SportsShoes Blog

Well its come right at the wrong time, I was just hitting form with the ball and now the season is over. I’m not happy, very bad timing!

Now the seasons over i will be resting for about 2 months then i will be back in the gym to work on fitness and strength, especially my back as i have been having problems with it for the past few weeks. I need few months of gym work and some good training sessions over the winter to get myself as fit as i should be. Hopefully i can have an injury free winter which has been a major problem for me the past few seasons. Then i’ll be back with a vengeance!!

I was back in the 1st team again this week and was back in the wickets. We played at Keighley who are up for promotion. I bowled 1st change and took 3 wickets for 2 runs in my first 3 overs, which I was very happy with then i came back on at the death and kept it tight. I finished with 3 wickets for 26 runs in 10 overs.

Everything feels as though it has clicked into place with my bowling over the past few weeks. Just bad timing, it’s come right at the end of season.

Finally made my triumphant return to 1^st team action this weekend, and surprisingly after 1 practice session in about 4 weeks my bowling was spot on!! Figures of 10(overs)-1(maiden)-2(wickets)-26(runs) was better than I was expecting. I tooka couple of wickets in the middle and just tried to tie things down, which I think i did pretty well. My bowling felt much more fluid and had good rythm. Hopefully I can have a strong end to the season and pick up a few more wickets!

Looks like a might be having a net today, weathers not too bad.

I need to get working on my run up becaue i think thats where my problems have been with my bowling. I havent felt like I’ve had any rythm for  while now. If you dont have any rythm its hard to be consistant because each ball feels different when you release it. The key to fast bowling is rythm and every ball should feel the same which is down to kinesthesis (which is the ability to sense the psoition and orientation of your body and its parts, A-level P.E. has its uses!), if it doesnt feel right then whatever your doing it isnt going to happen right!

So fingers crossed I can get some work done on this tonight!

Well I ended up in the first team this weekend because of 3 people dropping out on Friday night which was not really the way i wanted to make my return to be honest! I’ve just started to find form with the bat again and was hoping for another week in the seconds to get a few more runs but it wasn’t to be.

We played Farsley who are top of the league and got beat convincingly. I didnt get chance to get on to bowl before they had knocked the runs off which i was a bit annoyed with. Hopefully I can get a good practice session in on Thursday if the weather holds off and then get bowling back in the seconds so I can get some confidence back and end the season with some more wickets!

Well im losing my patience with the English summer. I havent been able to properly train for about 3 weeks because of rain, so I’m feeling more than a bit rusty. I want to be netting about 2 or 3 times a week if I can to try and get more rythm with my bowling and get back in the 1st team, but the weather is conspiring against me so it looks like i won’t be back in the first team this season now. But im planning on a hard working winter so I can be injury free next year and back in the 1st team. Its going to be gym, gym and more gym for me this winter.

No Cricket for me this weekend, bit on the damp side on Saturday. Good to see England winning, and with KP at the helm i think it could be a prosperous new era. He’s got the right attitude and doesn’t seem to fussed about what people think, he’ll be his own captain and hopefully put a bit of fire in the players bellys!

Poor Yorkshire, it’s not been a good week for them. After getting throught to the quarter-final against Durham the match was called off after the ECB found out Yorkshire had fielded an ineligible player in one of the earlier group games against Nottinghamshire. The player was 16 year old Azeem Rafiq, a right arm off spinner,  who is tipped as a future England prospect. It was his full county debut.

Now understandably Durham who would have been Yorkshire’s opponents in the quarters are asking for a bye straight into the semi finals. But Nottinghamshire, whom Rafiq played against, are also kicking up a fuss as they believe the game should be replayed to decide the proper outcome.

Well well well, England did an awesome job for most of a test match! We managed to rack up a more than reasonable total. Pieterson, Bell and Cook looked in great nick and Broad just keeps getting better. I can’t believe Bell got himself out on 199, thats criminal. Then we bowled them out for under 300, great performance boys. But then they shut up shop and didnt even try to get the runs when they followed on, which is fair play, very boring but fair play. I think this test shows that England lack diversity in their bowling, if the conditions arent right for swing we’re struggling. We need some out and out pace, like Freddie or Simon Jones, we need more aggression! Get Freddie back in the team for the next test and we should be laughing, I dont think the South Africans will pose us a much trouble as we might have thought.

Another interesting week in coaching for me this week, I worked with some older players this week and we had a good session. I helped a few of them with their bowling actions. They were all spraying the ball about a bit, and struggling for consistancy. It is fairly easily solved is a problem like that, the main point is to stay as upright as possible through your full bowling action, keeping your head upright and your body as straight as possible. One of the most important things to remember is that wherever your non bowling arm goes the arm with the ball follows. If your front arm is dragging down then your bowling arm follows it and is dragged down. Staying as tall as possible is one of the key things in quick bowling.

If any of you have any questions about cricket, whether its coaching, playing or just a general question feel free to ask me and I’ll do my best to answer!!!!!