Cricket today, after a long time!
I was a little sleepy and stiff when I came down, so did a few looseners. I got some good accuracy considering I wasn't putting much effort in, but oddly enough ended up bowling offbreaks! Was;r getting my wrist to turn. Quite strange.
Anyways, then the match. 5-a-side, although one had to leave early, so I was their subsitute fielder and kept for a few overs as it was batting-team keeper. 9 overs.
We had a good start, and progressed at a steady pace against a weak bowling side. A fifty run opening stand, then we lost our first wicket, and quickly lost our second. We were a weak batting side. I walked in with about three overs to go, and got out playing a horrible shot. Tried to sweep a fullish delivery pitching outside leg, missed, it hit my inner leg and rebounded onto the stumps! I haven't been able to hit full deliveries lately, I need a lot more practice. Anyways, our skipper took the attack to them in the last few overs with a flurry of boundaries, before top edging a pull which I held as a keeper to end it at 89. They needed 90 to win.
They had a decent batting side, but sent out the best two bats right away to start. First over from another bowler was good, 4 singles and two dot balls. I bowled the next over. I started to their best batsman, who -in light of KP's switch-hitting- took a left handed start to certain bowlers despite being a righty, in order to target the legside boundary, as it was shorter for lefties than the legside boundary for righties. So instead of bowling quick to him like I normally do, I bowled spin like I do to all left handers. It worked, first ball a dotball, and second just a single. Then the righty.
Since I had been overstepping when bowling quick recently, I marked my own crease with a few rocks well behind the normal crease, and bowled from there. Another single. 2 runs off 3. Then the lefty again. I bowled it just a touch short, a good length, and spun it away as normal. His eyes lit up and he went on the back-foot seing the length, but tried to hit it over the top on the offside. He didn't middle it, the shot was never on as he was going lefty, and it was an easy catch. First wicket down. 2 balls left, bowling quick to the other opener, and a wide, but then two good dot balls to end the over. One didn't spin in, one did. Only 3 off the over, they were 7 after 2.
Next over from the skipper yeilded another wicet, and it was 14 after 3. 4th over from the opening bowler, and 2 runs later another wicket fell with the score on 16 and the last man batting! They ran the risk of probably the biggest defeat ever on the ground. And it was a bit too late to sneak in another match, and a few kids weren't up to it, so there was no decleration and it went on.
The 5th over was from our best bat, kinda rubbish. He's normally a good bowler, had a bad one here, and so when I returned they needed 48 runs from 4 overs. The fourth and fifth overs had given away 38 runs...
Bowling quick again, started with a single, and then he lofted it in the air, straight to our skipper, a dolly of a catch, and dropped! They took a run. Then a low fulltoss, he played all over it, and it somehow missed the stumps! Pitched right in line, must have spun or drifted past it! Next ball was a higher full-toss and slogged for six, but the next ball sealed the deal as he just chipped it to a fielder in the deep to end a good game.
I did some bowling practice after this as it was still light.
Got the legbreaks going okay again, so worked on the topspinner and googly.
The topspinner took some time for me to find my range, very wayward, but soon figured out what I was doing wrong and corrected it, and bowled a few okay balls. Overpitched a tad - same with the googly - but the line was good. I'm not too annoyed, I've just started bowling them so I understand it will take a while till they are completely in my control.
The googly was good, got the line okay right away, and no horrific deliveries although no beautites either. Like shifted between close and wide off offstump, but it was outside offstump, and got some good spin in. Overpitching was an issue, but it was okay.
I then decided to test out the backspinner! Oooh! Turned out I could just bowl it like a not-very good offbreak
So I just stood at one spot and tossed it down two or three times with the grip and trying to spin it right. I guess it will still take a lot of effort, I'll probably go down next time and before the match just stand infront of a wall and start by chucking it 22 yards with the grip and spin, before doing it with the action just standing, then with a small runup, etc. till I get it okay.
So not a bad day overall. Good developments in the no-ball issue, better understanding of my topspinner, kept my action going well, and learnt what I need to do to get my backspinner going.
