Club friendly day
Our winter season starts next weekend. So today, our club had a "friendly", an informal day where all the different grades turned up (including some juniors), got randomly allocated into separate teams and beat the snot out of each other.
Unfortunately, I turned up late after the first round had already finished. I was informed the teams were already allocated and there was no room for me, dangit! 36 players turned up so they created four 9-player teams and set up a round robin competition. Each team played each other - in each match, they had 9 over innings where every player bowled 1 over, including the wicketkeeper. I disconsolately decided to hang around and at least watch one game.
I must admit, it was exciting and enjoyable stuff as the first team scored 97 runs in 9 overs. In a nailbiting chase, the chasing team looked to have them pegged only to fall away in the last over, falling 10 short. As I was preparing to go home, I was informed that one guy had been injured and they needed me to play. I restrained myself from air punching out of respect for the injured guy.
Our team batted first. The openers were devastating, smashing fours and sixes like nobody's business. The first 3 overs went for around 40 runs. It was Twenty20 on steroids. Towards the end of the innings (eg - a few overs later), I came in at #6. First ball, medium pace, inswing. I hate inswing. I clumsily defended. Okay, that's enough to get my eye in. Time to tonk. Next ball, similar inswinger. Big swing. Bails went flying. Second ball duck. After returning to the clubhouse, two guys commented it was a "solid duck". I have no idea what that means.
So that was my triumphant return from injury to club cricket. A duck. But at least it was a solid duck. Out in the field, I came in to bowl my over at the 7 over mark. So a couple of overs away from the end of the innings. Plenty of wickets in hand. Shortened boundaries. A required run-rate of 10. Not the friendliest environment for a flighty legspinner.
First ball, a bit flat and a bit short, of course. Pulled to deep mid-wicket for a single. Second ball, the batsman charged, played over it, wicketkeeper fumbled the ball, batsman got back into his crease! I hate missed stumpings. It's hard enough getting it past the bat. Next ball, tried the quicker arm ball, slipped down the leg side, glanced for 3. The rest of the over went for singles. 7 runs for 0 wickets - under par so not too bad. Would really have liked that one wicket though.
Our team made the final so a bonus game to play. Sweet! Batting first, our openers came out hard once again, reaching 50 after 4 overs. I was pushed down the order to #8 (in a 9 player side, mind you). Obviously my solid duck had impressed the captain. I didn't get to bat as we made it to 98 with wickets to spare in our 9 overs. Impressive stuff though I really thought we'd crack the 100 after breaching 50 at the 4 over mark.
The chasing side started solidly. One of our spinners came on in the 4th over and was hit for three consecutive sixes. I could feel nervous adrenaline growing with each over as I knew sooner or later, I'd have to bowl my over. Preferably sooner - not a big fan of death bowling. By the time I came on to bowl, they needed 30 runs off 3 overs. Considering they were going at over 11 per over, it was very doable. I tried to shrug off the nervous tension, loosen the shoulders. I read some legspinner somewhere say he always tried to be "as loose as a goose" before bowling. Having seen the results when I bowled tense, "loosey goosey" has been my mantra ever since.
First ball, finally, not short and flat. A hint of flight, the batsman charged, played over it, this time the wicketkeeper swallowed it up and whipped off the bails with the batsman several metres out of his crease. A new batsman comes in. Next ball, almost a carbon copy. Well flighted, he charges, plays over it, another stumping! On a hattrick, that's never happened before! Then the square leg umpire pipes up, "That's a no-ball" What, is this a joke?! He explains that the keeper caught the ball in front of the stumps so he can't give it out. My own personal Braddyline! To add insult to injury, the no-ball meant the next ball is a free hit.
I throw the next ball up, give it plenty of air. The batsman starts to advance, hesitates (probably thinking about the two consecutive stumpings, one including him), retreats back to his crease, attempts to dab it to third man, misses. The ball goes through the keeper's hands and the batsmen run a bye. I find myself earnestly hoping this isn't the wicketkeeper for our club side this winter.
The batsman now on strike uses his feet well against me and gets to the next ball on the full, sends it to deep mid-wicket for two. I hate bowling to twinkle toed batsmen. Bowling to bad batsmen, I can look like Shane Warne. Lead-foot tailenders either stay rooted to the crease or charge injudiciously and get stumped. But when I bowl to good batsmen, suddenly I look like Bryce McGain. There's absolutely no margin for error for a flighty legspinner - the full balls are turned into full tosses, they rock back for the short balls and have all the time in the world to send it whereever they like.
So the rest of my over went for several twos - my figures at the end of the over were 1 for 8. Would've loved 2 for 8 but these things happen (just seem to happen to me a lot). Considering the required run rate was 10 per over, not too bad. They ended up falling about 16 runs short and we won the final. Prize - two cartons of beer for the winning side. At first I thought it was two cartons per person but was quickly informed it was two cartons for the whole team.
Reflecting on the day afterwards, it actually worked out quite well. My captain has this disconcerting habit of commenting on my batting rather than bowling after net sessions. My goal since the start of last winter was to get him thinking of me as a legspinner first, tailend batsman second. Today, I batted crap but bowled reasonably well. So hopefully it will continue to shape a picture in the captain's head. Maybe I'll need to bat extra crappy in the first few matches just to lock that image in. Shouldn't be that hard the way I batted today.
| Posted by JC on Sun 26 Apr |  7 comments |
Back from injury
To my knowledge, of all the cricket blogs in cyberspace (for a comprehensive list, consult my insanely long blog roll in the right margin), there are only three about actually playing cricket rather than watching it. Jrod's Mountain Chickens, Get A Hundred and me. Unfortunately, I've been out with a knee injury for the past 6 months and Jrod just injured his knee. So it's lean times. But on the bright side, I'm back in business as knee surgery has me finally fit and playing (until I injure something else).
It was my first experience of surgery. We had just lost a family member a few weeks earlier who died after surgery so my faith in the Queensland Health system was at an all time low. The nurse shaved a foot's worth of leg hair around the knee then I changed into one of those hospital robes that gives ample view of my butt to anyone who happened to walk behind me. Then I was placed on a bed and wheeled into a room full of masked people who began sticking tubes into various parts of my body. I couldn't help reflecting this was the same procedure they used at Guantanomo Bay - torture by humiliation and helplessness.
Next thing I knew, I had woken up. A male nurse chatted with me, talking about his bizarre New Age theories. He described how he applied his "white energy" to the elderly at an aged care home and they would pass away afterwards. Okkkaaayyyyy... I feigned sleep in the hope that he would take his lethal white energy elsewhere.
I quite enjoyed the next few days. I was told to expect pain when the local wore off but there was only the usual soreness which was no worse than how my knee had felt for the past few years. But I milked my condition for all it was worth - rarely having to get up off the couch to get drinks, food or fetch the remote. I stopped short of using a catheter though.
Next was several weeks of physio. Some of the exercise described sounded a lot like the exercises on Wii Fit so I've been using that daily. Finally, the physio pronounced I was ready for cricket practice. He said I could go. When recounting it to my skeptical wife, I amplified his words slightly to say I should go to cricket practice. Hey, it's all part of the therapy, honey!
So last night, I turned up at the nets, eager to start unleashing the leggies. First ball, conventional legspinner, a bit flat, a bit short. Which is almost the universal first delivery from the legspinner. Bit flat, bit short. Need to loosen up the right shoulder but hey, it's been a few months.
Second ball, bit more flight, drifted across the batsman, he charged, swung and miss, stumping on the second delivery. Satisfying to say the least. Most importantly, the captain was watching at the time. Hopefully he'll file that information away come match time.
Next the captain came on to bat. He swung and missed a basic legspinner. Next one, a bit more flight, swing and miss. Next two, even flightier, again swing and miss. I started thinking of a full over of plays and misses. The fifth delivery was the flightiest yet. He charged, got it on the half volley and the ball nearly decapitated me on the way back. Okay, too much flight!
All in all, a good net session. Landed it in good areas. Plenty of turn. Knee pulled up only slightly stiff. The club is having a social game this Sunday so that'll be the first test drive - both of the knee and bowling in match conditions.
| Posted by JC on Thu 23 Apr | 5 comments |
Barack Obama takes on cricket
Well, in his first few months as President, Obama has taken on the economic crisis, global warming, the Iraq war, terrorists in Afghanistan, the health system, North Korean missile tests, a new dog in the White House and a million other national issues. Now he takes on his greatest challenge - cricket!
Now I'm a big fan of the Bam. Having spent a lot of time debunking global warming skepticism, I can appreciate how he's done more to help cut CO2 emissions in his first few months than Bush did in 8 years (not a difficult task to be honest).
But despite receiving lessons from the best batsman in the world, his form still leaves a lot to be desired. Look at that straight front elbow. How are you going to get your head over the ball in that position? It just goes to show, heads of state and cricket should never mix. After all, see what happened when the Prime Minister of Australia, supposedly the greatest cricketing nation in the world, tried his hand at bowling:
| Posted by JC on Wed 22 Apr | 16 comments |
New English cricket-blog author: Rich
Well, there's only some meaningless Twenty20 and ODI's between now and the Ashes. So as the focus shifts from sledging South Africans to the traditional Aussie/England rivalry, a new author has joined Cricket-Blog, an Englishman, no less. Give him a warm welcome!
Rich is a passionate England fan and an aspiring sports journalist. When it became clear that his playing career wouldn't take him further afield than an under 13 school tour to Kent, he made it his aim to write about sport for a living. He has still not quite given up his dream of keeping wicket for England, though at 22 admits he'd be a maverick Ashes pick.
A long suffering England supporter and KP devotee, he fears he may never again experience the elation of the magnificent 2005 Ashes series. He cleverly coincided recovering from illness with the 2006/07 series, his nocturnal existence ensuring that he barely missed a ball from the comfort of his sofa. He has still not fully recovered from this experience.
Rich admits to being a begrudging admirer of Australian cricket, and is an avid football and rugby fan too, though he did meet a special Australian girl last year who showed him that there is slightly more to life. He dreams of one day attending a Boxing Day Test match at the MCG, and if he could be anyone in cricket it would be AB de Villiers.
| Posted by JC on Mon 20 Apr | 30 comments |
70's Tooheys ad: Mike Whitney vs Joel Garner
Some more YouTube goodness. I was reading a magazine article about Joel Garner and I started reminiscing about a 70's Tooheys TV ad I loved as a child where Mike Whitney went out to face Joel Garner (hmm, beer ads appealing to pre-teenagers - and I thought McDonalds ads were evil). The thing was, the way I remember it, the ad was longer than a single delivery - I seem to remember Whitney having to face a full West Indies onslaught. Is this just my faulty childhood memory? Does anyone else remember the ad different to this version? I also don't recall Mike Whitney's hair being quite so huge. I'm now starting to see why big hair was so popular back in the 70's - it was strictly a practical decision of self-preservation. Once helmets became commonplace, hairstyles settled down to normal proportions.
| Posted by JC on Tue 7 Apr | 37 comments |
Trashing the Don
Here's some vision worth watching. Two ad agencies attempt to create TV ads that turn Australia against the Don. H/T to Jrod.
| Posted by JC on Sat 4 Apr | 4 comments |
Clarrie Grimmett on mastering the googly
Well, I tracked down that book by Clarrie Grimmett, courtesy of cricket-books.com. It was published in 1930 (my edition was printed in 1930) by renowned Australian legspinner Clarrie Grimmett - a pre-war version of Shane Warne. I've read Warnie's book on legspin. Imagine extracting all the self-serving, ego stroking from Warnie's book and that's what you get. Well, maybe not, you're not left with much once all the self-serving, ego stroking is taken out of Warnie's book. I've just devoured the first chapter of Getting Wickets and already found some kernels of gold.
I've been struggling to master the googly - bowling with the legbreak action but spinning the ball in the opposite direction. Normally, the legbreak is delivered with the palm facing the batsman, spinning the ball from right to left. With the googly, you turn your arm so the palm faces away from the batsman. You impart the spin more with a snap of the fingers than twisting your wrist, so the ball spins from left to right. I found practising in the backyard, I could manage it bowling a short distance. But when I put the effort in to bowl a full pitch length, the wrist action asserted itself and the ball came out like a top spinner. Grimmett faced the same problem:
I kept practising it at a short distance, as I at first found it difficult to send the ball full length. Gradually increasing the length of the ball, I was able at last to bowl it fairly well. Although I put in hours of practice at this ball, I always, before I finished, had ten minutes at bowling my ordinary leg-break, so that I should not lose control of it. In this way, I maintained the standard of my bowling, and also learned to bowl a ball that was destined to get many wickets.
"Gradually increasing the length". Genius, Clarrie! Time to hit the backyard and work this technique out. Of course Grimmett brought his own innovation to the practice process:
I laid down a turf wicket in my back-yard to enable me to practise, and I also trained a fox-terrier to bring the ball back to me. I taught him to lie still until I had bowled six or eight balls; he would then go and fetch them back one by one, and lie down until I had completed another over. This was one of the many useful tricks I taught him, and, later, he became well known wherever I went.
Unfortunately, our pet dog (a Jack Russell/Basenji cross) is the most high strung dog I've ever encountered. Whenever we play any ball sport in the backyard, the dog spends the entire time trembling under my wife's legs. No use at all for cricket practice.
| Posted by JC on Thu 2 Apr | 8 comments |
