“Galen, could I please just watch this on TV for a bit?”

starts watching tv

THWACK – the ball hits my nose.

“OW!”

LAUGHTER

“OK, I can play cricket again now.”

“No, watch TV.”

And just like that, the boy spent the next 10 minutes throwing a cricket ball at the side of my head.

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.

If I may, I’d like to draw your attention to the Division 3 bowling award, which appears to have been awarded to Brent Howard from Sandford.

Division Three – Bowling – Brent Howard (Sandford) – 13.31

Brent had an excellent bowling average of 13.31 for the year.

However, before I could leave that alone, I had to look back through my notes for the year to see what my bowling figures looked like. I’ve never been able to bowl all that well, but I was really happy with how everything went this season, especially when I took 3 for 15 from 9 overs against North Devon, and I thought that my yearly figures would probably be interesting.

Overs bowled: 77.2
Wickets: 23
Runs: 270
Average: 11.74
Economy: 3.50

So yes, I’m a geek, but hmm, I have a better average than Brent.

Ah well, at least I know.

I think one of the reasons I didn’t post much was because I was trying to avoid posting about things that people wouldn’t be interested in. Seeing as nobody reads this anyway, I may as well write about what I’m interested in. I think things will work much better this way. Don’t you?

The recent Twenty20 tournament in South Africa has raised a number of questions about the viability of the 50 over version of the game. After the rubbish World Cup (yes, it was too long, and it was about as ineptly run as possible – however there was still some good cricket played), the media has been as quick as possible to jump on the Twenty20 bandwagon and claim that it’s the future of the game.

All I can say is, I sure hope not!

Twenty over cricket is a bit of fun. It’s good to have a tournament like we just had, but it’s not really a test of character, which is what cricket is all about. In twenty overs, things can fall either way, and although that can be an appealing spectacle, it doesn’t really allow a team’s class and ability to show through.

What I like about 50 over cricket, and even more so, about 5 day cricket, is that teams have time to take control. A player, or a couple of players, have the opportunity to stamp some authority on the match. Games can be paced, and manipulated. Players have time to think and work to outwit their opponents. In the shorter version of the game, it’s all over in a flash. Yay for big hitting and slick fielding. Boo for taking something away from the players.

Another thing to keep in mind is that our league village cricket here in England, at least how I play it, is generally a limited overs style game (either 40 or 45 overs). We, too, play twenty over games but these are usually mid-week friendlies that give us a chance to have a hit and a bowl and a field and a laugh. They’re fun, but it’s not what the cricket is about. The Saturday and Sunday games where both teams have a chance to play is the meaningful cricket. Again, I love playing the friendlies, but the league games are important.

I don’t want to think that International Cricket will concentrate too much on a game that, in essence, is much like the friendly games I play.

The cricket I like watching is the fifty over game – similar to what I play as a village cricketer.

The cricket I love watching is the 5 day game – which is a test far above anything I face as a village cricketer.

If International Cricket is reduced to the same format as our friendly games, I think it will be a very great loss indeed.

Batted first.

278/3

All out for 55

0* faced the last ball of the innings, four byes

1.3 overs, 2 for 4

Sunday

Batted first

199/9

All out for 184

55

8.2 overs, 4 for 15

A good weekend.

Knocking in the cricket bat

Hot summers in Adelaide are bad, but wet summers in England when there is cricket to be played are far, far worse.

I play cricket for Morebath Cricket Club, and we have teams in the West Somerset Cricket League (Saturdays – Division 1) and in the North Devon Cricket League (Sundays – Division 3). Both teams finished second in their respective divisions last year and so were promoted this year. I like to play as much cricket as possible, which means I normally play for both teams, as well as any friendly/cup games that happen during the week. I also play the occasional mid-week friendly for Stoodleigh if I get the chance. It is safe to say that I have become slightly cricket obsessed.

Anyway, ever since April it has rained. Not just a little bit of rain, here and there, or the occassional down-pour, but sustained, unrelenting, heavy rain. Until last week we hadn’t had two sunny days in a row since April. This isn’t good for cricket.

As of last week, we had only played THREE North Devon League games all year. Three! We had already had 6 or 7 games abandoned because of rain or wet pitches. Fortunately we had played a few more Saturday games, but it still wasn’t as many as we should have played. One weekend we were meant to have games on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. All four were cancelled.

It has been boring and frustrating.

But last week was different. From last Sunday we had 8 days in a row with blue skies. Blue skies! I had forgotten about them. It was warm (above 20!), and it only rained a little bit. On Friday I got a little hot!

This meant that, come Sunday, we finally got a game of cricket, and the pitch was decent too. The little bit of rain meant that it was easy to roll, and the mostly dry weather meant that it had been given the chance to dry out. Compared to everything else we’d played on it looked an absolute belter!

So, at 2pm on Sunday the 6th of August 2007, on what became the hottest day of the year, we started our 4th cricket match of the season.

We lost the toss and I opened the bowling as usual with an attrocious over that went for 13. I bowled a bit better in my other 8 overs, and ended up with figures of 3-54. Not great, but OK. I took a catch as well, and Filleigh finished on 253-3.

I was in to bat at number 4 and was at the crease a bit earlier than I had hoped, but I felt good and the wicket was good. Chasing 253 was always going to be hard, but we had only lost a few wickets and the number 6 batsmen and I were slowly building up the run rate. I passed 50, then he passed 50, and somehow we’d knocked up 200.

With 7 overs left we needed just over 50, which was very gettable the way we were going. Unfortunately, I played a shot down the ground and my batting partner had to move to avoid it. While doing so, he twisted his knee and fell to the ground, forcing me to run back to my own end. He managed to stand up, but he needed a runner. Ho hum. Runners are never good.

The very next ball I hit to deep mid-off. I ran one, turned around, hesitated, saw that the runner had started running, so I raced back for two. The fielder, however, had noticed my hesitation and thrown the ball to the keeper. Damn. Out by three inches.

I finished up with 69 runs, and our batting collapsed after that. We were all out for 208, but it was a good game nonetheless. It was great to have a nice summer day for once, and to be able to spend it chasing after and hitting a hard leather ball around here.

Basic match report is here: North Devon Cricket League

The weather for the rest of summer (ha!) doesn’t look like it’s going to improve, but I cross my fingers and hope that we won’t have any more abandoned games. The winter is long, and I want to have a few more innings to think about and dissect before cricket season next year.