For most of my life I’ve bowled spin. I was an “off-spinner” in my Primary School days, and then at High School I bowled a bit of leg-spin, some off-spin, and the occasional bit of slow/swing bowling. I was never very good, but I enjoyed it. I preferred batting, but in many ways I was probably a better bowler. And to be even more honest, I was probably greater value as a fielder than as a batsmen or a bowler.

When I started playing cricket again last year, I didn’t really have a clue. I tried bowling spin, and it just didn’t work. I tried bowling some straight ones and I found that I could get the ball to swing a lot. But I didn’t take a single wicket in the Saturday competition. I was very fortunate, however, to get figures of 7/27 from 9 overs when we played Lynton and Lynmouth. I also scored a couple of 50′s early in the season.

This year I changed my mindset a bit, and attacked cricket as a solvable problem. I tried to concentrate on small aspects of my game. I would spend a few weeks thinking about one particular shot, and I would particularly work on that in the nets. When batting I wanted to make sure I didn’t give my wicket away. When it came to bowling I concentrated in a similar way. What things worked? What didn’t? What was I doing right? What was I doing wrong?

I played every game this year, and only missed one net session. Sometimes I went down the ground in the afternoon and spent an hour or two working on my bowling.

I changed my run-up a bit. I slightly changed my action.

Last year most of my wickets came from catches.

This year I took the most wickets at the club (31), I took 8 of those in Division 1 of the West Somerset League, and the vast majority of my wickets cleaned up the batsmen. It’s a great feeling when you hear that rattle of the stumps.

We had our annual cricket dinner last weekend and I won the bowler of the year award. I was really happy that I managed to achieve this, and I hope that I can give even more next year.

One of the problems with thinking about cricket as much as I did this year is that, to really do well, you have to stop thinking about it, and just let things come naturally, especially when you’re batting.

I made the conscious decision this year to ignore that, and to try to solve the little problems (of which there are still many). I wasn’t a good batsmen, and that is what I wanted to fix, bit by bit.

I hope that next year I can still work on the little problems that I have in my game (I struggle playing slightly short balls on the leg side, I back away from balls on my off-stump, I play back too often, I don’t attack enough, I fall forward sometimes when I play forward), but that I can also try to make everything more natural. When it comes to being on the pitch I hope I can just relax and enjoy it. I need to work on things when I’m in the nets, but I need to make those things natural, and when I’m in the middle I just have to let go.

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