Well, that turned a bit ranty

 

A beautiful ground

Batted worse than bazzball team

Our bowling saved us

 I admit it, I like 'proper' cricket

Solid defensive shot - is very sexy yes? OK, if you were reading this blog last year you will know that i have used this picture before, but am using it again for two reasons. The first is that it perfectly illustrates a forward defensive shot. The second is as I have mentioned many times before that I cant be bothered to put to much effort into writing this nonsense so why not reuse what I have done before?

So why are you boring us again about a forward defensive shot? One of the several people that read this blog may ask. Well, just want to point out that even in a 40 over game there is a place for it. Not all the time of course as at some point a batting team will need to go hard. But on a dodgy pitch grinding out a score of less than 200 can still be competitive, or you may need to see of a dangerous bowler. Or if you team lose a couple of quick ones you may need to settle it down before attacking weaker bowlers later on? And why would I want to mention this now? Can you guess? If not, read on........

Anyhow, this is the first away game of the season, with the weather set fair. Whenever I have to travel elsewhere in Dorset I split it into different areas. The first is ‘the Bournemouth area’, which is from the New Forest to Wimbourne, down to Wareham and Swanage. Then you have ‘Near Dorchester’, which is not to bad. The final two areas are ‘past Bridport’ or ‘North Dorset’, which usually come with a ‘oh for ffs’ attached. Our venue for this game was Cattistock, which has a main rating of ‘near Dorchester’ with an attached ‘on the other side of the Dorchester’ . So not too bad journey.

Welcome to village cricket

So Cattistock, our opponents, what sort of challenge would they present? To be honest, I had no idea. They were a one team club- what I believe you can call a proper ‘village team’. In my experience of such teams are made up of players of widely differing abilities, a few strong players, some middling ones and a smattering of weak players. It is hard to tell in advance though because the strength of such teams can be raised significantly by things like a couple of lads who are strong players coming back from uni for the weekend, Or weakened by such things as the two or three strongest players going on a stag do that weekend. So we would find out on the day.

Such considerations were not the only ones that bothered me though, as playing in the Dorset leagues I was hoping to visit some lovely grounds for a relaxing day out playing cricket. Cattistock did not disappoint, a ground surrounded by hills and woods, with the village church in the background making for an idyllic setting. The weather was also cooperating for once as well, warm without being searing. All in all a lovely day and setting for a day out drinking chilled wine, eating a picnic and watching a bunch of idiots run around playing cricket. As it turns out though, I was one of the aforementioned idiots. In fact, being a captain I may even rank as a chief idiot, so had to get on pretending that I knew what I was doing cricketing wise.

View from the centre of the ground towards the church in the centre of the village

The first step for this of course is to go and have a look at the pitch and discuss with team mates how we thought it would affect the game. The only word that comes to mind for the strip that we were looking at was ‘undulating’. It was sloped in different directions at both batting creases, with the general conclusion being that it would make batting ‘interesting’. Still, after winning the toss I chose to bat, as it wouldn’t flatten out and I couldn’t think of any other reason to not bat first.

General Plan for Winning Games When Batting First

Now, I have in my team many players that describe themselves as ‘batsmen’. To me, possibly because I’m old, being a batsmen means that you start of deliberately, looking to play yourself in before accelerating your scoring looking to bat long and build a good score. These days however, for a lot of people, they use the term ‘batsman’ to mean someone that looks to start whacking the ball as hard and as often as possible, looking to score 35 off of 20 balls. There is an important place in a 40 over team for such a style of batting, but that place is not the top 5 of the batting order, it is classically a ‘No. 6’. Now, I have many players that enjoy hitting out hard and often, and 6 people can not all bat at 6. So, my general idea is for the first half of the innings being steady – looking to be at 80/2 half way through the innings. We then have a 20 over innings for the attacking bats to come on and hit out at the 4 / 5/ 6 bowlers to push the score over 200. How did that work out this game?

 Well, at first, pretty good. The two openers went through the first ten openers and although only scoring a bit above 3 an over I was happy with that. The pitch was not easy to bat on, variable bounce and a bit of movement. So I has already reassessed what a good score would be. On a good pitch I would say 220 is a challenge to chase, on this pitch I would being that down to 180. But then the two openers went and were followed by a regular clatter of wickets. This was due to several factors, the first of which was some excellent bowling – take nothing away from the opposition performance here. Then I think it is fair to say it was a tough pitch to bat on. But the main one is that when faced with good bowling on a tricky pitch, with a captain say ‘there are plenty of overs, take your time, we don’t have to score too quickly’  the main thought from most of the batsmen was ‘I’m going to fucking launch it’. A regular clatter of wickets ensued, either swinging against a straight one or hitting it in the air and getting caught.

Time for a captains innings yes? Indeed, when I went out to bat it was with the intention of digging in. Dot ball? Badge of honour. A leave outside off? Proud of it. Feeling calm, no panic. So how did I get myself out? Responded to a call for a second run and got run out. As I was running to the danger end I could have and should have said no but didn’t, and to be fair it was an excellent thrown. I said a couple of rude words when I got back to the pavilion…….

So we were 9 down for a lot less than a 100 after 26 overs. There was a clatter of runs from the 10 and 11 against Cattistock’s fifth and sixth bowlers that propelled us to 119 before being all out in the 20^th over. This was the time that we need 5 wickets in hand to start the assault but sadly not to be. I was not feeling overly positive at this point though, Cattistock had proved they had some very competent cricketers; they were on their home pitch so knew how to bat on it and only had to score 3 an over. Should also mention at this point how impressive the Cattistock fielding was, bastards didn’t drop one catch, not even the ‘no way he is going to take that’ catch. At this level of cricket, taking all your catches could indeed be considered to be a bit unsporting – but fair play to them.

What’s the Plan Stan?

 Defending this total wasn’t going to work – we had to bowl them out. So attacking fields no matter what – shorter bursts of bowling than usual to stop bats settling, the world may even be able to witness some of my loopy spin. How did that go? Excellently as it happens. Adam Nichols started it off with a wicket in the first over and so it rolled from there. Pace bowlers from one end where finding it a bit difficult – as there as a ‘hump’ on the wicket where the front foot would land leading to a lot of uncontrolled deliveries. But on a regular basis a killer ball was mixed in with the wilder stuff. This led to a score of 76 fully half of which were extras – but a 76 all out. An excellent team bowling performance. Although after the game in a chat with the Cattistock captain he said that his team had 3 non cricketers, so he thought that after we got the front half of the batting line up out he thought the game was up. The team was not aware of this though and I was impressed with the focus that the team kept. The tail was hoovered up by Uday, who after taking the last two wickets in 2 balls is technically still on a hat trick. 

 So, a glorious first victory for the 4s this season. What would I say were the key points in delivering the win? Well firstly the inspired decision making of the handsome and erudite Winton captain obviously had a massive impact on the game. Then  I feel that the first partnership by our openers was crucial, They only score a touch over 30 but it was the largest partnership in the game and if we had been two wickets down in the first 5 or so overs I think things would have gone very badly. And lastly Adams accurate and dangerous opening spell was important. They may not have had batting in depth but I think Cattistock did have some competent bats at the top of the order and getting the first couple out quickly was important for the momentum of the game.

A challenge to my team. Everybody on my team tells me they can bat – my challenge is to prove it. Not to score the occasional flash 40 off of 25 balls, but to deliver an average of 40 over the season. If it looks like you can do that, you will be bolted on to the top order for every game.

Match Scorecard

Winton Round Up

1s V South Wilts 2s

A solid victory. Batting first scoring 258 – with nearly everyone in the team contributing to the score before rolling the opposition out for 186. An excellent display really, against a team that were relegated from a higher division last year so were probably considering themselves to be one of  the stroinger teams in the league. It is however stretching the definition of a Hampshire league when a team from the centre of Bournemouth plats against a team called South Wiltshire……

2s V Sway 3s

Well, they blasted 400 from 45 overs before dismissing the opposition for 137. File this under ‘decisive’. Big up Chikky, who scored 116 from 88 balls before recording bowling figures 36/3, when you hot, you hot. But plenty of other good performances as well. The 400 was even more impressive when you look at the fact that they lost 2 wickets in the first over and were only at 33 after 10 overs. Didn’t panic, built a platform before launching the assault. Textbook.

3s V Suttoners 1s

Chased down a total of 183 with 7 overs and 3 wickets to spare, so a fairly comfortable win.

5s V Suttoners 2s

Fell 28 short in a run chase, so a fighting performance before securing second place.

 

Dorset Div 3 round up

As its only the second week and the first was almost completely washed out it is hard to draw out any patterns as yet. Rolex go top though with one win and one defeat which beats out the other teams that have a win as they only have an abandoned match to earn a minimum of points from.

 

 

First day of the season!

 What could possibly go wrong?

OK people, lets go, summers here! Time to get your cricket on! Oh yeah baby! What’s that? Check the weather report? Er, ok, and let’s see what the weather is going to be up to……. Oh grease my lazy nipples, that’s a fucker.

Or, to be more straightforward, the weather forecast was that it may hold of raining for a part of the day but by the middle of the afternoon the monsoon will have arrived. Even worse, in the morning it was looking quite decent weather wise, with my daughter refusing to believe that it would turn so badly. And, as it was not raining and therefore there was no reason to call the game off, off to Slades Farm the team did pop.

Cunning Captaining Planning

Well, as it seemed there was no way the game would go full length the question in my mind was how could we try and win? As you’ve got to always try and win whatever the circumstances or why bother right? The answer that my mind gave to itself was the only way to get a win out of the day was bowl first, knock em over quickly and then chase the score down. Our opponents, Ashmore CC went for another plan though. They went with the ‘only turn up with eight players’ plan, which I thought was a bold strategy but felt that it may not be optimal, indeed being a bit ‘rock’ to our ‘paper’. Now, another piece in this jigsaw was the pitch, would it be a high scoring belter or a mine field? A question that I really did not have an answer too and would be finding out during the game. How did it play? Well, the bounce was a bit variable, with quite a few balls keeping low with a very occasional you that would rise. I would not say unplayable, but defiantly a tricky. On the whole though, useful for my ‘lets try and win’ plan.

How did it go?

Well, with the Ashmore openers coming out, our bowlers got to work, Masum leading the charge. In a period of slight wayward but hostile bowling he took 4 wickets in 6 overs. Bowled a few wides but he ones that weren’t were on the money, an impressive spell indeed. This was back up by Mohi taking a wicket as well, leaving Ashmore reeling at 35 / 5. This was a combination of good bowling, a tricky pitch and bats that were looking to play shots leaving me hoping that we could grab a quick win. However, the two bats that then came together at the crease – Andy Taylor and Rob Guy, had much more ‘hard bitten’ air to them. They seemed to have a ‘you’ll have to take it, because we wont give it’ attitude going on, that put the break on the wicket jamboree. Anything that deserved to be whacked, got it. But everything else was carefully watched and met with a flat bat – proper cricket. I found this annoying but sneakily admired it as well. Then the rain came and that was that.

 Match Scorecard

Anything else of note in the short time of the game?

Well, long time readers of this blog will be shocked to hear that I took a catch! Ball was struck well and I had to make ground and take it on the run – ball stuck first time giving the impression that I was competent at this cricket malarkey. This also means that I can adopt an air of ‘do as I do’ when as captain I urge my team to get their bloody collective finger out when fielding. On the down side, it does also probably mean I have peaked too early in the field for the season and will probably not be taking another catch this side of Christmas.

 

Winton CC Roundup

1s

Matched abandoned

2s

Match abandoned

3s

Have you not be paying attention?

4s

Yeah, you know already

5s

That’s a Yahtzee

 
Dorset Div 3 Roundup

Take a bloody guess. Rain, matched abandoned and more rain. Apart from Rolex v Christchurch, who got an impressive 64 overs in for Christchurch to snatch a narrow win in a reduced overs game. I presume they must have agreed to start early. Or, maybe as the downpour only lasted about an hour and a half, they sat it out to play again. At my game, and I suspect all others, the rain was so hard when it came, and the forecast so bad we gave up on the idea. It seems like patience may be a virtue.

So, a damp squib start to the season – things can only get better yes?.......

 

 

 

It Begins!

 Summer Is Here!

And with the advent of the new season, despite popular demand, I have decided to make the (possibly futile) effort of resurrecting my blog to write up the games I play this summer. If you have read my blog before and are returning to do so again, I salute you and thank you. If this is new to you, welcome, it will be interesting to see how long it takes you to realise that it is just the idiotic ramblings of someone who is rubbish at cricket and decide that you have better things to do with your time.

So, what’s new this season? In a stunning turn of events, I will no longer be captaining Winton’s 5^th team. No no, this season I will be captaining the 4s! How did this amazing promotion come about you ask? Well, there are two possible answers – and I will share both and let you decide:

1.  My tactical brilliance and inspiring presence in the team last season led the club to decide that I had to be leading a team at a higher level.

2. Despite my lack of insight into the tactics of cricket and complete inability to inspire people to perform on the cricket field the 4s needed someone to captain them and no other idiot was willing to do the admin involved.

Hmm, which could it possibly be? Mind you, when you look at the leadership of the England Team and their lack of insight into the tactics of cricket and proven inability to inspire people to perform on the cricket field, it hasn’t done them any harm. So perhaps Winton CC are just following England’s lead? So, onward I march to face new challenges.

This is also probably a good time to recap the aims of the blog, just in case you are reading it expecting reasonably accurate reports of games played.

Aims of the Blog

In order of priority

1. For the blog to go viral and make me a fortune for doing something that I put minimal effort into. So, please all forward the link to friends, family and acquaintances with a recommendation that it is a ‘must read’. On the down side for this, no one reads blogs anymore (or anything else come to that) and if I truly wanted to ‘go viral’ I would have to make 30 second videos, involving me doing a dance, probably wearing hot pants. And I think we can all agree that no one wants to see that.

2. I am writing a report of my team’s games so I can deflect attention from my own failings and take credit for other peoples successes. So, for a game that we win, you will probably read a lot about insightful tactical decisions. For games that we lose, I will be leaning a lot more into my team’s failings in batting, bowling and fielding. Yeah sure, this is not fair. History used to be written by the victors, it is now written by anyone that can be bothered to get something onto the Internet.

3. This blog is is partly a process of me screaming into the void and desperately listening for an echo. The nihilist existential blackness at the heart of my soul leads me to often question if the world is real and if anything that I do matters. Seeing something that I have created on the web gives me some reassurance that I do indeed exist. This is of course a rather ‘heavy’ theme for a light-hearted blog. So I will be exploring it more fully in my forthcoming philosophy / cricket book ‘If the Universe Does Not Exist, How the Fuck Could I Be Given out LBW for That?’. Soon to be available in no book shops anywhere.

This is probably a good time to point out that although I do indeed captain a WCC team, this blog or the views expressed therein are in no way endorsed by the club. To be frank, a lot of the views expressed therein are not endorsed by me either, they more just appeal to my sense of humour. 

The Season To Come

This year, with WCC 4s I will be playing in Dorset Division 3 rather than the Hampshire Leagues. This comes with swings and roundabouts. In Hampshire SW Divisions, the games were either in the Bournemouth or New Forest area, so travelling was easy. In Dorset there will be longer journeys. On the plus side, although there are a lot of lovely grounds in the New Forest, I have played at most of them. Whereas I have not really visited any grounds in Dorset and we will be playing some ‘proper’ Village teams. So I hope to be playing on new grounds, in beautiful surroundings. Hopefully some games will be on an actual village green, with a pub right next to them. Extra points if the pub is called ‘The Bat and Ball’. Looking at the fixture list though, I am not convinced that all the fixtures are in actual real places. For instance, we are playing a team called ‘Puddletown’. I’m sure that this was the name of a charmingly animated kids programme I used to watch when I was six years old in the 1970s? Although I think they did have a cricket team – the infamous grudge match against Trumpton getting well out of hand leading the famous ‘Trumpton Riots’ celebrated in song and myth.

Trumpton Riots

One question that I am not yet sure of the answer is what the standard of the league will be. The Dorset Leagues have 7 Divisions, so I was of the view that having 4 divisions below us, that must be getting rid of the complete cloggers and by Div 3 it must start being of a decent standard perhaps on a par with Hampshire Div 4? However, when I suggested this to a couple of people at the club, they were quite scathing, saying that the Dorset Leagues were far weaker than the Hampshire Leagues and that there was no comparison. I do note that these were people that played in, and were used to the Hampshire Leagues, so it is possible that there is a bit of bias. So, this is now a question that I am going to put on the back burner and decide to ‘suck it and see’. I will give a measured view of the standard of play in Dorset Div 3 at the end of May when I have some evidence to go on.

Home Ground

This season, my teams home matches will be played at Slades Farm. For those of you not from Bournemouth, this is not as rural and lovely as it sounds. Indeed, long time readers of my blog will know I far prefer playing at Winton Rec (my home ground last year) than Slades Farm. I am now having to revaluate my views, as like it or not, Slades Farm it is for me. So let’s have a look at a photo of each venue.

 Slades Farm

Winton Rec

And yes, you would say that Winton Rec is a nicer place to play cricket. On the plus side though, Slades is probably a far harder place to come as an away team. The pronounced slope can be difficult to deal with if you are not used to it. On a breezy day I am told the wind can be biting. The news that the changing rooms were burnt down in an arson attack can also be a bit off putting. Also, the fact that the local crack heads like to shout abuse at the fielders is something that should be a bit outside the experience of the gentlemen and yeomen of Dorsetchestershire that we will be playing. So, hopefully we can look to use Slades as Winton’s own ‘House of Pain’ to gain home team dominance. Probably won’t bother doing a Hakka though.

 

Predictions for the season?

Well, not sure really, as I said above, I am not to certain of the standard of opposition at the moment. Last season, the 4s gloriously managed to get themselves promoted, which will always make a more challenging follow on season. We also had a couple of people leave / move away = life happens. Some players that were playing for the 4s will be playing for a higher team at Winton this year on the grounds that they are really good. On the other hand, we’ve had some new players join and some stronger players from last year remain so there are grounds to be hopeful. As I am now looking at my team list for the first game of the season on Saturday, I have to say, it is looking like a strong outfit and I am feeling optimistic. So, I am going to go with a target of winning more games than we lose and getting a top half of the table finish, I think that is a fair target after a promotion.

I am really looking forward to the new season, with the first game only a couple of days away. To everyone involved in cricket this summer, I truly hope you all have a good one and go well. Play hard, be respectful to your opponents and remember to saviour the enjoyment of what you are doing. The summer is short and over far too quickly, so make sure you make runs whilst the sun shines. Just going to check the weather forecast for Saturday...... Oh for fucks sake........

 

1 Brings 2?

Fresh of a victory we roll on with confidence to our next game. Who are we playing? Pylewell Park, second in the league and they have only lost one, where we have only won one. OK, this seems like it may be a bit of a challenge…..

First up as captain I have a selection challenge, not as in having enough players but the opposite. There is good availably across the club as well as in the 5^th team with a few new players joining as well. This means I am left with having to makes choices, the main one being between playing youth or older players. On the one hand, an avowed aim of this team is to help develop youth players. On the other, if I leave a youth player out I know that they will get a game of cricket in during the week, maybe two, as many play in different age groups. Every adult player I leave out though, I know it means that they will not get a game at all. Another factor is that it seems we will be playing one of the strong teams in the division, so if I don’t pick a team that can complete we might end up getting a complete dicking, which is no good for anyone’s development. So I end up selecting a fairly strong side, the strongest that we have probably put out this season. I do have a rule to include at least three children in each team which I kept to. Although I may have cheated a little bit as two of them were U16 and amongst the strongest players in the team, well able to play at a higher level.  Still, if you are going to have rules, if you make them self imposed you should know how to lawyer then to your own advantage.

The Toss

So, mein Kapitan, you are a wise and sagacious cricketing captain type person, can you talk us through your thinking of choosing to bat or bowl first so we may learn from your enormous intellect? Asked no one at all. Ah, I’m glad you asked me that, I rhetorically reply to the voices inside my head. Nice hot day and hard pitch would lead me to think batting first is a very good idea. But then, early afternoon it was overcast, and you only use one ball in the game at this level which means you may want to take advantage of the conditions to bowl first. However, I am unsure how the pitch will play, as the weather has been baking and preparing pitches has been a bit hit and miss. So far this season we have had really difficult wickets to bat on and also some belters. Which would it be today? I didn’t have a Scooby and no idea of what a good score may be. It could be 125, or it could be 240. So I thought I would choose to bowl first so the opposition could figure that out for us. After all this 4d chess thinking brilliance I promptly lose the toss. The opposition captain thinks for several seconds and says he will have a bat. What thoughts were going through his head? Was it a fine calculus of advantage and tactics? Or was it the thought of ‘it’s going to be a baking afternoon so I’m buggered if I want to be standing in the sun for several hours’……. Either way, Alea iacta est; on with the game.

The opening overs were a parsons egg. The first few overs were very loose with a lot of runs being scored early but then the bowlers found their rhythm. The bats continued to attack though, leading to the run rate staying very healthy (including what I thought a beautifully hit 6). But it also lead to a few wickets falling. So after 8 overs the score was 42 / 3. A run rate this early of more than 5 an over  I considered was far too high as the fielding captain, but having 3 wickets down gave me some hope.

Then came on the two sixteen year olds to bowl, and an excellent display of bowling it was. At one end the bowler chose to pitch it back of a length with pace looking for bounce and movement which caused the bats real difficulties. After a couple of overs I ended up pushing so many fielders into attack positions that I only had a deep fine leg and midwicket on the on side. Only one wicket was taken but only 7 runs scored in 5 overs. At the other end, the bowling was a bit slower and more pitched up to attack the off stump with movement in the air and off the pitch. This invited the drive more but the run total was kept low and another wicket taken – it should have been two but an easy catch was put down.

Stele of the Vultures

The Stele of the Vultures is dates from the early bronze age, roughly 2500BC. It is widely believed by no historians to be the first depiction of a game of cricket. In the top register above a lower order batsman from Umma is taking guard in front of a packed slip cordon,  In the lower register Eannatum, the captain of Lagash is seen fielding at mid off in his 4 wheel battle cart, directing a fielder into a close catching position at short extra cover. So in many ways this is similar to our game at Winton in these overs. The use of spears to intimidate the batter is now of course considered to be ungentlemanly conduct. 

All of the above meant that off the first 8 overs 42 runs were scored, after the next 10 only another 29 were scored for the fall of another 2 wickets – 71 / 5 after 18 overs. I was hopeful that the scoring rate would stay down now as the bats looked to ensure that they batted out their overs. Pah, shows what I know.

The next two bowlers were an off spinner and a 14 year old medium pacer. The bats looked to counter attack, with the medium pacer particularly being attacked and going for a few. He won his battle though, taking the wicket of the bat who had been slogging him. The offy bowled with skill and although the bats looked to score of him he also took a couple of wickets. So in this section of the game, 36 runs were scored from 6 overs but crucially another 3 wickets fell. Now, with the opposition 8 down after 24 overs this should have been me as Mr Happy. But two weeks ago we had the opposition 8 down and still fucked it. On this occasion though, a returning opening bowling took the final two wickets cheaply, closing the innings out for 112.

As the fielding captain I have to say that this was the best collective bowling performance I had seen from my team all season. Opposition all out for 112 – I should be confident right? Feeling good? Looking forward to an easy run chase yes? Have you not been paying any attention at all to this blog? Or indeed how cricket works in general? I just tried to impress on my team (almost pleading) that we did not have to do anything special, just wait for the bad ball. I wanted the rest of the game to be boring, an unexciting grind to a win – how did that go? Well…….

It started off very well, both opening bats looking to be cautious but willing to put away the bad ball (why is it that it always my batting partner that gets the bad balls). So we had got to 36 after only 6 overs, lovely. I was aware though that the opposition had started similarly so was not feeling overly cocky. Then we lost the first wicket, trying to turn a straight ball into leg, missed for a fairly plumb LBW. Off Attila goes looking disappointed. No worries thinks I, we are doing well, just keep plugging away. But then 2 overs later……

Anatomy of a wicket

If you do not like reading bad language I would advise you to skip this paragraph, if you are under 18 please get your mums permission before reading on.

I am facing fairly accurate bowling, nothing too dangerous, but on or outside off stump so I just knock it down to point, no fuss, no worries. Then another ball comes, wider, allowing me to free me arms. I launch a cover drive, the ball moves a bit and I manage to get a nick, look round to see the keeper has taken it and I tuck my bat under my arm and walk off as the opposition celebrate. I try to walk with an air of calm dignity but if you could listen to what was going on in my brain it would sound something like -  ‘fuckingbollockspetrichormingearseholebeggarwankbigdogscockepistomologyshitcheesybellendparabulabumder’.

Ah, everything I said about no worries, play it chilled, we can only lose if we give out wickets away and I go and do that. Why did I not just leave it and give it an expression of slightly pained contempt instead? Cricket, it’s a difficult game.

We then lose a few more, my particular favourite being the wicket lost to the ‘golf shot’. The one where how the batter sees a straight one, does not move their feet and gives it an almighty swing. If it connects it goes a long way, if………

I should not have worried though, as we had good batting in depth. Sargon is able to adjust his game to the situation and ‘Mr Good Time Dave’ even managing to modulate his instincts and to wait for the bad one to whack. These two brining us safely home in the 22^nd over.

So a second win of the season! With what I can safely say was my teams best all round performance this season. A thank you to Pylewell, who even as things did not go according to plan for them played with grace and good humour. How did the pitch play? What would have been a good score? Well, some balls did pop up a bit and some kept low but not sure any of the wickets could be blamed on the pitch. I think a score in excess of 200 would have been possible, the wickets falling through a combination of some excellent bowling and perhaps poor shot selection. Sometimes the batters win the contest and build a big dcore, but sometimes the bowlers do.

Match Socrecard

Having just re read this post I realise that it is overall a thoughtful attempt to accurately describe a game of cricket. I do realise that this is probably a disappointment to most of the several people that read this blog regularly.  I can only apologise for this lapse and promise normal service should be resumed next week.

 

HCL Div 6(a)

Mudeford 2s continue on their winning streak - halfway through the season, top of the table and no losses. Despite losing Pylewell Park stay in second with Mudeford 3s closing up to them with a win. Due to our second win in a row, Winton go shooting up the table to er, third from bottom. If it carries on like  this we can start to dream of mid table mediocrity. 

Winton Round Up

 A good week for the club, with four wins out of five. The ones, after a slow start are climbing the table. The three advance into the top half of their league with the 4 dominating at the top of theirs. Only the 2s lose, and are now theirs, so still in the hunt for promotion. 

Sijo Watch

Sijo again managed to sneak ut into the middle to have a bat this week, leading to another defeat. The 2s really need to make sure Sijo does not even need ot put his pads on. Mind you, the 10th wicket partnership he shared was the biggest of the innings. So maybe the 2s may start to think they could be with a calm steady bat higher up the order to stop the collapse they seem to have suffered in both  the games they have lost? 

 

Sometimes, I Bloody Love Cricket

An odd start to my cricketing day. I drive around Bournemouth as I am giving a few people a lift to the game and every road I go down there is an annoying amount of traffic. So I get to the game, if not late, then a little behind time. A warm beautiful day it is though, with BBC weather reporting a precisely 0% chance of rain. So I am thinking, if I win the toss, that is bolted on to bat. As we are getting close to the ground though, it starts raining. This impossible rain keeps up for half an hour. On the plus side this is one of the few grounds in this league with covers which are rolled out. But the pitch probably does get some moisture on it which will juice it up for bit until it dries out. I duly win the toss so am left with a decision to make. ‘Ah, we’ll have a bat’ I decisively / foolishly  / bravely say.  

So, how did that work out? Opening dates started of cautiously in the face of some accurate bowling – making sure that we got off to a solid start. When a bad ball came along it was dispatched. The first wicket going down at 32, so not a disaster as long as it was built on. And built on it was with the remaining opener pushing on well supported by No.s 3 and 4 to get to 124/3 at almost 6 an over. As the captain I had a warm fuzzy feeling about this. We then lost a couple quickly, which for this team is always a dodgy thing, as the batting order has the ability to panic and jump like lemmings over the cliff. Will Lochhead played an excellent steadying hand though, not trying to smash it but keeping things on course, the run rate dropped a bit but a decent score was being built. This allowed the lower middle order to come and attack, upping the run rate again for a very creditable 221 of you actual cricket runs.

A good score, but would it be enough? The pitch was a good one and the outfield was hard and fast. Bransgore I knew also had some very decent bats, so game on. I was informed that their first opener was a danger, a very capable bat. The opening ball of the innings was sent down and thudded into the pad and from where I was, look very LBWish – with the umpires finger going up! One run, one wicket. The second wicket fell a few overs later. This led to a couple of very powerful hitters coming to the crease, and hit powerfully they did. Upping the run rate considerably. This was another point of danger for this team – witness last week when we went from a winning position to losing it (the game / our heads / focus) when some bats counter attacked. Today though no one panicked, the bowlers continued to bowl well, the fielders remained focused and we took a wicket, then another and things snow balled from there to a convincing win.  

As captain, the most pleasing thing about the win was that it was not due to one or two people have a ‘day out’. It was a good all round team performance with everyone stepping up as needed, which was nice. We had come very lose to victory in a couple of games before falling short, so it is nice to now win one.

The Winton captain at the end of the match

Anatomy of a Catch

Early in the Bransgore innings I was put in the position of having to take a catch, a position which I hate….. The ball was hit straight – and in the air. My first hope was that it would be a caught and bowled, nope going over the bowlers head. So, next I hoped that it would be closer to mid on (I was mid off), nope, slightly my side of straight. My final despairing hope was that it would also be too high for me to take – but buggery flip, it was not hit hard enough and it was already dropping. Ah, I don’t like this for many reasons – I had to make a decent amount of ground. While the ball was not absolutely flying it was hard enough and worst of all I HAD TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT – nightmare. I managed to get in line and thinking about it I saw that although dropping it was still going to be head hight so made the mental decision of ‘fingers up’. To the general surprise of everyone in the team and my utter relief I managed to hold on to it. So, this is fair warning to my team, I have taken a catch this season, I do hope you are not expecting me to do something as competent again.

Sijo Watch

A double instalment as I did not included this section in my last games write up. Two weeks ago Sijo, the captain of the 2s got to have his first bat of the season – scoring a creditable 14 at No.11 This game was also the 2s first loss of the season. Last week, Sijo was back on form. He has to get padded up but was not able to get out into the middle. His team also recorded a crushing victory. There seems to be a pattern building up here. So for all the players in the 2s, for your hopes and chances of promotion I beseech you – try to not let your captain have a bat……..  

Match Scorecard

 

 

Sometimes, I Bloody Hate Cricket

If you are one of the many several stylish, tasteful and discerning people that choose to regularly read this blog, you have probably noticed that this instalment is being published over a week late. My apologies for that, but the game that I should be writing up annoyed me so much I couldn’t face it, hence the radio silence.

The game was against Sway, a team in a very similar position to us in the league, leading to us hoping that we had a chance of coming away with the laurels. Having won the toss, I chose to field. The pitch looked ok but wanted to give my bowlers a chance to use the shiny hard ball (at this level remember, only one ball per game). As a captain, choosing to field always seems to be a risk, as if the opposition get off to a flyer you feel a bit of a fool. No worries of that in this game though, we had Sway at 72 / 8.

AND THEN WE STILL BLOODY LOST

What? How? Why? Fa crying out loud…….. From 72 for 8 they ended up on 190. On a good pitch this should have been doable but we ended up 159 all out.

Where can blame and credit lie for this? Well, lets look to myself first. As captain, could I have done anything else? When we had them on the ropes, I was happy to carry things on as they were, they were working so why not let them carry on working? I could  have been more proactive, brought back the opening bowlers with more attacking fields to wrap things up, this may be a lesson learnt.

Next, got to give credit to the two bats that put on the 100 runs stand. Fair play, they did the business, with a mixture of defensive batting when needed and attacking strokes when able. They were also very active in hustling the quick singles when they could. Well played gentlemen.

There is possible also an issue with the mental strength of the team when things started to slip. Rather than people stepping forward to calm things and take responsibility it all got very ragged, the team got a bit shell shocked. Quick singles were given away when they should not have been – people were not in their position and on their toes. To stop the rot at one point as captain I quickly called everyone in to speak about being switched on and doing the basics better, which did have an effect. By then it was a bit too late.

So 190 runs more or less given away. The pitch was playing well though and it should have been chased down. Too many silly mistakes, to many people not taking responsibility to make things happen when they should have done (talking about the senior players here, not the youngsters, me included). This led to a game that should have been a win petering out to a distinctly annoying loss.

72 for 8 should have led to out first win of the season, instead it become the worst loss of the season instead. Bah, sometimes I bloody hate cricket………….

Winton captain at the end of the game

 A tale of woe

 

Cancelled, Abandoned, Abandoned, Cancelled

The wicket is the strip of light brown underneath the lake......

Last weekend was wet in the South of England and I don’t think there were many games played. It had rained heavily overnight but had stopped raining Saturday morning, so my first job was to check if it was even possible to play on the wicket and ground, or if it was already too wet.

When inspecting the ground as the home team captain, there are a few important things to keep in mind. First, you have to inspect the wicket, especially on an uncovered pitch. While doing this, the most important thing to consider is ‘can you get a decent team out?’. If you are struggling for numbers, or are only making it up to 11 by calling in really weak players you may want to notice just how soft and unsuitable the wicket is to play on. Conversely, if you can field a strong team, then this probably means that the sun and breeze will dry it out nicely before the start of play. Then you need to be sure that the outfield and especially the bowler run ups are safe to play on. When doing this it is important to consider the quality of the opposition; if they are unbeaten at the top of the table you may find that the run ups are far too wet and slippery to use safely.

So after checking that I had a decent team and the opposition were bottom half of the table the ground was ok to play I did not call the game off. This was somewhat frustrating as there was a lot of rain forecast for the afternoon but it was not raining at the time and forecasts can be wrong so there was no reason to yet call the game off.

So, how did the game go? Yeah, rained off after 14 overs or so, a frustrating day all round. Any interesting incidents? Well, a contentious caught behind was given. I say contentious, to be more precise, everyone on the ground including the umpire thought there was a good nick, the batter disagreed. There are two ways for the batter to handle this:

The ‘cricket approved way’ – fixed the umpire with a hard stare for just a second then slowly walk off slowly shaking your head.

The ‘don’t teach this to the kids ‘way. Audibly disagree with the umpire’s decision and walk of muttering semi verbalised swearwords.

Now, I do not mention this to make fun of or chastise the batsman in question (OK, maybe just a little bit). But because it illustrates two important points about being a cricketer.

Point the first

Being a batsman is psychologically really hard. You play once a week, and probably look forward to the game. As a bat you can go out to play, and it a matter of minutes, if not seconds, wham, that’s it, game over, no second chances. This can be tough, especially if you are given out in a way you perceive as unfair.

Point the second

People involved in cricket have an idea about the game, its image and their own behaviour that they often do not live up too. ‘It’s not cricket', 'fair play' and being respectful to your opponents are nice ideals but are often observed in the breach. This is not just a ‘village cricket’ thing either, but seems to be a culture throughout the game. I have seen in low league games men swearing at opponents – including children. It is also nepotistic; I have seen captains and coaches pick players based on not if they deserve to be picked but if they are a mate, or the child of a friend, rather than on merit. Such selfishness extends throughout the game. The MCC claims for itself the right to be the holders and guardians of the ‘spirit of the game’. Their claims to this were tested in the last Ashes series when Jonny Bairstow was controversially run out by Australia. Shortly afterwards, the Australian team has to walk through the ‘Long Room’, full of MCC members. A chance for them to show the world the culture of the MCC. Did they behaviour with dignity and gravitas, making the Australian team wilt under a silent condemnation all the more powerful for being unspoken? Or did they behaviour like a group of entitled children who had just heard the world ‘no’ for the first time in their lives?  

The MCC, a complete bunch of utter members 

Don’t get me wrong, I have met a lot of lovely people through cricket. But in my somewhat short time in being involved with the game, I have come across far to much behaviour that I would describe as ‘not cricket’.

New Feature

Which I am going to call ‘Sijo watch’. This season Sijo has taken over captaining the 2s and has won five out of five – fair play to him. So far though, in every game he has not yet had a chance to bat, with a month and a half of the season gone. So, each week, I will be reporting on how close Sijo actually gets to wielding the willow.

Winton Round Up

It rained

Div 6A Round Up

It rained some more