Kimberley is Shaw of a great future after Jon's input

This weekend was a very frustrating one for us at Kimberley Institute. After a brilliant win the week before against Cuckney at the 2bm Private Ground, we really wanted to use that as a springboard to kick on and pick up some momentum. Unfortunately, despite a promising start on Saturday, and then an intriguingly balanced match on Monday, Mother Nature intervened to cut short our ambitions of two positive results.

This really has been a very wet start to the season weather-wise. Even though this time of year can be notorious for showery conditions, it has been remarkable the number of times that this has hit the weekends. Four of our six league matches so far this season have been affected by poor weather in some way.

Looking at the table, the result of this has been to keep everything very close in the standings. The good news, in theory, for us is that we have played all four of the teams that lie above us in the table. So this will now be a crucial five weeks for us as we head to the half way stage.

It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the brilliant contribution that Jon Shaw has made during his six week ‘playing holiday’. His on the pitch contributions have been well documented, and it was a pleasure to see him in action after hearing many stories of his performances over the years. However, it was actually his input on the training ground that proved to be invaluable, not only to me personally as he took on a key role in the coaching department while being here, but more so to our young lads who absorbed his input like sponges. The main thing that I hope most of our team have taken from Jon is his insatiable appetite to compete, which has not dwindled one bit.

Jon Shaw in action during his 7 wicket haul against Clifton

Jon spent a lot of time working with our young seam bowling group, and I really hope that as the season wears on, we start to really see the fruits of his labour. Jon delighted in not only working with our first eleven players, but also some of those lads coming through the 2^nd XI, and it was this care and diligence for the club he loves that demonstrates why we are very lucky to have him. It also highlights the special place that Kimberley Institute is, and that for Jon and many other people, it really is a key part of their heritage and life. As we look to the future and continue with the ambitious plans to develop the club, we must retain that fabric which makes Kimberley a special, community, family club. 

Can we 'switch' it round to let bowlers 'reverse' the trend?

With the football season now drawing to a close, the avid TV sports fans are scouring the channels to find their next fix of entertainment. Many would be daft not to take a look at the impressive road show that is the Indian Premier League, now in its seventh season would you believe.

The IPL will claim itself as the innovator in the growth of world T20 (the fact is it was in England that the game was first launched domestically, albeit on a smaller scale), and it has now seen the birth of many spin offs, Australia’s Big Bash, The Bangladesh Premier League and the Caribbean Premier League to name but a few. In fact, it has now forced the English T20 to look at a re-launch of its own domestic competition, which in its craze for more games and money in the first few years, lost its real appeal of the initial success, which was Friday night matches for all to enjoy. I for one, am looking forward to taking in the T20 Blast this weekend.

There is no doubt that the growth of T20 has accelerated the dominance of the bat over the ball. This may not be a bad thing necessarily, I know. People pay to watch batsman score fluently, and smash the ball to all parts.

Some of the more innovative developments have seen the creation of new shots, particularly with regard to ‘switch hitting’ and ‘reverse bat shots’. Just like in my other sport of hockey, reverse hitting has become a crucial component of the top level performer and has transformed the game. The terms ‘reverse’ and ‘switch’ are often interchanged to mean the same thing, but are they actually the same? For me, it is a distinctive one and it is crucial.

A reverse shot is one which is played with the hands in a traditional grip but the bat rotated as to alter the face of the stick. So for a right hander, they would keep their left hand higher on the grip than their right. A switch hit, will see the batsman swap their grip from a right hander to a left hander. By switching, it enables the batsman to swing more natural through the left hand side. A reverse shot, is a more difficult process and while it can be developed, power is harder to come by, and the range of hitting reduced.

Kevin Pietersen playing a switch hit. Notice how he effectively bats left handed.

Ian Bell playing reverse, his hands remaining in the same position on the handle.

Here Beeston's Heather Morris plays a reverse stick pass.

For me, switching is an unfair advantage against the bowler. Don’t get me wrong, it is a brilliant innovation and one that is of course a risk for the batsman as it has to be a pre-meditation, but what is in effect happening is the batsman is changing from being right handed to left handed at the point of delivery. If the bowler does this, it is called a no-ball, yet the batsman can do it without consequence. In my opinion, we can go two ways with this.

Firstly, we could allow the bowler to bowl with their other arm. Now granted, there won’t be many bowlers who could deliver effectively with their wrong arm at the moment (although I know JT has been working on his left arm delivery for 20 years), but what a great innovation that could be! After all, nobody had really seen switch hitting a couple of years ago.

My second suggestion would simply be that as soon as a person ‘switches’ then they are treated as batting the other way around. As a result, the wide rule alters to the other side, as does the LBW law. This would then add an element of risk to a switch hit, which puts the bowler on a more even keel, and gives them an option to apply a tactical approach with their line.

After all, why should it be that batsmen are the only ones to get to innovate?

Decisions, decisions, decisions!

The weekend proved to be another mixed one for us at Kimberley Institute. The 1^st XI got themselves into a strong position before a poor batting display saw us fall away to defeat. On a more positive note, the 2^nd XI won convincingly in the second leg of their double header against Bottesford and the 3^rd XI also claimed a victory in their first outing. One of the great things with this club is the way we celebrate the success of all our teams, and it has been brilliant to hear of the performances of Sukhdeep Sidhu over the last two weeks.

After starting well on Saturday with a brilliant spell of bowling from Jon Shaw, tearing through the Clifton middle and lower order, it was very disappointing to come away from the match with a defeat.  Despite some promising signs during pre-season, our batting has yet to fire in the three competitive matches we have played this season. I can promise you it is not from lack of trying or diligence at training, and once again this week the boys have been hard at work trying to get themselves into a good place ahead of another tough test this weekend.

Jon Shaw took an impressive seven wickets on Saturday

There are many different mantras of thought when it comes to ‘getting into form’. There is no doubt that it is very frustrating when you score two or three low innings in quick succession (I should know!). It can be very easy to then become very analytical with your game, trying to unpick your technique, and talking in terms of being more or less positive.

Some people work to the basis of ‘hitting their way into form’. Others like to develop an approach of trying to ‘spend time at the crease’ in order to get back in a groove. The fact is, as with most things in cricket, there are many ways to skin a cat.

One of the things that we have been focussing on heavily this week, and it is something that I am a big believer in, is hitting as many balls as possible during practice. Not only that though, we have been trying to re-create the pressures and situations we face in matches. Only by practising as we mean to play can we realistically expect what we do on a Tuesday and Thursday night to become natural to us on a Saturday.

It is important for our batsmen to treat each innings as a separate event from the last. Yes we can learn (technical aspects) from the previous knock, but there is no point in over reflecting on any dismissal. The fact is that when you get out it is for one of two reasons; either the bowler bowled you a good ball, or you made a poor decision. Occasionally it can be a mixture of both, but more often than not in club cricket, it is the later. We therefore have to work hard over the coming weeks to reduce the number of poor decisions we make. Sometimes a poor decision can be to defend a ball you didn't need to. On other occasions it might be to defend a ball you should have attacked. Sometimes a poor decision costs you runs, on other occasions it cost you your wicket.

If we can train with a match intensity, be willing to accept that a decision might have been poor even if the outcome was satisfactory, and focus our sessions on the decision making process, we can quickly get ourselves ‘in to form’. At the end of the day ‘form’ is only the ability to make good decision on a consistent basis.