Cricket Diary: Perspective

No Cricket (again), England Batting Collapse in Test (again), Cancelled Hospital Procedure (again), Bought Cricket Gloves (again) …..

A key ingredient of a cricket diary is cricket, yet once again the cupboard is bare in terms of both playing and practice time, and not even I could muster the enthusiasm to rearrange my kit (again), although I did add a Galgo Zoomie Sticker to my Shrey Helmet! A quiet week then, although as a some of you may have realised by now I have a somewhat addictive and compulsive personality so I have sort of started what I had planned for the post season already in terms of working on the old body, and have a pretty detailed plan in place!

Supporting Galgos and indeed all Sighthounds has always been a priority for Sandra and I through our project ALStrays. A galgo Mix called Briken was the first dog I ever transported and after transporting 4419 dogs of which 1167 have been Galgos it’s as they say – you always remember your first!

The Week That Was

Monday: the now familiar call from the hospital confirming the re re arranged appointment for my father for Wednesday so back in the COVID Test Bubble we went. I wasn’t planning on netting Monday night as I played Sunday, and although I could do with some time batting I am resisting still in order that I can rest my finger although ….. well (see below).

Tuesday: in my bubble baby so a day at home working on my fitness plan for the off season, and putting this season into perspective.

Wednesday: got father into hospital, looked after mother, collected father earlier than expected because on the way down to theatre they were told the necessary equipment wasn’t working so after a 7 hour wait his procedure couldn’t go ahead so we are no further forward. Just one of those things, it is not urgent, but it is disruptive and something my parents are dealing with very well.

Thursday: rain put paid to the planned nets at Barlaston where I had hoped to try out my new Masuri Batting Gloves, bought specifically to help keep my little finger bent and more in touch with the bat. Received confirmation that Penkridge couldn’t get enough players to field a 4s again so with no scheduled game at Barlaston anyway it meant a weekend off. Mixed thoughts on this – I really want to play as much cricket as I can, but the way things are working out is for the best long run. I am getting more time to rest and work on my fitness now than I would have given myself naturally, but at the same time I am thinking ahead to next season. My priority before I started playing again was to play on a Sunday, and the way things have worked out with Barlaston has been perfect really (especially when I found out this week that the Sunday Season has finished at Penkridge now, although Spond still has games scheduled until February 6th LOL): playing at old haunts, close enough so my parents can pop up to watch, easy to schedule around seeing them as well on a Sunday morning, and knowing on a Tuesday night what our plans are. Saturdays were never on the original plan, but I love playing at Penkridge and I hope that can continue next season, but I would be lying if I said part of me wasn’t a little prepared for them not to put out so many teams next year. Time will tell, and for once in my life I am more than willing to be patient!!

Friday: a perfect family day with a long walk with the dogs in the morning, then down to Edgbaston with Sands and my parents for lunch and to watch Warwickshire comprehensively beat Northamptonshire, who I have a passing interest in as Tom Taylor plays for them. He is the son of the current Director of Cricket at Barlaston who I played with in the late 70s and who has helped get me back involved with the club. Was good to see Tom get an undefeated 50 in what really was an impressive performance by the young Warwickshire team.

Saturday: suspect the cricket would have been rained off, but was great to have a lazy day walking the dogs, watching the Test on TV (again see below), nice meal at home with Sands in the evening.

Sunday: see Saturday apart from the rain effecting the Test Match (again)

Body Count

Focussing on your body, well it makes you errr …. focus on your body! Do you know how many times you knock your little finger each day? Getting something out of (or putting into) your pocket, typing, writing, opening a drawer, stopping a cat … well from a multitude of things really, putting up blinds, making toast (I kid you not). The answer you will find is a LOT, or more accurately a painfully LOT of times.

If you are board and want something to do count how many times a day you use your arms to support you when you get up, use the stairs etc. It has been a tad frightening to be honest as I have been making a deliberate effort to only use my legs in an attempt to strengthen the muscles around me knee, thighs and bum, and to keep the old hamstrings moving. I think the politest way of viewing it is that I pretty much have a full range of movement now, just not always without the need for a little help, and certainly not with as much speed and fluidity as I need.

The problem on working on parts of the body that hurt because they have not been used for years or are not strong enough is that they hurt even more! I measure progress by the level of hurt primarily, followed by if the exercises are getting any easier. Currently I am in pain most of the time, but I am moving better and things do seem to be improving well enough. Catch 22 though is that if I lay off the exercises for a while, the body reverts back to normal and I have to start again so it really is a daily effort. It’s a long time since I put this much thought and effort into anything and I am loving it – but not to the point that I wont be celebrating when I don’t need to!!!

I can bend my finger now, but it doesn’t really want to do so on its own and it hurts to do so. Hopefully though batting will be a little more comfortable now as I am hoping that the new gloves with their more structured design will hold the finger in a bent position and allow more contact with the bat – which should be more comfortable but may be more painful.

The knuckle is still stiff, sore, swollen and has a disconcerting shape to it i.e. a lump on the outside. The hand in general is less tender and I am hopeful that next time I field it will be less painful, although I suspect I am somewhere between Bob and No when it comes to hope.

In Other News

Dinesh Karthik (DK) said on commentary that it took 10,000 hours of practice to make one change. That is 1,250 8 hour days or 3.42 years. He has to be wrong, please ….

My current list of things to work on with my batting include:

Keeping head straight and still (am counting this as one thing) in my stance
Smaller stride forward to maintain balance and play the ball later and under my eyes (again, one thing!)
Not playing across my front pad

Just ten years then, so by the time I am 68 I might be ready …

Of course nobody picked him up on the 10,000 hours just as nobody picked him up at the time when he compared cricket bats to your neighbours wife – another persons bat, like your neighbours wife feels better! But what do you expect as nobody picked Sir Andrew Strauss up when he said that Bairstow was in fine form (having played no red ball cricket this summer) because he had been pinging it about the field in The Hundred.

As you will have gathered I am planning ahead already for next season. You may recall that after I managed to have a few nets at the back end if the 2020 season I thought that was going to be a good springboard for this season as it gave me an indication of what I needed to work on. I was right to an extent, but it gave me no indication as to what batting would be like again in the middle (constructing an innings) and no indication at all of what the fielding would be like. I have that now so in hindsight I needed half a season back in 2020 (which wasn’t an option) so in many ways it is best for me to take this first half of the season as the sighter I needed, muddle my way through the rest of the season as best I can and then have a very focussed off season. After all my objective was not to play for one season only again, I still want to see if I can be of interest to Staffordshire Over 60s in a few years time, and I want to try and play with the Development Teams for another 5 to 7 years.

Best WhatsApp message of the week from my father after Kholi was out first ball commenting that both Root and Kholi were keeping good company following on from my own a few weeks ago!

Opinion

And so to The Hundred, which is so new it is unwise and impossible to say if it has succeeded or failed yet, not that this has stopped the opposing sides claim their respective victories.

Personally my position remains the same: as a spectacle it will do OK, but the longer term impact I believe will be negative and unfortunately having seen the impact the White Ball focus has had on the current Test, more of the same. Unless we consistently play Red Ball cricket in the summer, on the best pitches against the best players we will never produce cricketers good enough to play consistently for their country. I went to three days of the New Zealand test which were the worst three days Test Cricket I have attended. I have two days booked at Headingley and a day at Old Trafford I can honestly say that cricket wise I am not hopeful of enjoying the days, although socially I expect them to be crackers!

My view of the games so far is that they are typical White Ball games. No matter how much they attempt to package them differently they will remain games that are good to watch, played by players that have no real allegiance to a team and watched by people with no allegiance to a team. The games have not been as great as the pro Hundred fans would like and to date it seems that Phoenix are more regurgitated than regenerated, Spirit is missing, Originals are the same old, Chargers are stumbling, Invincibles clearly aren’t, Brave seem timid, Rockets are more a sparkler, and the Fire are at best smouldering.

I have enjoyed the fact that there is cricket to watch daily though. If it had been Yorkshire or Warwickshire I would be invested in who won, but I really don’t care who wins any of the games I watch. I couldn’t even tell you who all the team sponsors were, never mind who sponsored which team or indeed which team played in which kit. I have no interest in attending as a) I attend more than enough cricket already through my Warwickshire and Yorkshire memberships and the England games and b) all the added crap is just that, crap – I enjoy the cricket, if I wanted to listen to a DJ I would go to a Club, if I wanted to listen to a band I would go to a Concert. I disliked hugely the fact that at Edgbaston The Hundred branding was all over the ground despite it being a County One Day game and they even switched from showing the Test Match in the members bar to The Hundred!!! Well to be fair they didn’t Sky did as the TV was tuned to Sky ~~Cricket~~ Hundred channel (DON’T get me started on that) so they just switched the coverage. Seriously what hope is there!

And so to another week, hopefully a safe and fun one for all.

Thank You

Gray-Nicolls are generously supporting this diary and my return to cricket for the 2021 Season.