SportsShoes Blog

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!!!!!

Well its about time England broke a record for something! The Test team has been unchanged in 6 Tests which is a new world record!Its about time we had some consistancy, they have a had a revolving door selection policy for years. So many conty players have 1 or 2 England caps its a joke. The Aussies did not have the world beating team they had for 10 years by getting rid of you as soon as you have a bad innings or get a bit of tap when your bowling. They had about 13 or 14 playrs that made up their test team for years and look how good they are! Admittedly it isnt all about keeping the same team, they’ve had some awesome players, but they knew where they stood. They didnt have to worry about getting 100’sand 5 wicket hauls to stay in the team. In England if you werent ripping the heart out of the opposition straight away that was it, you were out. And they brought in someone who was playing well at county level, and most of the time they struggled. The step up is a big one, and when your expected to make waves thats alot of pressure to handle. So im all for a this new found consistancy in selection, it helps with team spirit, confidence and gives players faith in their management.

Lets see if we can survive a battering from South Africas nasty fastys. The most hostile bowling line up in the world apparently, it should make for an interesting summer!

Well, things aren’t going too well at the moment. We got hammered at the weekend! Some awfull batting led to a spectacular collapse and we lost by 100 runs.

On the plus side my bowling is looking really good at the moment, my run up feels much better and im getting it in the right areas again. I took a yard of pace of my run up which has helped get me into a rythm again, and i was getting the ball to move about a fair bit, in the air and off the seam, which has given me some confidence back.

Started doing more coaching now and I have been working on batting with the kids, they’re picking it up quite fast but they know how to frustrate me, trying to get them to keep it down on the floor is a nightmare.  They all want to hit sixes like Kevin Pieterson

Well I was meant to play 2 games this weekend but Saturday was a washout, I went all the way to Halifax to come all the way back an hour later! Spent the rest of the day cleaning!

Sunday we played against Saltaire, we batted first and got 224, i picked up a quick 7 but was run out which i was not too happy about. I opened the bowling for the first time in a while because of my shoulder, it went well, i took 3 wickets in my first spell of 9 overs. I was very happy with how I bowled, and I had no pain in my shoulder which is great news.Unfortunately we lost in the end by about 5 runs, but still picked up about 8 bonus points.

I’ve been struggling with 2 parts of my bowling recently, my run up and also keeping upright throughout my bowling action. After working on my run up in the nets this week I think I have sorted my problem with bwling no balls which has really been frustrating me asI’m only millimetres over the line. And also spending some time bowling on my own to iron out my problems with my action collapsing while I bowl which means I start spraying the ball down the legside and bowling wides. I think I’m back in the first team this week after a few good weeks of bowling, hopefully I can keep bowling well and keep my place!!