A rollercoaster ride!

So here we are! The final match of another long cricket season and for a change, there is still so much to play for in the Nottinghamshire Premier League as we enter the final day. Speaking with Jon Terry after training on Tuesday, he could not remember a season in recent years where things at both ends of the table were still in the balance.

Unfortunately for ourselves, we still have the glimmer of light showing from the trap door beneath our feet, and so our first and foremost objective this weekend will be to secure the two points that we need to confirm our Premier League status for another season. It is obviously disappointing that we have not be able to close off this question prior to the last league game, but we are pleased that everything is in our hands this weekend to ensure we don’t have a slip-up.

The League is alive with chatter at the moment over many issues, some of which are not really for my place to comment at this stage, certainly not until the shake-out has become clear. However, our focus as a team, as it has been all season, will be to ensure we finish the season as high as we can, and that is what our time and efforts will be focused on come this weekend.

It has been a tough season at Kimberley this year, there is no doubt about that. However, there are also many many positives and highlights in what has actually been, on a personal note, a very enjoyable and rewarding few months.

There have been many individual performances that have brought a great smile to my face. Paldip Sidhu’s two hundreds, particularly the second against Welbeck that set us up for a big winning draw. Bharat Popli’s brilliant innings against Rolls Royce which enabled us to take a surprisingly large haul of points in another positive result. Alex King’s bowling against Papplewick both at home and away that enabled us to claim two big wins. These performances were all crucial to gaining good points at vital stages of the season.

It has perhaps though, been the consistent performances of Sam Johnson and the excellent leadership of Sam Ogrizovic, that has really been the catalyst for the fact we have for the large part, been able to keep ourselves just about out of trouble. The key is to make sure we now do that for one more week!

From my point of view, taking on the role of ‘Coach’ has been a tough but thoroughly enjoyable experience. It has been emotionally draining as you really live and breath every delivery out there, even when we are batting and doing well. You not only want to do well yourself, but also you want everyone in the team to do well, because you know how hard they are working during the week to make sure they are well prepared. You then have to endure their disappointments, but can revel in their highs, and I think the season that Bharat has had probably sums up that rollercoaster ride the most! We now need to ensure we get our heads down for one last effort and ensure that Saturday night can be a big celebration of a season well fought, and with much learnt. Winter well!

Captaincy can be a tough gig!

It has been quite a hectic couple of weeks for me. After a wonderful wedding day two weekends ago, I was then challenged with the task of starting my new job two days later. Perhaps the biggest task though, was taking on the Kimberley Captaincy from Sam Ogrizovic last weekend!

With Sam taking a well deserved break this week, I was asked to ‘take the reigns’, so to speak, and after 25 overs of their innings I was probably wishing I hadn’t ! After losing Atif Sheikh to injury the day before the game, and on a fresh new Kimberley wicket which proved to be a beautiful surface to bat on, the opening pair from Plumtree batted exceptionally well, and made us work very hard in the field.

Thankfully we did eventually make a break through, and although we slowed their scoring in the later stages of the innings, their total of 310 was always going to be a near impossible chase.

Captaincy can be a tough gig. Saturday was a casing example! Sometimes, whatever the resources at your disposal, you can’t seem to find the right formula to get yourself into the game. Like any team sport, you need the backing of all the team members for you to be successful, and when we lost young Liam Webb to injury early in the game, it really highlighted that point.

This week I have been able to reflect on the decision that I made on Saturday and evaluate if I would have done things differently. There are certain things that maybe I would have looked to change, but fundamentally, I think you have to stand by your decisions. It is important though, in any sport or walk of life, to review your performance to see if you can improve on what you have done for next time.

It will be good to have Sam back with us this weekend, as we get towards the crunch part of the season. With two games remaining we are in a good position to avoid the drop, but we are also very conscious of the fact that we still have much work to do to ensure our safety.

We face a difficult job this weekend as we take on West Indian Cavaliers. The ‘Cavs’ have a remarkable ability to recruit players seemingly from all over the country. I am always impressed with the dedication their players show in travelling so far to play for them. I must take this opportunity to congratulate them on their success in the ECB National Cup, which reflects well on the Nottinghamshire Premier League. It will no doubt be a really though game for us, and one in which we will need to raise our performance levels significantly from last weekend.

Building lasting partnerships

Last weekend was a very enjoyable one for me. Not only was I able to go down to London to watch Manchester United win the Community Shield at Wembley, but more importantly, I was able to play a part in an import win for Kimberley away at Papplewick.

What made Saturday’s victory particularly enjoyable was the fact that we had to really work for it. Without the crucial partnerships between firstly Sam Ogrizovic (69) and Sam Johnson (46), then our opening bowlers Atif Sheikh and Elliot Bowles, who ensured Papplewick were strangled in their chase right from the start, Alex King’s match winning bowling performance would not have been possible.

Sunday’s trip to Wembley was not only about the football, but also about catching up with my Best Man and one of my Ushers as we prepare for my wedding in just over a weeks time. Therefore, it seems appropriate that this week I talk about the importance of good partnerships!

With Usher Pete and Best Man Will at Wembley

 

Cricket, while obviously a team game, is essentially a game that depends on partnerships between two people. Firstly, you have the batsmen. Successful partnerships are built upon an understanding of how your team mate thinks and plays. You must not only know your own game well, but also theirs. For instance, there are players in our team who I know will be quicker between the wickets than others, or who might call runs in a different way to others. To avoid errors running between the wickets, this understanding is vital. In addition to this though, it is important that you both work to the same game plan. That plan may change and evolve as the score progresses, but you both must have a clear expectation of what your partner and yourself are expected to do. Effective batting partnerships can break bowlers and can also force bowling captains to feel that they are perhaps doing worse than they are.

For bowlers too, partnerships can often force a team back into a game. Often people refer to ‘bowling in partnerships’ when two bowlers keep things tight and as a result force a mistake from the batsman. This was very much the case as Alex and I bowled on Saturday (with Kingy getting all of the glory of course!). Keeping the score down and forcing batsman to take a risk they don’t want to, can create wickets. Yet bowlers must also look to develop partnerships in different ways. You might get a clue or a hint of what a batsman is trying to do to you, so why not pass that on to your teammate? You might work together to restrict a batsman from playing his favourite shot, or hitting in a particular area. Bowlers need to communicate just as much as batsmen inbetween overs. Without that communication, you might end up missing vital clues or working to a different strategy.

Finally, there is the partnership between fielders and the bowler. On Saturday, Dominic Brown was superb for me fielding at point. His hard work and good anticipation prevented a number of singles which helped build that pressure on the batsman. Then at the end, young Elliot Bowles took a superb catch at long off, and the beauty was, I knew he would because I trusted him in that position. I suppose that is the key to a good partnership, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of your teammate and place the trust in them to do the job. That is what I intend to do over the next few weeks both on and off the field!

Organised Chaos

This weekend was a real rollercoaster for us at Kimberley. Firstly on Saturday we had a must unusual game of cricket with Clifton. The game was ebbed and flowed, one way and then the other, and then just as it looked as though we might have taken the ascendancy at just the right moment to win the game, the rain and conditions once again intervened. We were still pretty happy with the 12 points we picked up and we now have some really big matches over the next few weeks which will define our season.

We were very disappointed not to have won our cup game at Mansfield on Sunday. It was, on reflection, a match we should have won comfortably, and we need to make sure we learn from some of the mistakes we made.

Much of our problems I feel were caused by not having a detailed enough game plan for where we wanted to be at different stages of the match. This is something that we will look to put right over the coming weeks.

I have recently led British Colleges Girls U18 Hockey Squad on an international trip to Portugal. One of the key messages that I tried to get across to the girls was that we need to have a game plan and structure that allows us to make sensible decisions under pressure. Having such an approach in dynamic invasion games such as hockey, rugby and football I like to call ‘organised chaos’.  The basic theory is that while you cannot script a sports match and predict exactly what will happen, you can try to condition the events with co-ordinated actions of the participants.

With the BCS girls we worked on strategy to organise our chaos!

 

Cricket also has elements of this ‘organised chaos’ mantra. A bowler should have a clear plan and vision of how they expect an over to go. If the first ball goes as planned, what might I do next ball? Then the ball after? Bowlers often describe this as ‘setting a batsman up’. You might think that a batsman therefore is reactionary to the bowlers plan. However, the top batsmen will also have a clear plan in their head. They will see the field that has been set and identify their scoring zones. Once that has been done, a plan will be formulated on what shot will be played in relation to the type of delivery bowled. For most top players this process actually becomes tacit, and they do not necessarily become conscious of this process taking place. Therefore when asked about how they set about doing it, they might respond with phrases like, ‘it comes naturally to me’ or ‘I just play it as I see it’.

For developing players, this process is much harder and building the responses comes from giving a player a smaller number of options to a similar delivery. From here they can build up a response to different types of delivery in a progressive way. The only way to get to the ‘natural’ stage unfortunately is practice. That is where as I side we must work hard across these last seven weeks of the season to make sure we stay ahead of our opposition.

Planning for the unexpected

Saturday was a disappointing day for us at Kimberley. After such a positive result the previous week against Rolls Royce, we were desperately keen to back it up with another good performance against another prospective championship winning team. Unfortunately, we were outplayed in every department, and full marks must go to Cuckney for the professional performance they put in.

The defeat was not down to a lack of quality on our part, but perhaps a lack of concentration at crucial stages of both the first and second innings, and this is something we will be keen to address this weekend at Mansfield.

The week has also seen a remarkable Test Match take place down the road at Trent Bridge. The cricket there has been engrossing, with momentum swinging for side to side with each passing session of cricket. I also read this week that 200,000 pints of lager had been sold over the five days so hopefully Nottinghamshire will have made some money out of it!

The game really changed from being an easy England win to a close fought contest, when young Ashton Agar came in and played the most astonishing innings from a number 11. As a fellow ‘jack’ myself, I know how hard it can be to come in when your team are struggling and need a bit of momentum. However, the knock that Ashton played was more than just momentum but was really a game changer.

Alistair Cook was criticised heavily for his captaincy during that intriguing session of cricket. Yet what you perhaps forget is that England will have had no plan for Agar. With a support staff to rival a West End Production, England have footage, analysis and a written game plan for each international player around the world. Yet when this boy was pulled out of Henley on Thames a few weeks before the series, I doubt England had much footage from the Home Counties League. The fact probably is, that they assumed (maybe as Australia did by batting him at 11) that he wouldn’t be up to much with the bat, and would probably last a few overs at best. So when he started to stroke the ball to all parts of the ground, it sent the strategy team into a bit of a spin.

I really do wonder how much current international captains are encouraged (or allowed) to think on their feet. There was much criticism that Cook was uninspiring through this phase of the game with both his field settings and his bowling changes. Yet I would imagine, that to justify the large entourage and coaching team, Cook and the bowlers have a set plan for each batsman. So when situations arise that require a little intuition and creativity, they struggle to find it as they are not used to it.

The skilled captain and coach are always looking for the clues and tell tail signs of where a batsman likes to score and where they might be vulnerable. It is certainly something that we look at at Kimberley, and I have no doubt that come Lords this week, we see  a plan hatched for young Ashton that wasn’t there at Trent Bridge.

Analysing the commentary

Saturday was a great day for us over at Rolls Royce. It was pleasing for a variety of reasons, not least because we were able to pick up 18 points from the current league leaders. Another delightful aspect of the day was watching our overseas player, Bharat Popli, score his maiden hundred for Kimberley against a bowling attack packed with Minor Counties or First Class experience. Bharat has been working extremely hard on his game during his time in Nottinghamshire, so it was really pleasing to see him rewarded on Saturday. We hope he can now build on that performance, and continue to make match winning contributions through to the end of the season.

Soon after his innings, Bharat was whipped away for a radio interview with Mansfield 103 who are covering the cricket in the league this year. So far this has proved to be a real success, with the clubs, the league and the radio station putting a lot of time and effort into making some entertaining shows. It has also been nice to meet some of the people who have volunteered to be reporters out and about at the grounds. Having worked on a live production team before, I know how tricky it can be to pull together all the component of a live show, so to do this with a team of volunteers has been very impressive. The individual reports have also been very impressive in their knowledge of the league and their astuteness in analysing the match situation. This is something that can be quite tricky to do when you only have a small on air slot.

This week we have seen the Ashes begin at Trent Bridge. As well as a debut for young Ashton Agar in the Australia team, some of you may have noticed another person making their bow. Andrew Strauss has made the jump from changing room to commentary box, and in doing so has joined the list of ex-England captains on the Sky Sports commentary team. So how has ‘Straussy’ got on so far? Well to be honest, I have been impressed. He maybe isn’t as colourful as David Lloyd, or as cool as Michael Holding, but Strauss really tried to do something, that so many ‘pundits’ fail to do. He tried to give you an insight into what he thought the captain was trying to do, particularly when Clarke was moving his field around so much during the first couple of hours. So much of the television punditry now is mundane stating of the obvious, or the favoured lines of some of the cricketing fraternity of ‘it was better in my day’ or ‘he wouldn’t have been able to bowl to me for long like that’.

Working as an analyser is a different role than being a commentator. The current Sky team try to combine the two, and it is a difficult mix. Trying to enhance the pictures on your screen by building the atmosphere is a skill in itself, but when you are asked to also try to make meaning of what is going on, the role can get confused. For me, Bumble and Michael Atherton have mastered this balance, and blend together the two roles beautifully, yet both in a very different style. It will be interesting to see how Strauss develops over the summer.

Fielding a strong team

As we get closer to the first Ashes Test which starts at Trent Bridge next week, excitement is building around the country. In England, it is the Ashes that without doubt whets the appetite of the cricketing public and more importantly perhaps, the general public, and once again the spotlight will be firmly on the England team for the next couple of months.

Ashes series can be defined by many great individual performances, and thinking back to that great series in 2005, many standout as being crucial to the success of the team. Flintoff at Edgbaston, Vaughan at Old Trafford, Pietersen at the Oval all spring to mind as brilliant batting displays in wholly different contexts that played crucial roles in influencing the series.

Andrew Strauss take a wonder catch (c) Patrick Eagar

For me though, there are two moments that always stick in my mind from that series as pieces of individual brilliance that had a huge influence on the series, and both came at Trent Bridge. Firstly, there was Andrew Strauss’s spectacular one handed catch at third slip to dismiss Adam Gilchrist off the bowling of Andrew Flintoff at the 4^th Test at Trent Bridge. Then came the controversial but brilliant run out of Ricky Ponting by substitute fielder Gary Pratt.



Gary Pratt will be remembered as the man who ran out Ponting



Both these pieces of brilliance not only took crucial wickets in their own right, but they galvanised the team into thinking that nothing could stop them. That is why fielding is such an important element of our game, and one that we always ensure we practice thoroughly.

On Sunday, we were lucky enough to witness our own pieces of fielding brilliance to change the direction of the game. Firstly, Bharat Popli came up with a brilliant run out at a crucial stage to remove their dangerous opening  batsman who had just reached fifty. Then later in the innings, Sam Johnson took a brilliant catch running backwards over his shoulder, to remove their last real batting threat.

These things don’t just happen by chance. We work hard on our fielding both during the week at training, and in our preparation before the start of the game, to ensure that we give ourselves the best chance of creating moments of brilliance. I have always believed that fielding is actually the easiest part of your game to improve but mentally one of the toughest as you have to be willing to put the time into something that perhaps is not as much fun as bowling or batting. We are lucky at Kimberley to have a group of young players (and Jon Terry) who love fielding and take real pride in the standards they set. We know we can’t afford to rest on our laurels as we need to use every advantage we can get. Lets hope we see some more moments of brilliance in the field from Kimberley and England over the coming weeks.

Pitching it right

Saturday was a gruelling day at the 2bm Private Ground. It was one of those hugely frustrating matches where the weather continued to intervene all day, and we found ourselves trawling the covers on and off the pitch at regular intervals.

On a day like that, it can be incredibly tough both physically, as you have to prepare your body for action several times, but also perhaps more importantly, mentally. I think my bowling spell was interrupted by three rain breaks in total, and each time the game had moved onto a new situation which required a different mind set and approach.

One of the most crucial skills as a bowler is to read the situation that you are bowling in, and adapt your approach accordingly. Different factors may condition the way you bowl. Sometimes it is the way the batsman is playing, or the areas in which he is looking to score. Too often, I see bowlers who are reactive in their field setting. The key to success is to try to read where a batsman wants to score. You can then choose to bowl to their strength and protect that part of the pitch reducing their run scoring capacity, or alternatively look to make it difficult for them to score in their particular zone.

One of the most critical areas a bowler needs to master though is their understanding of the pitch they are bowling on. One thing I try to do early on in any spell is to read the pace of the pitch. I suppose what I mean by this is that I try to test to see if the ball is coming onto the bat, whether there is bounce in the wicket or whether it is skidding on. By identifying this early, it can then give you a clue as to the best line, trajectory and speed of delivery that might be most productive in that situation. If you are inflexible in the way you can deliver the ball and adapt to your surroundings, it makes it much harder to be consistently successful as a bowler.

Once you have mastered the pace and bounce of the pitch you can then start to think carefully about the length to bowl. We talk heavily on the pitch and in the dressing room about ‘bowling a good length’ or ‘back of a length’ or a ‘full length’, but do players and bowlers actually understand what that means? Back of a length on one pitch may be different to that on another surface. With young players in particular, this terminology can be a little confusing. Perhaps what we should really talk about to bowlers is the shot we want the batsmen to play. “I want you to draw him forward but don’t let him drive you”, may be a better way to prescribe the particular length of delivery we are looking for. After all, it may change from batsman to batsman. I would hazard that James Taylor would have a different stride to Kevin Pietersen!

With a talented young group of bowlers forming at Kimberley, I hope that my experience can be of use as they start to establish themselves as 1^st XI bowlers over the coming seasons.

What is a 'good' pitch?

“How are the first team getting on?”, “They scored 320-4 off their 50 overs”, “Must have been a good wicket!”. It’s a conversation heard on many a cricket ground during the season. Yet is it really a good wicket? Surely what you actually mean is “that must have a been a good wicket to bat on!”

We all know that cricket is a batsmans game. I regularly have this conversation with my dad, pleading how unfair it is, and he regularly reminds me that people come to watch batsmen and not bowlers. Yet surely what matters as a spectator is the game being close rather than lots of runs being scored on a pitch as flat as a pancake.

Finding the right balance is always the challenge. As a bowler, while it is nice when the pitch offers you a lot of assistance, you also acknowledge that it is not fun watching one team get 70 all out while the other team struggle to chase it. What you really want is a wicket which rewards a bowler when they keep the ball in the right areas consistently enough. You just want it to do ‘a little bit’ so if you bowl well then the batsman is kept under pressure.

Getting this balance is crucial to keeping the equality in the battle between bowler and batsmen. After all, surely winning sports matches is about who has the best team, not just who has the most aggressive batsmen on a flat deck.

At Kimberley, we are renowned for producing ‘good wickets’. It is probably fair to say that generally conditions at Kimberley favour the batsman with the size of the boundaries and the fact the ball comes nicely on to the bat. However, it is very rare that as a bowler you don’t feel that you have something in it for you. As long as you maintain that status quo, it generally makes for good cricket matches.

Just because a wicket is easy to bat on, is it a good wicket?

There is no doubt that over time, cricket has definitely moved in the direction of helping batsmen. Whether it be big steps such as the advent of covered wickets, or the improved condition of bats, to smaller but still significant factors such as the two new white balls in ODI’s removing the bowlers ability to reverse swing the ball, and keeping the ball hard for 50 overs. In addition, umpires will abscond any bowler who slightly incurs on the pitch during follow through, yet a batsman is allowed to disturb the surface as much as he or she likes with their ‘gardening’.

Despite this, it is pleasing to see during the last week two excellent bowling performances for England putting them into this weekends Champions Trophy Final. Yet, many would complain that this was not down to them but actually a poor pitch with seamed and spun a little too much, the weather which helped the ball swing, and the South African bastmen who choked. Or maybe, just maybe, the bowlers bowled well…

Is it still possible to be a 'One Club Man'?

With football dominant in the British media, June and July always prove to be challenging months for the national broadcast and print journalists as they have to actually look beyond ‘our national game’ for stories to fill their papers. Yet despite this, it is still difficult for cricket or any other sport to knock a football story off the back page, even when an Aussie opening batsman is throwing out punches in Birmingham bars.

June and July are very much the month of the big summer transfer, and whether it be Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney or Jose Mourinho, the papers are full of speculation of who is moving and where they are going to. For football, the summer transfer has long been the norm, as players look for pastures new and managers and coaches try to bolster squads.

Growing up in Lancashire and playing in the Northern Cricket League, transfers between clubs were very rare. You very much played for your local club, and once you had done so, you didn’t play anywhere else. Of course there were people who moved in and out of the area, so teams were renewed, and the odd person did move between clubs, but it was quite controversial when people did.

Having lived and played in the East Midlands now for nine years, I have been amazed at how easily people move between clubs within the same league, particularly in Nottinghamshire. This is no doubt partly down to the geographical tight nature of the league (the Northern League was stretched over a much larger distance and so swapping clubs was always harder), but as Jon Terry said to me during the week, it is almost as though the era of the ‘one club man’ is over.

I was very lucky to have been brought up playing cricket at Lancaster. A club steeped in history, it was great to come through the ranks from 4^th team to the 1^st team, and during that process, play alongside many senior players who previously been first team stalwarts. I can still remember playing in the fourth team with former first team legend Rodney Webb at Ripley St Thomas School at the age of 12, then with my dad in the second team before making the breakthrough into the first team. The role of the senior players in the club was not only to play at the highest standard for themselves, but also to put something back into the club when it was time for them to move aside. They did this by taking on roles as senior players in the second and third teams, adding that competitive drive, but also the experience and advice that young players could learn from.


In my early days I played for Lancaster 4th XI at Ripley St Thomas School



In recent weeks we have seen a number of mid-season transfers within the league, as players try to better the standard of cricket that they are playing. I would never begrudge anyone wanting to play at the highest standard they can. However, it is important that players remember their roots, and when the time comes, return to take on that development role that is so crucial in bringing through the next generation. I for one, would be more than happy to be back playing at Ripley St Thomas or Basil Russell one day, knowing I have had a hand in developing a future Premier League star.

It's just not cricket. Is it?

Saturday was obviously a hugely disappointing result for us coming off the back of a run of such positive matches. While I don’t think we rested on our laurels, Welbeck were certainly very fired up and perhaps wanted it more than we did. They outplayed us in the first ten overs of each innings, firstly through Jake Ball’s bowling and then Martin Dobson with the bat, and they were well worth their win at the end of the day.

When your up against it in a game like that, you have to look for any positives you can take out of the match, and when we removed Martin Dobson with the score on 90, we thought we might just be able to sneak a point. Our hopes were raised further when the new batsman knocked the cover off the ball when trying to tickle it down the leg side, and Sam Ogrizovic took the catch. To the fielders disbelief the umpire said no, and we were unable to make another breakthrough.

I have no issue with the umpire giving the ball not out, after all, he can only give what he sees and hears. However, as a batsman, should you walk when you know you have hit, as this lad did? It is an age-old question of sportsmanship that goes right back in time. Some people are ‘walkers’ others are not. Some ‘walk’ when its obvious but hang about when it is subtle.

Cricket is often held up as a game of morals in which players, play in the famous ‘spirit of the game’. Indeed, the Lords Taverners and the MCC pride themselves on taking this spirit of the game message around the world as a model for sporting behaviour. Yet when we look closely, how much of cricket now really encompasses sporting behaviour?

Let us look first at a couple of examples. The recent ODI that I watched on TV at Southampton had two incidents where the third umpire was needed to decided on whether a fielder had touched the rope. On both occasions the fielder was adamant that they hadn’t, and the TV footage was at best inconclusive. Yet the decision, was four runs on both occasions, challenging the fielders honesty. This has been seen too witch catches in the field being disallowed as the TV footage makes it look like the ball bounced, when we all know that sometimes it just lands on the fingers.

 

Is the third umpire to blame for damaging the spirit of cricket?

This challenging culture now permeates everything within our game at the top level. Yes we want to make sure the decision is correct, but does it set the right example to those playing at a grass roots level. When I grew up it was very rare for players to challenge other players on the validity of a dismissal or a piece of fielding. It was accepted that people were honest. Of course, on occasions some were not, but it was deemed that the weight of that on their conscience would be punishment enough. Nowadays it is quite common to see a batsman stand his ground, or for players to ‘try and get away with it’ due to the win at all costs culture that we have created.

I am not saying that this is wrong, or that I have not been party to such behaviour (anyone who has seen me on a coaching hockey on the touchline will know I look for every advantage possible!). I do however think it is time for the MCC to stop patronising people about the Spirit of Cricket, as at the moment, I struggle to understand what that really means.

I leave you with this… If you get a little snick on Saturday, will you walk or wait for the umpire to make a decision? I won’t judge you.

Heads of Tails?

As I was away last week I asked our scorer Rob Naylor to write on my behalf. Here is his article on the toss...

Greetings from the Scorebox.

As Gloves is away this week he has asked me to step in and offer my thoughts and I suppose an introduction is needed: I’m Rob Naylor and on a Saturday I score for KICC’s 1^st XI.

The Bank Holiday weekend was a good one for the Club as three of our four teams recorded positive results on Saturday. It certainly proved a particularly fruitful one for the 1^st XI as they picked up 36pts from a possible 40; a hard fought winning draw away at Farnsfield was followed up on Monday by a fairly comfortable 109 run victory over Papplewick & Linby at home and, after a quarter of the season, we find ourselves 5^th in the NPL table.

Anyway on with my choice of subject: The Toss. Now of course winning the toss doesn’t always guarantee success and it can lead to some poor calls; just ask Nasser Hussain or Ricky Ponting about their decisions at Brisbane in 2002 or Edgbaston in 2005. Even with that in mind it has long puzzled me why such an arbitrary method - that bears no relation to a team’s ability - is used to decide who gets to bat or bowl first in a cricket match; a wrong call by the Captain and a side finds themselves put in on a damp pitch or bowling first on a flat deck that offers nothing and having to watch the opposition pile up the runs and then face scoreboard pressure when they eventually get to bat.

For instance on Saturday Sam won the toss and opted to bat first on a good track and, thanks to an excellent opening stand of 145 from Paldip Sidhu and Jon Terry (both making 75) and a blitz at the death from James Mann (43*), he was able to watch the team post an impressive 259-5 and know that the pressure would be on Farnsfield to score at a tad over five-an-over to have a chance of winning the game. Arguably there is plenty of pressure in setting a good score, but the pressure of chasing certainly took its toll on several members of the Farnsfield middle-order as they got themselves out trying to force the run-rate against the slow bowlers.

So, how could the toss become less of an arbitrary affair? Well – get rid of it! The late, great cricket writer and commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins in his 2007 MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture talked about a bidding system and this has always interested me; the idea that, for instance, upon arriving to find a damp pitch and dull overhead conditions the two captains would propose how many runs they would wish to concede in order to bowl first on such a wicket. One captain says 30, the other 35 and with the winning bid he would then have the choice of batting or bowling. Of course such ‘bidding’ would have to take place in secret, perhaps placed in sealed envelopes, and be submitted to the umpires who then reveal what each captain has bid and go from there.

Without the time or space to go into greater detail I fully accept that there are of course many pros and cons to such a system, but I think that it could be made to work and it would certainly make decision making at the start a much more thoughtful and intriguing affair with captains, coaches et al having to get a good read on the pitch and conditions. There’s no doubt that many already try to do this, but come Saturday the question of batting or bowling will still rely on choosing a head or tail.

Finding the Pressure Points

This weekend saw one of the most dramatic finishes to a cricket game I have experienced in quite a while. I suppose the real drama of it was mainly created by the speed at which Clifton capitulated from a seemingly unassailable position. My last memory of such a turnaround was when I played at Loughborough University in BUSA Final. There, it was Durham University who were cruising towards our modest total when suddenly they embarked on a self-destruction mission. We always joked that they had their victory cigars on a half price sale the next day. Yet how can teams lose matches from such a comfortable position?

Cricket is such an unusual sport. I can’t think of many others like it other than perhaps Baseball or Rounders, which combine the adversarial individual battle of ‘me against you’ within a team context. Yes you are playing within a team, and you are reliant on your teammates to support you when fielding and batting (making sure they don’t run you out!), but ultimately it is a contest between batsman and bowler. Others would also argue that is as much a battle with yourself as it is with your opponent, stating the famous adage that ‘cricket is 90% in the mind and 10% in ability’.

The fielding team can put a batsman under pressure

Does this explain though how we can get such dramatic swings? Well a huge part of playing any sport is the ability to perform under pressure. This is an area which is traditionally associated with the field of sports psychology but it is just as much about training methods as a whole. The reason we practice the repetition of skills is so that when we need to draw on that particular aspect of our game, it becomes tacit, and stands up to the scrutiny of competition. Much of training is geared around repetition, but as players and coaches, how much of that repetition is high quality? Do we spend enough time repeating the skills that should be core to us? Only when we do this can we expect to perform well under the scrutiny of pressure.

Yet what creates a pressure situation? Surely Clifton on Saturday at 117-2 needing 148 to win would have felt little pressure with the target so close and men left in the shed. What they probably started to do, was concentrate on the scoreboard and less on the execution of batting well. We suffered the same fate last week at Sandiacre. With an ugly pitch, rain in the air, and a high quality attack, as batsmen we were probably worrying less on ‘batting’ and more on the excuses we might have for getting out. As wickets then started to tumble, the bowling side can make you feel like you are doing worse than you probably are. It is only the most mentally robust batsmen who can shut out those external factors, and concentrate on playing the ball as they see it. I am not saying that batsmen should not play to the situation they face, this is something that is critical to success. The skill though, is can they accurately read the situation they are going into and react accordingly.

On Saturday, when we were 15-3, Dominic Brown and James Mann batted slowly, yes, but intelligently, as they recognised the importance of building a partnership at all costs. That was being mentally robust. Thankfully for us, Clifton missed that trick, and as well as Atif Sheikh bowled, we should not have really won that game. If we can continue to win the mental battles through the season, it should be worth some points, Saturday being a casing example.  

Is it time to call time on tea time?

As the rain hammered down on Saturday afternoon, frustrated cricketers around the country spent the day looking for things to do to keep them from boredom. With such a young side at Kimberley, it is normally the case that the changing room becomes a ‘play area’ with different versions of one-hand-one-bounce, slip catching, and football keeping the young pups occupied!

For myself and Sam on Saturday, we were able to enjoy the build up to the FA Cup Final, where his fiancée Victoria was singing Abide With Me and the National Anthem as part of her brilliant classical group Amore (they are definitely worth a listen!).

Losing time in a cricket match though is always a frustrating experience, as the reason everybody gives up their time on a Saturday, as well as their match fee, is to come and play. While I love a good game of changing room cricket, it is not the same as being out in the middle. One way that we often try to ‘save’ a bit of time in the game on a rain day, is to take tea early. It is this that has got me thinking this week.

What on earth are we doing have tea in the middle of a sporting match? On the face of it, it is just ludicrous that we stop the game then sit down to have a meal at an arbitrary point in the fixture. Could you imagine a 30 minute half time in the Six Nations or Premier League where both teams sat down to eat a nice spread of sandwiches, crisps, pizza and cakes before heading out for the second half? Or Sir Chris Hoy chomping on a some sausage rolls and chips with his cycling opponents in between sprint heats at the Olympics? It would hardly fit into the ‘marginal gains’ approach of Sir Dave Brailsford. Yet at over 6,000 cricket grounds around the country each week, we put down our bats, balls and gloves and break off for a nice spot of tea.

A typical cricket tea involves sandwiches and cakes

Some would say that this is an institution that is vital to keeping the traditions of our sport going. But that is just poppycock. Sport, and cricket in particular, are constantly evolving to meet the needs of its participants, and also their desires to maximise their performance. Quite frankly, an arbitrary tea break, does not meet those requirements in the vast number of situations. I would like to add at this point that this article is by no means a slight on the quality of the teas at Kimberley (which are exceptional, especially Karen’s chocolate cake) or on any of the teams in the Nottinghamshire Premier League. My argument is however a simple one, move the meal until after the game.

If the main tea was taken after the game, players would not only be able to eat without the worry of participating immediately after, but they could do so in a much more social environment, where they could have a (soft) drink and reflect on the game with the opposition. It would put an end to the real shame of teams, rushing off at the end of fixtures and encourage them to socialise with opponents, something that has sadly been lost from our sporting landscape.

So what would players and umpires do for food during the day I hear you scream!? Well I imagine the players they would do what they do one the other six days of the week, and eat when they want to making their own arrangements. For instance, an opening bowler might choose to eat a sandwich or spot of pasta they brought with them during the first innings if his team are batting first, while the opening batsman can eat when he is out. For umpires, a small spread could be provided to keep their energy levels up, and all players would be able to get some biscuits and cups or tea mid innings.

I know cricket is a game steeped in tradition, but in my opinion this is one tradition that needs to be evolved.

Now we are warming up for the cricket season, is it time to stretch ourselves?

Now we are a couple of weeks into the season, the initial excitement of being back outside on the cricket pitch has started to wear off and the realisation has kicked in that we need to work hard on the training ground if we are to reap the benefits on the Saturday’s.

I have been trying to run our training sessions differently this year, placing emphasis on high quality repetition, and practising with a clear focus on outcomes. The players seem to have responded well so far, and hopefully as the season goes on, that hard work will begin to pay off.

One area that I think we can develop both at training and prior to the matches, is the way we warm-up. This year I have been lucky enough to be part of the Nottinghamshire County Council Talented Coaches Scheme. During the past week as part of the scheme, I attended a session run by Sport981 on injury prevention and performance preparation. I found this a most eye-opening experience, particularly with regard to stretching.

Stretching before and after a game is considered
a must, but how much care do we take with it?

I have always found warming up for cricket a peculiar process. If you think of a typical invasion game such as rugby, football or hockey, your warm-up can be timed and planned around the fact that all players will soon be engaged in dynamic movement activity. Therefore a programme of stretching, pulse raising and sport specific practice routines can be planned to ensure players are at the perfect point of arousal prior to the match. It still bemuses me a little that Premier League footballers do all that preparation prior to a game then at half time, sit down for 15 minutes where their muscle temperature drops by up to 2 degrees and the body switches off from activity, and do nothing to prepare fully for the second half. Some research has suggested that is why injuries are common in the first ten minutes after half time as players muscles get back up to speed.

If we take the way we warm-up for cricket for example, this same problem can be accentuated by a few hours! We can spend 40 minutes doing a thorough warm-up then find out from the skipper “right boys, were batting first”. Suddenly, it is back to the pavilion and put your feet up for a couple of hours. Then bang, a couple of wickets, and you’re at the crease.

So how could we prepare more thoroughly? Well one of the techniques exposed to me during my session this week was the use of Self Myofascial Release or SMR. This technique usually involves a foam roller, or even a cricket ball, and is used to help stretch muscles and relieve tension in tight muscular groups. If done in combination with thorough dynamic stretching, and on a regular basis, it can improve muscle movement, increase the power base, and most crucially reduce the chance of repetitive injuries.

It is certainly an interesting question though why we all warm-up for cricket in the same way we would for playing football? Should we not start to plan our preparation around the different roles we are likely to play? Should a batsman go through a full warm-up routine as he prepares to go in next? Should the bowlers not have a lighter tea and hit the field for a warm-up earlier if you are fielding second (I know some who would not be keen!)? These are all questions I am considering as we look forward to an exciting double header this weekend, where a cool down is definitely on the agenda on Saturday evening!

What does Alan Hansen know anyway?

This weekend I achieved a career first. As I looked around at the squad assembling for our team warm-up at Quarndon on Sunday, I realised that I was in fact the oldest player in the team. While this admittedly was a blow to my self-esteem (I always pride myself on being ‘down with the kids’), it also emphasised to me the youthful vigour that is filling the Kimberley dressing room this season.

Alan Hansen famously said that “you will never win anything with kids”. As a Manchester United supporter, I was of course delighted to see Fergie's Fledgling's rip apart that ludicrous assumption in the 1995-96 season as a team filled with Beckham, Scholes, Butt, Giggs and the Neville brothers romped to a league title. To be fair to Hansen, his statement was perhaps more driven out of the fact that it was a big surprise for Ferguson to sell Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis in the summer before the season began.

Alan Hansen back in 1995 made his statement after United lost their opening
game to Aston Villa. They went on to do the double of Premier League and FA Cup.

Similarities can be drawn to our position at Kimberley. There is no doubt that Hansen would be looking at us and thinking, ‘well how are they going to replace the likes of Birch, Patel and Wright’. What Alan missed back in 1995 however, was something that one of my favourite coaches, Australian Ric Charlsworth, summed up beautifully in his book, The Coach. For Charlsworth, building successful teams requires a blend of ingredients with one of the most important things being to ‘ignore youth at your peril’. There is no doubt that this year we have taken that philosophy to the max!

Its success is dependent on something else that Alan was unable to see in the August of 1995, and that is the quality and hunger of the group of young players. Having worked through the winter in my new capacity as Coach with these boys, and seen them in the first few games of the season, I have huge confidence that they can go on and put in some head turning performances this season. What is going to be the litmus test for the group though, is can they do it under pressure and crucially,  when it counts.

So far, the results have been promising. At 2 for 2 on Saturday, it did look a little bleak, but a brilliant 112 from 20 year old Paldip Sidhu and assured 42 from 18 year old Dominic Brown took us to a position from which we could compete. Off spinner Alex King, at just 19 years old, took 7 wickets across the weekend, and on Sunday 16 year old Harry Ratcliffe put in a faultless performance behind the stumps. With other vital contributions from the likes of Dominic Wheatley, who steered us home on Sunday, and from James Mann, who set up the platform for that success, there are signs that these young players have got what it takes to turn potential into wins and points.

There is no doubt it will be a season with ups and downs. Our challenge is not to get too low when we struggle or believe our own hype when things go well, but to look to learn something from every game. If we can do that, maybe we can surprise a few people along the way.