Well, it’s now the Christmas/New Year break, and I’ve played six games across both the 5th Grade sides as well a one-off match for the 4s at the start of the season.
I would have liked to play a bit more white-ball cricket as I intended to, but my unavailabilities at times during the first half of the season counted against me. Nevertheless, when I played the one game, I got some good movement when bowling with the new ball until cramp got the better off me.
Since then, I have spent my time in both our 5th Grade sides. With the Blacks, I was opening the bowling with Simon while with the Yellows, I was a change bowler. Regardless of the role, I was handy as I was averaging exactly two wickets a game while bowling out my allocation of eight overs. The noticeable difference was the economy rate as per the below, which may be due to my differing roles.
Yellows: 3 games, 6 wickets, Average 20.33, Economy 5.04, Strike Rate 24
Blacks: 2 games, 4 wickets, Average 12.25, Economy 3.06, Strike Rate 24
Regardless of being on 10 wickets after 6 games this season, which obviously eclipsed the number of wickets I took in the same amount the games in the previous two seasons. In 2016-17, I was on 5 wickets. In 2017-18, it was 6. There was no apparent reason as to why my tally is more this season. Perhaps, I was trying to focus on my stock out-swinger, which made me more conscious of my wrist position as well as my shoulder rotations to ensure I hit a decent length most of the time.
Since the derby, I have been attempting to add a bit more speed into my bowling by trying to getting my bowling arm to ‘load’ early before delivery, which resulted in some extra bounce and movement after pitching. I consider this development to be a success considering the times when I was plagued with an illness, which restricted my run-up but not my effectiveness. Buoyed by that development, I focused on bowling the in-swinger by changing my wrist position, which brought partial success only because my direction wasn’t perfect. That remains to be a work in progress.
For now, there will be no bowling as I head overseas for the break.
Diary of a Grade Cricketer 