Iain O'Brien's Cricket Blog

Time for another catch up..

I didn’t quite get out the post I wanted to last week during the Essex match for which I do apologise for.  I said I would and I didn’t get them done; I’m starting to wonder how I have managed to get my blogs done after a day’s play during the nine Tests that I have blogged through.  Somehow I have got each days play round up and thoughts down and got it posted before the next day’s play has started.  I have to admit it’s getting harder to keep it fresh and keep it interesting  although I’m sure you’ll let me know if what I’m blogging isn’t up to scratch.  I’ve got a couple of things I want to start doing during this two Test tour to Sri Lanka and with Suneer’s (a guest blogger) thoughts on other things happening in world cricket I’m pretty sure I be able to keep it fresh, interesting and most importantly a good entertaining insight into this world and my head.

We (Leicestershire) had a Pro40 match at Northants last Sunday, which I quickly previewed in my last blog.  I had been looking forward to this match for a bit as the pitch there is one that I knew would suit me. The pitch has been, over the last couple of summers, a belter, a good deck with a bit of pace and bounce.  Unfortunately I only got to bowl one over on it and I was maybe lucky to have even managed to get that one in.  Rain was forecasted and the rain came.  We lost the toss and we put in and got off to a great start; Allenby (who has been in brilliant form throughout the summer) and Cobb (a current England U19 player) both scored 43 in two completely different.  Allenby has been the ‘bully’ in the past, this time it was Cobb who took the sword.  We sat in the changing room, on the edge of our seats watching a young confident player play some audacious shots, one in particular, a straight bat through wide mid on from a length that probably should have been worked to square leg for a single; seriously one of the best shots I have ever seen, that’s no hyperbole either!

Another rain delay

We were on and off a couple of times and ended up losing a couple of wickets at tough times with the stop start nature of a rain affected innings.  It’s always tough batting first when the innings is interrupted a good score is a mystery and it was a good partnership by New and Dippenaar at the death that put a handy score on the board.  More rain then came and it cut the chase to a 17 over, 122 run affair.  We got into the 5^th over before the rain finished us off for the day and both teams shared a rained off point each.

I then turned into an Uncle for the first time.  My ‘big sister’ had a healthy eight and a bit pound boy.  Happy days, he’s a beauty and got a great ‘appeal’ on him already!

Next up was Essex in a Championship match; I trained really well for this one and had one of the best bowls of my summer in the nets the day before the game.  I felt great and a small change I have been making to my thumb on the ball was working as and my release was as good as ever.  Unfortunately this form in the nets didn’t quite transfer to the middle after we won the toss and bowled first.  I bowled ok but as I so often write; ‘it’ wasn’t just quite there.  Whatever ‘it’ is, I didn’t have it.  We had lost the first day to rain, a complete wash out so after winning the toss the pressure was on to take wickets and get the game moving forward.  I picked up one early, again with a yorker, and if you’ve been reading my weekly updates, you’ll know that they’ve been really successful for me in the last three weeks here.  If you’ve seen any of the Sri Lankan Pakistan series you would have seen that the yorker has been a good weapon.  Obviously then I needed to make it more of a part of my ‘red’ ball bowling plans and so far it’s going great.  And that wicket was the only one I picked up in the innings.  I had a catch dropped but nothing else really happened for me.  I missed the rhythm I had had in the last couple of weeks and in reflection I tried too hard to get it back.  I need to just let it come sometimes, relax, breath and just run in and bowl.  I’ve spoken about this before a couple of times before too and it is probably one of the hardest things for me to work on.  Technical things, no problems, I can feel where my body is and can generally fix those things by myself, but the ability to just drop it all from my head run in a bowl is hard. 

Rain on it's way at Grace Road

I didn’t bowl badly I just set high standards for myself and as my own worst critic I am very hard to impress; which is part of the above problem.  I know I can’t bowl the perfect ball every time and I have to accept that more than I do.

This match also saw my first ever visit to the Umpires room for anything but picking a new ball.  I got in trouble for the first time on the park.  I’m no angel, sure, l but I’ve always managed to stay within the guidelines and rules set out.  Not this time though.  And it happened when I was batting, is that irony!?  I’ve been working hard on my batting and I’ve got the bruises to prove it, I’m always doing stuff I hate in the nets trying to get better at the parts of batting no one likes.  So when I was given out caught behind on a surface that I felt great on and was really looking forward to batting for as long as I could, I was a little miffed (well, maybe miffed is an understatement!).  I didn’t hit it, I don’t know if I can actually say that, but I have.  The strange this is, is that I thought it had bowled me.  Good length ball, just swung away a touch, I missed it and heard that horrible sound, the ball clipping the off stump.  My head went down straight away and I then realised they were appealing; what for??? It had bowled me??  I looked up at the Umpire and he raised his finger.  He doesn’t need to raise his finger for a ‘bowled.’  I looked at the stumps, the bail hadn’t come off.  It was at this point I made the mistake of showing ‘dissent.’  I hung around, I didn’t walk off like I should of, I then told the Umpire that the ball had clipped the stump.  I’m also not allowed to do that either.  I didn’t swear or show any real anger and I’m guessing that is what helped me to not be penalised greater.

Lesson learnt!  I didn’t like the feeling of ‘getting in trouble’ and am disappointed that my clean record has been tarnished.  It was, though, fair that I be reprimanded for my actions, I have no problems taking my medicine if I’ve done wrong.  I did get in a bit of bother for this blog though going back a bit(http://iainobrien.co.nz/node/67); that was the blog that a couple in the media with nothing to write about picked up and ran and grossly blew out of proportion my comments about the crowd.  Oh and then there was the dismissal of Ponting at Adelaide that the media again reported stuff that wasn’t there which I covered in this post: http://iainobrien.co.nz/node/60.

So hopefully that’s the end of that, my first real on field digression, I’m not saying that it won’t happen again, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll react better next time anything like this happens.

Next time you’ll hear from me I’ll be in hot and humid Colombo with more regular updates.  Hopefully it’ll stay interesting and I’ll keep my nose out of trouble!

Twitter:  iainobrien

Suneer Chowdhary is a freelance writer from India. He shares his thoughts with us on a few things topical in the cricket world at the moment. Let us know what you think of Suneer's views which are not necessarily those expressed by Iain. Have to put the disclaimer in :-)

 You can contact Suneer at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com

Johnson and the Aussie soap!

If Andrew Flintoff’s clarion calls for retiring from the most traditional form of the game could have distracted the English team from their bid to regain the Ashes, Mitchell Johnson’s family drama has already made for prime-time viewing – and dissection – and couldn’t have come at a more inopportune moment for the tourists. While one could never be so harsh to blame a singular performance for the loss of a series or even a match, Johnson himself, would be in total cognizance of the fact that things have drastically spiralled down from where they once were in South Africa only a couple of months or so, back.

Australia, I think, had earlier erred in not picking up Stuart Clark in the first game. Even with Johnson being at his wicket-taking best, it wouldn’t have done anyone any harm if the English runs could have been throttled. But with Johnson not exhibiting signs of improvement – as the 0/42 in seven against Northamptonshire shows – it makes it doubly imperative to have Clark hold one end up and buy some wickets; for himself or for the other bowlers. While the Lord’s pitch has always assisted the batsmen in raking up the runs, this one did not seem to be the one in which 736 runs should have been allowed to be scored off 174 overs at an almost ‘T20esque’ run-rate of 4.2!

Despite what happens in the second innings at Northampton, the English batsmen will go after Johnson at Edgbaston – jelly pitch or not – and my surmise is that run-scoring can be controlled better by getting in the line and length bowlers, than have fielders everywhere except the slips and the gully.

One other thing is for sure, it couldn’t have been a tougher baptism for Mitch, and if does get through this phase of cricket, I get a sense that he could emerge a stronger bowler over the time.

Now, only to get out of this quagmire!

Back to square one and into a hole for Pakistan

Some place else, Pakistan cricket has gone through another circle. Around two months ago the things had degenerated to the extent of murmurs doing round that Pakistan may not feature in the 2011 World Cup because of the rebuff by the ICC. Some others said they may not even play the ICC World T20.

They won the tournament – and rather ironically at that, given that it is a format which is highly unpredictable, a trait it shares with the Pakistani team.

A month later, Pakistan has been routed by Sri Lanka in the test series, there are talks of in-fighting, lack of support for the captain, a low-on-confidence opener or two, selectorial dramas...you get the gist? Rather thankfully, the much awaited fuel to fire, that a Geoff Lawson or a Javed Miandad comment could have added, is rather conspicuous by its absence because of the presence of Intikhab Alam, a genial man without too many illusions about the post he has been assigned.

Everything else has been a shocker for the World T20 champions on the tour.

However, if they were to reflect back at the three games, the 0-2 could have easily been reversed, and if I were to stick my neck, with a slightly more experienced bowling line-up, read a clean sweep for the tourists. In the hindsight, it was the pitches that seemed to have taken the Pakistanis by surprise, a far cry from what one has come to expect from the Island nation. The ball swung – both conventionally and otherwise – on most days, and the spinners required guile and subtle variations – of the Daniel Vettori kinds – to have any kind of success on them.

That a quick bowler even ended with a Man-of-the-Series award and the most part-time of medium pacers in Younus Khan scalped a wicket in almost every spell he bowled, said a lot about the greenish tinge on most days of the series. Quite simply, Pakistan were outplayed in their minds.

Right then, where to start....

I had a really good couple of days in Prague with my parents who have come over to visit my sister and me.  We walked miles and saw virtually everything there was to see there.  A great city for sightseeing and enjoy a cheap beer.  There was a small break in our schedule that allowed the quick trip away and it was nice to spend some time with Mum and Dad and also away from the game for a couple of days; after getting back there was time for a good training session and then into another Championship match against Middlesex. 

Last time we played Middlesex we held on for a very good draw after being in some trouble.  A really good maiden hundred from James Taylor made sure we didn’t lose.  The team we faced then, at Southgate, was, in the batting department anyway, stronger.  Strauss (Eng) and Hughes (Aust) opened up and put on around 180 for the first wicket; they batted brilliantly and I bowled poorly in this game, no rhythm and no direction.  Both these two are facing off in the Ashes and that was a good thing for us.

After looking at the wicket I was hoping for a toss win to us and have the feet up watching the batters do the work.  It looked a good deck to bat on, and I’m still undecided as to if it was.  Dippenaar lost the toss and we were having a bowl.  I’m never too disappointed to have a bowl first up in a 4 Day or Test match; if it’s going to do anything for you, it’ll be now, so I wasn’t to displeased to be ‘rocking and rolling’ first up.  And we got off to a pretty good start.  We controlled runs with some pretty good bowling and after nine overs we had a break through.  I probably don’t bowl enough Yorkers in ‘red’ ball matches, I have been bowling them well in the ‘white’ ball stuff so I thought I’d try more, and it worked first time up.  It wasn’t quite the best yorker I’ve ever bowled; it hit Compton just below the knee on the full dead in front.  Either way my first wicket of the match and a really good start to my birthday.

Next in was Shah, this was the guy that I felt was going to hold the key to the Middlesex innings.  I wanted to get him early and make some big inroad.  The previous night I had had a really good evening with a mate from the team, not currently playing, but he’s got a few good ideas on some of the batters around.  We came up with a plan for Shah and I tried it right from ball one; it didn’t quite work.  It was if Shah had been sitting with us when we were discussing the plan.  First ball, smash, four.  Second ball, smash, four.  Not what I was hoping for.  The track didn’t quite suit that style of bowling so I was going to have to go back to a standard plan.  Smash, four of a good ball.  That’s 12 off my over, damn.  That sort of start can really propel a batter onto a great innings and it was now very important that we drag it back, bowl tight and play the waiting game.

Next over I went back to bowling line and length to Shah, I played a little with where I delivered it on the width of the crease and had success.  I got him to leave one that nipped back in just a little and it clipped the top of the off stump.  That’s where I should bowl, that perfect delivery that is so elusive. 

The day continued like that for us, wickets and boundaries.  Sure it’s nice picking up wickets regularly but we gave away to many runs at the same time.  Something we would really have to address in the second innings.  We bowled Middlesex out for 159 and on my Birthday I picked up six wickets.  That was my second six wicket haul in as many games, the first time I have done this.  I got my action right, the rhythm, the direction and the results came.  A very happy boy went back up to the changing room to put my feet up for the afternoon.

It wasn’t quite like that, the wickets kept tumbling and by the end of the day I had my pads on.  I don’t think the pitch was that bad looking back; it was a ‘patience’ pitch, wait for a bad ball and put it away, and in between times keep the good ones out.

A young lad, Finn impressed me bowling for Middlesex, a tall kid with a strong action and good pace caused our boys some problems.  He wheeled through 24 first innings overs, a real good effort for good reward.  Our tail end did a great job in grabbing a very handy 86 run first innings lead.  Cobb and I put on 50 for the 8^th wicket and then a 49 run 10^th wicket partnership between Harris and Gurney really added some salt to the wounds.  As I said in my last blog ‘any first innings lead is good’ and this one had gone from being slight to something that we were hoping to pick up four wickets before Middlesex would get in front.

It all didn’t quite go to that plan though; it went a whole lot better.  We ended up only bowling them out for 91.  We needed seven to win; brilliant.  This innings we bowled a whole lot better, we kept their scoring to just 2.25 runs per over and this pressure brought us wickets.  We dried up the boundaries, bowled really good lines and reaped the rewards; four for Harris and three for me.  Both of us were chasing milestones heading into the 3^rd day.  I had one wicket, needing three of the four to pick up four and therefore 10 for the match, which would have been just my second in my career and Harris was after the same, three of the four for a five wicket innings.  We cancelled each other out by both picking up two and wrapping up the innings like a good bowling attack should.

A very good win for us and the first Championship win of the season.  It was great sitting down to lunch after already having a cheeky celebratory beer in the changing room with the lads.

I missed out on the ODI and T20 team that is to continue the tour of Sri Lanka after the Test tour.  I am pretty disappointed about this.  I was in the last OD 11 to play and am now not in the 15 for the series.  I asked why I had missed out and got the reason that I had been too expensive and I couldn’t really argue with that too much, the only thing is that, in the last OD series, apart from Dan and Millsy we all were expensive.  I just have to keep working to get myself back into that team, there is a Champions Trophy coming up which I want to be a part of and hopefully after a good Test series in Sri Lanka I’ll have done enough to get myself back into the team.

I have a Pro40 match tomorrow at Northhants, a pitch that I had a good look at last summer during a match we played there in between the 2^nd and 3^rd Tests, although not playing that game, it looked a real good surface.  Then starting on Tuesday a Championship match vs Essex at home.  It’ll be a busy week and I’ll get a couple of more posts out during the week.  You can hold me to it!!

Right then, currently in Prague in the Czech Republic.  I'm just having a quick couple of nights here with my parents who came over to England to visit myself and my sister who are both here.  I thought a good taste of European sightseeing was in order, so Prague it is.  It's been a great couple of days and even the weather has played ball; today was supposed to be heavy showers, only a couple of light ones turned up later in the evening.  Brilliant!

And as it's only a quickie I just thought I'd have my two cents worth on the upcoming Ashes series:

If England can keep their bowling attack on the park, i think they go into the series as favourites.  Two very good spinnes that have both won matches for England plus some very much inform quicks that swing it, esp Jimmy Anderson who has, as well as the spinners, won matches for England.

So there, my pick is England: and if I had to pick a score line:  2-1 with two draws, one rain effected.

And like that, I’m out of here.  I’d be interested in your views for the series....

Oh, and yeah, of course I’m disappointed in missing out on the ODI team for the Sri Lanka tour, very disappointed.  But that’s for the next blog! 

And don't forget to add me on 'Twitter'.     iainobrien   

Since I was last here I’ve played three T20’s and currently in a four day Championship match for

Leicestershire.

We had a day off after the Lancashire T20 and played Nottingham at Trent Bridge, a ground that I’ve played well at in the past, well the one time I played there I went ok.  We got a pasting from Notts, we only scored 120 odd and that’s never enough to defend.  It was not a great effort from us; that meant that we would have to win our last two matches to reach the quarter finals. 

Home game vs Yorkshire, in what turned out to be Michael Vaughn’s last match, a game that we probably should have lost.  We scored 160 batting first and Yorkshire got to roughly 100 without loss; 60 off 10 with 10 wickets in hand.  They should have cruised it, and didn’t.  We ended up scrapping it out and wining by 11 runs in the end.  A really amazing result and that just shows that this is one very silly game at times.  The crowd at Grace Road was brilliant, an almost full house, vocal and energetic and they were rewarded with a great win from the jaws of defeat.

It was Durham at home next, a win for either team would put them into the quarters; and it wasn’t going to be our day.  We just haven’t been consistent enough throughout the whole team.  Jimmy Allenby, throughout the T20’s, has been brilliant, he’s been our stand out player.  No one really came close to replicating what he did.  There were moments of brilliance, but not enough to get us through to the next stage.  I bowled ok, stats maybe don’t quite tell the whole story.  I had a really good day at Liverpool and then the three next games I felt like I bowled well without being great.  You need luck sometimes and I didn’t get it.  That’s fine, I am happy with what I’ve learnt, my ability to bowl Yorkers has got a lot better and the thinking process behind One Day and T20 cricket is a whole lot better than it was before.

Which brings us to this Championship match vs Derbyshire at Derby.  I spent quite a bit of time training with a couple of the Derbyshire lads last summer before I headed to India and then Bangladesh on the Test tour.  I had bowled out in the middle and had enjoyed the pitch and was looking forward to a good bowling deck.  We lost the toss and were put in on a deck that we were going to bowl first on as well.  As a Championship team we have not scored enough runs in the first innings, we had a great first day; 348-5 after being put in was a great result.  Unfortunately we didn’t kick on to the giddy heights of 500 and were dismissed for 412.  I contributed just five of that in a rather poor display from me; really angry with myself in how I got out.  I’m better than that; I nicked a shortish ball through to the keeper kind of fending it away from my body; really not good enough.

My chance to get back into red ball bowling, the different pace of the game, the different attitudes from batters, bowlers, different field positions and working to different plans.  I just wish I could have bowled as well on Day Two as I had felt going into it.  I chose to bowl downwind, not a big wind, but still it was there and felt great to have it at my back.  It’s probably fair to say that I am not as good a downwind as I am upwind, and it was no different here.  I’m trying to get better at other parts of my game that I need to be better at to be a more ‘whole’ player.  I bowled both sides of the wicket, my lengths were not bad, just my lines.  I did have it swinging nicely, except it was into the two left handed opener’s pads.  Grrrr!

Day Three was a better one for me, although again my downwind spell, first up, wasn’t as good as I should be.  Dipps came up to me and asked me if I wanted a go up wind, “why not, I can’t be any worse.”  Three overs before lunch and I found what I had been looking for; a) some nice rhythm and b) a wicket.  It was good to finally have one in the wicket column and go to lunch feeling a bit better about things.  At lunch I said to Dipps I wanted to keep going, he had already asked Jimmy Allenby to start up into it.  I wanted to keep bowling, do my job and take a couple more wickets.  I ended up with six for the innings, all in one spell, with lunch in the middle, into the wind, and did the job I am here to do.

It was a better feeling going home last night with a good bag of wickets but I still have to work on my downwind rhythm and control. 

Not much chance of play today to finish off this match which was set up for an interesting last days play....

What a great feeling it is to be back playing after so many net sessions.

During the World T20 I think I netted every day bar two; one because my back was tight and the other was a day off.  Netting is fine when you get to go out and put it into play.  Netting is very hard work when you want to play, but can’t get selected.  It felt like that after my six balls against Scotland. 

I got to play yesterday for Leicestershire over in Liverpool vs Lancashire.  I had one net with the Leicester lads on Friday; I got in and bowled hard for around 40 mins.  I felt good and knew I didn’t need much more before playing yesterday.  I also wanted to spend some time away from cricket, so I cleared it with our coach, Tim Boon, so that I could miss Saturday’s net session and have the weekend off.  Ended up being a very good weekend away with the wife and got to see some amazing animals at the West Midland Safari Park, well worth a visit (loved the Cheetahs!).

I made sure I got to the ground early so that I could do a bit of extra bowling before we started warm ups proper.  Just on the side of the block I got into some work, testing out the body, working on part of my load up and getting into the grove.  I warmed up really well here and got to full pace pretty quickly, thanks also to a lovely day in Liverpool.

It had been rumoured last week that it was going to be a sell out, that wasn’t just a rumour.  At a really lovely ground, Aigburth, Liverpool, with loads of temporary seating set up it wasn’t long till I couldn’t see a spare seat.  Well, that’s a bit of a fib as the queues to the beer tent were massive.  It was going to be a fun afternoon with an excited and expectant crowd.

We won the toss and batted first.  No real reason, it just looked a good deck and we wanted to bat first.  We got off to a great start, 66 for the first wicket; some real good hitting from Jimmy Allenby set us on our way to a possible score of around 160.  His form in this competition has been brilliant.  We didn’t get to 160 though, after being 96-1 in the 12^th we didn’t kick on to what would have been, on the deck, a very competitive score.  Lancashire bowled well in the second half of their overs and pulled us back to just 146; the unfortunate thing was though, for them, was that it showed us how to bowl on the surface.  It was a tough deck to score rapidly on if you bowled in a very containing manner, as opposed to bowling good lengths in the theory that good bowling and wickets will stop the runs.  This was one thing I had learnt from Kyle Mills during the T20; stopping them scoring the big runs will often bring the wickets anyway.

I bowled the third over and it didn’t start quite as I hoped; second ball sailed clean over the mid wicket boundary.  I went straight into damage control for the over, get the guy hitting the runs off strike, Croft in this case, and bowl to the other guy and try to get out of the over for as few more runs as possible.  It worked and I also picked up a wicket with a ball I held cross seam that just bounced a little more than it would have normally, an easy catch to mid wicket.  I wouldn’t say I felt amazing but it felt good to be back out playing and doing the things I had been practicing so much.

My next over was better, apart from my first ball.  It didn’t have enough on it in terms of energy and it went back past me at a rate of knots off Flintoff’s bat.  I stuck a leg out and kind of a hand out and unfortunately, or fortunately for me, I didn’t get anything on it.  The next ball, another cross seamer, and with a bit more behind it picked up our second wicket and an important one for us if we were to defend this total. 

New batter and I went to length first ball, left alone, a slower ball same length next, defended to the off side.  My third ball was an effort ball which I was aiming for length hoping to squeeze out another dot. This one kicked really nicely off a length and grabbed an edge through to Niko behind the stumps.  A ball that I wish would come out more often, one of those one where you’re just happy that you bowled it and not having to face it.

I bowled one more over in the spell, my third and last ball, a short ball that I was planning for a dot was pulled out to square leg and taken by White, and his second of three catches in match for him, and that was the in batter Croft gone.  58-4 and we’re sitting in a good position but it wasn’t over yet.

Laxman and Chilton, the 5^th wicket partnership dragged Lancashire back into the match and if they had of won this fight would have been where the game changed.  Our catching had been great but our ground fielding no so and in this partnership we let at least three balls get to the fence that should have been stopped.

Our catching stayed fantastic, Dips taking a great catch to remove VVS and breaking that partnership. 

We bowled well through the middle with Claude and White going for just 5’s off their 4 and 3 overs respectively and picking up two and one a piece, again respectively. 

This left 32 off three and I had one of those overs to bowl.  Nine off the 18^th and I came on with 23 from two with three wickets in hand.  My over went for six and I picked up my 5^th wicket, my best haul in a T20, one pretty happy boy!

Seventeen off the last and a six off the first ball is not what you want.  AJ had his first wicket next ball though with White’s third catch, at long on.  Anything could still happen here, it only takes one big shot, one edge to turn things on its head.  A dot ball then a two which could have been a run out had my throw hit from long on.  Nine off two and as long as this one doesn’t go to the fence we should be fine, it comes to me at long on and I’m in two minds, run in hard for the catch and finish the match risking making a mess of it and it going for more runs or take it one bounce, keep them to one and know they can’t score eight off one ball.  I took the catch, comfortably in the end and finished it.  A very good win for us and it sets up a good week of T20 cricket where we play tomorrow at Trent Bridge.

Get updates on when I put a blog up by adding me on ‘twitter’.  Iainobrien is who you need to search for.  You’ll get other little tit bits on what I’m up to there too....  Also sign up to the RSS alert using the button at the bottom of this page.

Hi all...

Just a quick one, in fact a very quick one, to let you know that we are working on an RSS Feed or Email Alert; until then though I have started a 'twitter' page, "iainobrien", that will let you know when I add something here.

Hope this works until we work out an Alert system.

And thanks for the messages since we were knocked out of the World T20.  Appreciate them.

I head off to Liverpool tomorrow for my first match back with Leicestershire, it’s a T20 match; I haven’t played for a while so am a little nervous about getting back into it properly.  I’ve certainly done enough net work to feel good, but it’s always different when you get out in the middle.  Either way, I’m looking forward to showing where my form is at and the things I learnt while training and watching so many great bowlers bowl during the competition.

On Thursday I got myself to Trent Bridge to watch our Women’s team take on India in their Semi Final.  They made pretty easy work of it and I really enjoyed the afternoon.  There are a few of the Wellington Blaze girls out there playing and it was great to see them in action on the big stage and perform so well. 

I stuck around for the next match, just a small issue of Pakistan beating South Africa in a match which I thought would go the other way.  That has been the nature of this tournament really; you just can’t pick a winner in any of these games.  And for this fact I think it will always be a well supported form of cricket. 

Catch me back in a couple of days, and look me up on ‘twitter’ to get updates for here.

Right then, where to start.....

Firstly, I know it’s been a while since my last post, again, no apologies for that.  The timing of the games and travel has been hard work and with the extra trainings I’ve put in it’s been hard to work in actually time off and then some time to put in a good effort with this.  I could have done some lazy posting, but that’s not what I’m trying to achieve.  So, over the next couple of days I’ll get a couple more posts in covering off some of our performances.

Secondly I’m one very disappointed boy.  We’re out of the biggest thing in cricket I’ve been a part of.  It was an honour and a privilege to be a part of it but in the chance I got to play I got it wrong and then didn’t get a look in from there.  I’ll talk about that in a bit....

I’m now currently on a train heading to Leicester to meet back up with the ‘Foxes’ and sort a few things there for the rest of the time I will be with them this season.  It’s a real (excuse me) shit feeling packing up, checking out of the hotel and not getting on the team bus to head off for the rest of the tournament.  A real empty feeling that I know will linger for quite a while; sure I am heading back home, my over here home, to my wife, to my bed, to my couch and that’s all great, but the chance to become a World Champion has eluded me, again.  Again!!??  Yeah, again!  I have three silver medals in a box in my brother’s attic back in NZ from three Indoor Cricket World Cups.  I played in two of the three finals and we were only good enough for second all three times, losing to the Australian team each time.  This was maybe my last real chance to finally be a World Champion, to call myself a World Champion, to make history, and do something amazing.  It’s gone, all gone.

The preparation, the time and effort, the sweat, the sore body, the gym sessions before and during, the fitness tests, the physio sessions, the massages that hurt, the warm ups, the ice baths, the lonely times, the boring bus trips; all the things that went into this campaign that I hated doing at the time, but right now, once you’re knocked out without the rewards that you feel like you’ve worked to deserve, I would swap almost anything to be doing them right now.

I can honestly say that I came into this competition feeling great.  My head space was amazing; which if you’ve followed this blog for a while will know takes some work for me.  I actually came into this World T20 feeling and thinking I could come out of it as one of the best performing bowlers in the world; not necessarily the leading wicket taker, but certainly a great economy rate and one that could do my role especially at the death.  My lead in hadn’t been perfect with 10 days off because of a rib blow I got while batting for Leicestershire, but I had just enough time to get some good net time and a match for Leicestershire before joining the training camp.  This 10 day off layoff might have been a little bit of a blessing in disguise as I really felt great physically heading into the tournament, no niggles, no tired body; I was fresh and felt like a little kid at Christmas in the game I played for the Foxes.

Our match yesterday, in essence, a quarter final for both us and Sri Lanka; whoever wins goes through and gets a semi final.  We had our team meeting and scouting session in the morning before heading to Trent Bridge.  We went through the Sri Lankan batting line up and bowling attack one by one using video footage and supporting notes prepared by our Video Analysis, Zach.  Dan leads this meeting with input from us all if we agree or disagree with a plan to a certain batter or bowler; once we agree we move on to the next adjusting the notes if need be.  I take with me onto the park, when I’m playing, shortened versions of these notes.  My memory isn’t the best and so the easiest way to make sure I have the plan right is to take notes to refer to before bowling.  As the new batter walks out I dive into my pocket, look at my notes and make sure I know what the plan is for either my bowling or the others, as this reminds me of what they will be trying to do and I can then get myself into the best place for me to field.  I had been making these notes but they had been staying in my bag for most of this tournament, as I hadn’t been playing.

The boys held Sri Lanka to 158; a target we could certainly reach, if we got the chase right.  It’s probably fair to say the track fancied SL rather than us with their mixture of slower bowlers. As we predicted in our team meeting, Jayasuriya opened the bolwing with the 2nd over; he was going to be one of the bowlers that we were going to tatrget and we couldn't have got off to a better start. Songles of the first two balls and then Redders cashes in; four, four, four and six to take the over for 20.  Twenty six off two overs, great start in anyone’s book!  Things didn’t quite go to plan from there, Baz out in the next over, Redders out two overs later, Taylor then out first ball of the eighth, Scotty then out fourth ball to leave us 99 from 11 overs with six wickets in hand.  From here it was going to be tough, something freaky was going to have to happen; some amazing batting, some poor fielding or maybe a really random bowling change that we’ve seen in a couple of matches here and in the IPL.  Alas, none of that was to happen, nothing freaky, nothing random or unexplainable and we were bowled out last ball of ther 17th over. All over, game over, we never took our chances and didn't do things as good as we can.

I’m now home, on my couch, to finish off this update.  My wife will be home soon, I’ll cook tea, relax with her and then we’ll head off to a yoga class later.  Life goes on...  But how different could it have been!

Come back in a couple of days for more and some photos from throughout the tournament.

I hate it when I don’t play.  Really hate it.  I didn’t want to miss any matches of this World T20 through form or injury; both have worked against me and I missed last night’s match vs South Africa at Lords. And that's also the second time I've been 12th man at Lords, my only appearance there was a warm up match vs India prior to this tournament and that doesn't count on any stats as it wasn't an official T20I.

My back hasn’t been the best over the last week; it’s got quite tight through the lower area and has been a little tough to handle.  I played vs Scotland when it wasn’t great, I was ok to play but it wasn’t 100%.  Over the days since that match it’s been up and down in terms of how tight and painful it’s been.  We trained at Lords the day before the match and I hit the nets to work on some plans for the SA batters.  My back felt ok today so I went hard and got through some good stuff.  I probably bowled about five overs when I stopped and headed in to see the physio.  My lower back had ‘locked’ up and was rather sore.  Not perfect and not what I wanted the day out before a big match. 

So to the physio’s table, a place I’d been spending way too much time over this last week.  Some work from the physio and then some acupuncture.  I’ve always been a fan of acupuncture, no fear of needles, so get them in and give ‘em a tweak phys!

As we headed into the SA match we had the bare minimum to choose from because of injury and even in that bare minimum 12 there are still a mixture of niggles.  I was considered fit and was hopeful of a start, not to happen, but Dan was out with a shoulder injury he picked up during a fielding session, Jesse out with a groin related injury and is now in hospital after getting considerably worse throughout yesterday and Franky with a knee issue.  This meant Millsy, Broomy and Diamanti came into the 11 and it would be Diamanti’s T20I debut, what a place to do it!

Our trainings throughout the pre tournament and since have been really well done and specific.  Net training, generally, have been situation specific.  You bowl with a new ball if you’re practicing that part of the innings and with an old one for the death stuff.  I know that sounds obvious but it doesn’t always happen.  The batters want to know what our fields would be so they can try to work out what we’re doing and where the gaps are.  We’ve have had big open wicket match situations, the blessing of having 15 in the touring squad, where we’ll practice the first six overs of an innings or the last four and almost compete for scores set or defended.  I’ve enjoyed them, although tiring; they’ve set us up well.

The focus for last night’s match was the execution of our bowling plans and the boys did an amazing job.  After a poor effort against Scotland we had to turn it around quick smart.  We did more scouting, more research and had more discussion over the SA batting line up; for one reason that we knew more about them going into this match.  Our plans were good and just had the execution to go. 

We kept a very strong batting line up to 128 in the 20 overs; a very happy bowling and fielding group came off the park and up to the changing room.  Butts and Nath were special last night, Butts only going for 13 off his four overs and Nath, with his little tweekers, going for just 4.5 per over.

I headed up to see the group and see what if anyone needed anything and then got back down onto the park and did a quick bit of work on my fielding.  I wanted to do some as I always need to work on my fielding but more so to do some in the ‘change over’ light that we’ll have to field in more and more as we progress in the tournament.  I caught everything, for a change, fielded all the ground balls clean and got what I wanted to out of it.

Baz started us off a treat rushing along to 19 off 11, in that time Gups had fallen to Steyn and Broomy to a very good cuaght and bowled by Kallis. Ross and Baz then got together and put on 56 for the 4th wicket in 11 overs. The SA bowlers, through this period, contained these two big hitters and put themselves in a good position going into the last five overs.

We ended up leaving our run for the finish line a little late and lost by one run.  Chasing a score of 128 shouldn’t have been so tough.  We discussed, after the match, how we should have gone about the chase and what differences we could have made and would make next time we get ourselves in that position.  Ross, in his innings, pulled up lame with a hamstring injury too which just adds to our injury worries going into the Super 8 stage of the competition.

Scorecard

Have a little look at these couple of pages and get involved:

Fantasy Cricket

T20 Cricket Online Game

I’m currently sitting in my hotel room, rain outside, India vs Ireland on the telly, almost finished this for today and just some food to get in before resting the body, keeping the back flat and preparing for tomorrow’s Super 8 match against Ireland.  Hopefully we can field 11 fit players!!  ??

The day before the competition started we had some media commitments to fullfill, here's a pic of Jesse getting his done. I have also added some other photos in the gallery so please go and check them out. 

Thanks for the comments so far, this new site isn’t quite 100% finished as we havent filled the advertising blocks, but it’s pretty good to be able to post this on MY site that I (and a way more computer literate mate) control.  Thanks for coming along. 

What a start to the T20 Cricket World Cup.  The results so far have got the whole cricket world talking, the Dutch in particular; not that I can understand what they say, but they’re talking!

Since my last post we have now played three T20 Cricket Matchs; warm up matches vs India and Australia and then our opening match vs Scotland yesterday.

The match vs India was a great event.  Just like at home the Indian supporters outnumbered the Kiwi support in the crowd and easily made the most noise, this made for a great atmosphere out in the middle at Lords.  This was my first match at Lords I had been the 12^th man in the Test match there last summer which I was disappointed about, although if you have to be 12^th man anywhere in the world, Lords is the place to be it; he food is outstanding and the training facilities are fantastic, so I ate loads of great food and trained as hard as I could.

This time I was playing, we batted first and scored 170-7.  This is about the score we think will be very competitive in this competition and to get there with some great knocks throughout our batting line up was a great way to start our first full on warm up match.  Scorecard here.

 I opened the bowling and got off to a handy start, just five off my first over.  That helps the nerves quite a bit!  My next over wasn’t so good, well, it wasn’t a bad over in the way that I bowled badly, I actually bowled the over pretty well, Rohit just smashed me to all parts.  He hit me from some pretty good lengths and continued his form from the IPL.  Dan then does what Dan does best; he came on, picked up two wickets in his first over and changed the course of the match.  It was through this middle period that we pegged it back and managed to get our nosed back in front and we stayed that way till the end.  With a couple of overs left in the match a chant of “kiwi, Kiwi...” erupted from a section of the crowd, this was a buzz.  Such a long way from home and our supporters that have to put up with a lot of indifferent results made my skin tingle, made me even more proud to be a Kiwi.  Brilliant!

A pretty happy bunch of lads knowing that this win, our third in a row against India, and this time against a 13 strong Indian team, was what we needed in terms of knowing where we were in our preparation. 

We played the next evening at the Oval against Australia.  We were really surprised at the crowd for this one too.  A real good turn out just for a warm up match.  This time we let down the supporters that had turned out to watch.  We scored 147 which, in the end was a spectacular score as we were 21-5 at the end of the 5^th over.  Scotty and Peter did a great job to get us back in the game and give us a score that wasn’t quite enough but it was one we could try to defend.  We couldn’t defend it and Australia knocked it off pretty comfortable in the last over.  Scorecard.

Which brings us to the start of the competition.....

The tournament opened with a shock, a pumped up Netherlands team knocked over England at Lords.  This was not the kind of result we wanted with our match coming up the next day vs another of the minnow nation teams, Scotland.  This kind of result would have given Scotland a huge amount of confidence heading into our match and when, because of weather, our match was shortened into a seven over per innings game it made our match that much more of a lottery. 

We didn’t bowl well either but we did learn a big lesson about a shortened match; we should have gone to death bowling earlier.  Normally, in a T20, you’d go to death bowling in around the 15^th over so that’s six overs of death bowling.  We were only in the field for seven overs yesterday and maybe should have even started in death mode and just look to restrict the scoring as opposed to trying to bowl normal lengths looking to restrict the run flow that way.

My first over went for 18, 16 off the bat and two leg byes.  Not good enough.  I hit the lengths I wanted to but I should have changed, earlier in my over, and bowled differently.  I hadn’t bowled the two previous days before this match as my back had locked up and doing anything that involved bending hurt.  I got through warm ups really well and new that I was going to be fine to play.  My back had freed up and I felt good bowling before the match.  I was really disappointed to have gone for so many in the first over of the match and given Scotland some momentum and confidence.  It’s this kind of momentum that can really change a game and I didn’t do my role well enough, that said, Scotland came out, swung hard, hit the ball pretty clean and rode their luck a little.  Anyway you look at it though, it wasn’t good enough from most of us with the ball.  Scotland scored an amazing 89 in their seven overs. 

Half time and our changing room was pretty nervous.  We knew we could do it, knock the runs off, but there is the still the scary thought of being upset in our opening match and then being in the horrible position, like England are, of having to knock over one of the favourites, South Africa for us, to stay in the tournament.

Our batting was special today; it was going to have to be if we were to win at any case.  Nine 4’s and five 6’s makes chasing any total easier and that was the base of our chase.  We chased down 89 in just six overs and won with an over spare which is an even more staggering.  At the finish of the match there wasn’t that normal victory feeling, sure we had won, sure we had done it well in the end, but we made it hard for ourselves and caused us to worry more than we should have had we got it right with the ball.

There was a tough review of the match later in the afternoon I came under some pretty heavy scrutiny, as I should have and have learnt again about this game.  Scorecard.

I’ll catch you back here in a couple of days with a bit more background on what we’re up to at trainings and in preparation for our next match vs South Africa.