August 11, 2019

Back at my old club, Ginninderra, there was another change with Matthew Phelps taking charge as coach. Phelps, the former NSW batsman, took over from Mick Delaney, who had turned the club into a very competitive side, much like Shane Warne did with Hampshire within the early part of this millennium. Mick had been part of the club for the last three years and had quickly turned the fortunes around, which resulted in three trophies: 6th Grade in 2017-18, 5th Grade in 2018-19, and, more importantly, the Douglas Cup in 1st Grade in 2-day cricket in the same season.

With Mick joining Chris Griffin in the Cricket ACT ranks, Matthew immediately has some big boots to fill considering our recent success (especially with the club also being anointed as the Premier Cricket Club of the year). Realistically, it would be too much to expect from the club this year with this change as we need to adapt and gradually understand Matthew’s approach. Unfortunately, I’m not there to do that since I’m more focused on my game elsewhere.

It has been confirmed by MyCricket that I’m indeed a Prince Alfred cricketer, and now I’m awaiting the pre-season to start. I had learned that it will be late August and late September, and it is going to be more skills-based, which is pretty good. It would allow me to maintain my all-round skills but, hopefully, progress a bit more on the fielding.

Even though the opportunity to have a hit (while wearing contact lenses) on the ProBatter was lost due to a malfunctioning system, I still felt confident of my game after a long while. As a result of this confidence, I am targeting a double of 200 runs and 20 wickets as long as I don’t miss too many games due to family commitments, possibly injury, or match abandonments (due to wet or scorching weather). Even if I miss games due to any of these reasons, a double of 150 runs and 15 wickets will suffice this season.

Moreover, it would be nice if I could have at least one game where I trouble the scorers in all aspects. The only time to date I did that was when I captained the Canberra Workers Redbacks to a tight victory against Brewers Best in 4th Grade shortly before making the transition to Turf cricket. I still remember that game. Having won the toss and batted. I opened the batting, scoring 25 and been involved in two fifty run stands. Then, I took a catch to commence our defense of 189 in 45 overs before chipping in with two wickets in the end. Before that, I managed an all-round performance in bat and ball for Riverton Rostrata against Armadale in 6th Grade in 2013-14. I made 39 in two and a half hours of batting that lead a recovery from 3/4 and 7/60 to 148. Then I took two wickets opening the bowling and conceded just 19 runs in 11 overs, but it wasn’t enough to stop Armadale from a 2 wicket victory. So I’m hoping for similar performances this season, depending on the role I might be playing.

Aside from these number specific goals, my target is to play a bit more of 2-day cricket (availability and weather permitting). While the format would suit my game very well (particularly batting), it should also be tailored to my fitness as opposed to 1-day cricket (as past attempts for all-round performances were dented by cramp in the 2nd innings). This is because generally, one week will be batting and the other bowling or fielding. Even if I play one-day cricket, I should be responsibly hydrated enough for the cramping not to occur.

July 24 2019

I am officially a Prince Alfred Old Collegians cricketer. Adelaide University has signed off my clearance request for my transfer without any questions even though ATCA just has to act. They probably would have reckoned that I was probably better off elsewhere, given that they might give more opportunities to students. It will remain to be seen if there was going to be any banter when we face-off, but I’m mentally prepared to treat it as white noise.

I can’t really wait for the pre-season to commence. Not just because of the transfer, but also the confidence within my all-round skills are at an incredible high. With the bat, I felt like a dominator on both sides of the wicket, particularly to flighted slow bowling that allows me to come down the wicket and hit it with timing and power. It all came about via the conventional hard top-hand grip with the loose yet supportive bottom hand. It is important that since the kitbag would be untouched until pre-season, my newly formed batting routine and technique stay fresh in the memory.

Bowling wise has been steady. The fifteen paced run-up from last month has proven to be less of a hindrance to my body and my skills. Having been able to get the ball to move away and/or bounce, I had started working on an in-ducker, which is still a work in progress, but it’s a valuable ball when it all falls in place. My biggest concern though is my line, which is about a 4th/5th stump which batsmen could slash at it regardless of length. But that has been self-corrected since it all comes down to my non-bowling hand. I also managed to get the ball fuller than before, which again comes down to the non-bowling hand.

Fielding has seen some positive gains, as throwing from a conventional side-on position has provided my throws with extra power. Moreover, I have been encouraged by the coaches to study how players through from the outfield in Baseball, which does tie in with the basics conducted by Mike Young, the former Australian Fielding coach whose background is in Baseball.

The two months I spent at Gillespie Sports honing my all-round game have undoubtedly been worth it. Now it is up to me to revise what I’ve done so that I can hit the ground running at pre-season.

June 29 2019

Since the 2018-19 season had ended, I had made a conscious effort to improve both my physical fitness and technical skills (particularly in fielding). Unlike previous years where I was focusing on one superset for weight-training (in each gym session) in the BowlFit app, I tried to cram in three supersets into one gym session. The reasoning is that if I have to miss a gym session anytime, I know that I have managed to train every part of my body at least once. The progress from this as resulted in me putting on 6 kilos of muscle, which I should see that as a positive sign since I could use that to my advantage when it comes to power training.

My last trip to Perth at Easter allowed me to visit Luke at Southern Cricket again. As a result, I went from an action that was a combination of Brett Lee and Danny Morrison to a more slinging action like Lasith Malinga. The reasoning behind this is that it will generate vertical bounce and movement while also controlling the type of delivery I wanted to bowl without having to telegraph it to the batsman as I’m loading up to bowl.

In a bid to maintain the lessons learned from this, I spent the majority of my Tuesday and Thursdays after work bowling in the nets at Gillespie Sports in Edwardstown. Slowly the new action became natural to me, but it obviously required practice. I had started from a short run-up, which I thought might be the way to go for the upcoming season (since subsequent attempts to increase the run-up had reduced my effectiveness). However, one of their coaches had encouraged me to place a bit of faith in my body (as I have good lower-body strength) by increasing my run-up, which would reduce the impact of injury if I stuck by my ways. Cheers Levy. More work needed to be done, though.

Speaking of coaches, I ended up spending time with three of them working on both my fielding and batting. My first fielding session was with Steve Stubbings, the former Derbyshire player and coach (now coaching at East Torrens). He initially highlighted the importance of getting low and staying low when chasing the ball down and had put me through a series of drills, which he says that I had picked up and executed quickly than the Derbyshire players he previously coached. Cheers Stubbo. I instantly warmed up to him and wanted to work under him. Unfortunately, though, he was a top-rated coach, so I ended spending time with Stedgy honing my throwing skills. While there is more work to be done with him on this aspect next month, it is clear that if I slow down my throwing motion, I’ll be able to hit my target more often rather than spraying the ball all over the place.

The Batting coaching was initially more a trial to see how I go. In the end, I ended spending time with Nick, who grooved my head and backlift, which instantly allowed me to hit through the leg side without my head falling over. As he’s also a spinner, he was instrumental when batting against spin, which allowed me to come down the wicket or go back and across depending on the flight and length. He also helped me to commence hitting over the top effectively by explaining that it requires just a full extension of the bat. More work is to be done with him over the coming weeks so far; there have been promising signs.

Even though things have been rosy in the nets, it hasn’t been so away from it. I had initially been looking forward to the Adelaide University pre-season training and hopefully getting some opportunities. Just recently, though, I had learned that the majority of the club’s new recruits are bowlers, which meant I had to fight for opportunities as a bowler alone, which I had accepted since I had to work on my batting and fielding which might be tiebreakers for selections. Moreover, it seems that preferential treatment would be given to uni students, which obviously won’t sit well with me who is seeking consistent selection based on availability.

Till now, I had been a one-club player for a particular competition. In SMCA in Perth, it was Riverton Rostrata. In the CCSCA, it was Canberra Workers Redbacks and recently Ginninderra within the ACT Premier Cricket competition. Thereby initially, I intended to play for Adelaide University in the ATCA competition. But the thought of paying full fees and playing fewer games concerns me given the current situation. I had to look out for myself and contacted Prince Alfred, whose secretary was keen to get me on board since they’re registering a 4th 2-day team, which would be of interest to me since it’s my preferred format. All it requires now is for Adelaide Uni to sign off the clearance form within two weeks. Otherwise, the ATCA will sign and process the form themselves. At this stage, I’m likely to be a Prince Alfred player.

Pooraka vs Adelaide University at Lincoln Park Oval 2, March 16 2019

March 7, 2019

Up to now, I was confident that next season I would be training with Adelaide University; however, a comment from one of the guys rang a few alarm bells since he hasn’t been getting weekend opportunities to play probably because of his fielding wasn’t up to scratch. While I understood that because the teams were settled, I wasn’t going to get an opportunity, but I was more concerned about obtaining opportunities to play in the following seasons.

Quite honestly, I believe that if I’m available, I should be playing preferably as a frontline bowler. I have been very grateful that Ginninderra has allowed me to blossom with the ball in hand and so I was hoping more of the same this season. That comment from the other person got me thinking if there are a lot of players to fit into four teams every week, then people will have to miss out, and I don’t want to be one of them.

So I had checked out the ATCA website, go through each competition, and see which clubs are fielding the most teams this season. The standout was Goodwood with six, but Para Hills, Brighton, Multicultural Sports Cricket Club, and Prince Alfred Old Collegians stood an equal second with five. Adelaide University was in a joint third with four teams. With that in mind, I should perhaps go and train with the other clubs before the season ends. I already contacted Prince Alfred and Goodwood, and both were welcoming towards new players. It’s just a matter of deciding whom to train with on what day.

But for today, I was going to train with Prince Alfred with the expectation that I would be comfortable in their environment like I had been at Adelaide University. That’s how it panned out for me. I was grateful that they looked after me well, which allowed me to have a bit of fun batting, bowling, and fielding. Unlike Adelaide University, they had a head coach and a nets manager running the sessions, which obviously made it more structured. Moreover, I enjoyed the training on the turf wickets like I have been doing since landing here.

March 12, 2019

Today, I was training at Goodwood. I had been in touch with Nick Oag, who handled their email account and was able to get down to training once they said that they’re willing to welcome new players. Their secretary, Timothy Keen, immediately introduced himself and took my details. I mentioned that Adelaide University had transferred my details from Ginninderra, so I suggested that if Goodwood were going to play me, they would have to work it out with them. Throughout the day, I run in with good rhythm, arms pumping at the same pace as my running speed, which allowed me to load up and got incredible bounce and movement, which gave batsmen plenty of headaches, which resulted in plentiful of edges.

March 14, 2019

At the end of Tuesday’s training, I dropped a few catches, and so thankfully, Nick agreed to help me out with my slips catching today. I was grateful that he could offer advice on my set up and tinker with it so that I can take good slip catches. He also suggested how I could improve my throwing, which was very helpful indeed. It never occurred to me how vital fielding was to become until I reflected on Tuesday night. Thankfully though, when we did the 30 catches session as a team, all that practice did pay off when I was offered a one-off chance, which I took cleanly low down in front of me. Given the improvement, I should strive to give it more importance than before as better fielding, and my commitment towards it will be noted hands down by selectors.

My batting came out better than Tuesday. At the time, their coach Sam “Hooch” Turner suggested that I lowered my backlift to give me enough time to swing the bat as the bowler’s about to deliver. That advice proved to be very useful when I was able to play straight and play expansively when the ball was there with the drive.

March 15, 2019

Remarkably last night, Paul Roberts messaged me that Adelaide University intended to hand me my debut. Now that had put me in a tight spot since I was training with Goodwood that it was a possibility that they might give me a game themselves. So I had emailed Tim Keen, the Goodwood secretary, regarding the mix up because they had to right to know what’s going on. I am thankful grateful that Tim understood the situation and allowed me to play for the Uni if the opportunity arose.

Concerning my possible selection, it would have been a pleasant surprise, but I was more concerned about future seasons. Paul encouraged me not to give up since he knows that there were a few players that were no better than me that played when I wasn’t available. Moreover, he said that I should get opportunities since I’ll be more frequently available than the students in the club. He also encouraged me to work on my fielding, which the majority of the club doesn’t really do that often. Doing more fielding will not be missed by others, he says. Come to think of it, he DOES have a point. I know what I need to do, and I have to be consistent with what I need to achieve, which is to improve on my fielding. Come next season that will be one of my goals so that I’ll become more frequent selection.

As it turned out, when Luke Johnston announced the selections on Facebook, my name was indeed listed and confirms that I’ll be making my debut for the Uni in the ATCA C2 grade under Jim Peters against the bottom-placed Pooraka at Lincoln Park Oval #2. I hope to take my chance, especially with the ball in hand.

March 16, 2019

I arrived pretty early because I didn’t want to be fined for coming late. I initially did get confused by which ground we were on, but one of their guys pointed me in the right direction. The pitch had a mostly green look, which meant from experience, the pitch is going to be very flat, but I noticed that some patches were not green at all on both sides of the wicket. So perhaps there might be some hope for the bowlers.

But Omkar “Andy” Sawant (who did the coin toss since Jim was coming late from work), won the toss and elected to bat much to our delight. Theo Baker got out on the second ball, whipping a full toss straight to mid-wicket. After that, the rest of the batting order settled down with partnerships of 30, 71, 37, 56, and 31 as we powered on to 5 for 225 from our 40 overs. Mo Rafi made 17, James Kimber 61, Brad Kondakov made 42 and Tej Randhawa 25 with Jim Peters and Abhishek Gopalakrishnan not out with 65 and 13 respectively.

During the afternoon tea break, I overheard Jim telling somebody that I was going to get a bowling crack, which did please me a lot. It probably did help to come to training where he was around so he could gauge how I would go as a bowler. Just before we went out to field, Jim told me that I would be coming on as a change bowler which was pretty much my role this season for Ginninderra.

By drinks, we had them at 6 for 43 after 20 overs. Pretty much, we had the game done and dusted. But we couldn’t separate Asser and Musolino, whose seventh-wicket partnership was becoming a menace. Thankfully, Tej found Musolino’s edge that ballooned up for me to take the catch at gully. My first for the club. Despite that breakthrough, we could not bowl them out, and they finished with 9 for 110. Speaking of Tej, he kept it tight and took 4 for 8 from his nine overs.

I did get a bowl at Lachy’s end as the 2nd change bowler. I only bowled four overs, though, since we had them at six down at drinks, and Jim wanted to give Andy and Sabaresh Natarajan a bowl. But I felt I made use of the opportunity. I got the ball to move around a bit, which took several edges through and over the slips. Eventually, my wicket came. Kirkwood had appeared to deflect me into Brad’s gloves, which the umpire said it was pad first, but Kirkwood walked. So it seemed that he did hit it with the bat.

Nevertheless, it all counted. It was indeed my first wicket for the club, and it was my only wicket for the day. I wasn’t really bowling that quickly, though, since I had an overworked left calf from Wednesday’s gym session, which I wasn’t really willing to risk. But that didn’t stop me from bowling two maidens on the trot before being taken out of the attack. A spell of 4-2-8-1 was still a decent day, and I hope for further opportunities.