or less perfect for my practice sessions, so offers another venue for practice.

Straight away from the first ball I bowled Leg Breaks and they weren't bad either. I went through a phase during the half hour when the accuracy and length got really good but seemingly at the expense of the turn, but realising that I was losing the turn slightly I focused again on bowling striaght and the turn came back.

At one point the Old Bill turned up and had a chat and one of them used to play when he was a kid and I was explaining that I was trying to bowl Leg Breaks as my natrual action had become Googly's. I then showed him what a Googly was and for the first time in nearly 2 weeks I threw a ball that came out of the back of my hand and oh my God how natural and easy it felt as though that was what I was born to do! So what with almost 2 weeks of bowling Leg breaks it's obvious that my brain as yet has been re-wired so that the Googly feels like the wrong one. It's obvious that I need to keep bowling the leg break and that it is going to take months for the Leg Break to feel like the right one and for the Googly to feel like the wrong one!
 
Re: someblokecalleddave's Blog

someblokecalleddave;271306 said:
It just seems that there's not a lot of activity and comment?

Like it or lump it it seems we are here for good I'm afraid. It's a shame really because I thought we had something going over at sC.
 
Back
Top