After yesterdays win we were given then morning off. But then we had a recovery session in the afternoon. I then had the pleasure of Mad Max, our trainer who also does the massages, it was a tough 30 mins but I felt much better after it.
We had a full squad training session at our home ground, we started with a long warm up then played a game of touch rugby. The youngsters play against the oldies and it is taken very seriously!
Just before I was heading into bat our keeper was hit in the head by one of the young quicks, he had blood all over his face and ended up having to go to hospital to have it stitched up. Not a nice thing to see!
We spent the afternoon chilling out, drinking plenty water. We had been told to drink plenty as our game on Sunday is meant to played in very hot weather.
The morning before the semi final we had an optional training session indoors. I was happy with all the bowling I had been doing so I headed in to have a session with the coach so I could work on my batting. Once training was finished I went and watched some grade cricket with a few of the boys here.
Game day is here and as I left home at 9.00am I realised it was going to be a very hot day – the temperature was high even at that time! We had to get to the game early for a photo for the local paper here and after that we had a very short warm up trying to stay out of the heat as much as we can.
We lost the toss and were sent into bat on a wicket that didn’t look as if it was going to help the bowlers at all. We managed to start well with Bob Nicola again getting 89, Dean Browlie hitting 70 and some good hitting at the end from Andrew Ellis got us to a good total of 261.
Then it was our turn then in the sun – so hot! They started very well with Lou Vincent going very hard from the start. After 15 overs they where 130-1 and they then decided to take their batting power which was going to go two ways – they could get 50 and the game would be pretty much over or we could pick up a few wickets and we would be right back in it.
Well, it went our way. I bowled my first four over’s for 20 then coming back picked up their number three who was caught behind. They got to 180-4 needing 100 and we needed to break their established partnership. I came back on and managed to get their captain, Hopkins, caught at fine leg which left them needing 60 runs with 3 wickets left.
I had two over’s left to bowl so Fults (our captain) brought me back with 8 overs to go. I managed to bowl Tuffey with a Yorker then had Adams caught behind two balls later. I had my first chance to get a one day 5 wicket haul bowling at the man they call the walking wicket, Chris Martin, I bowled it full and straight but he managed to get his bat on it. Frustrating! He was bowled the next over so we managed to get them out for 221.
This now meant we got the week off to prepare for the final next Sunday.
Today was a rest day so I didn’t do too much. I had to see team physio at 10.00am and then spent most of the day talking to Kat sorting through more things for the wedding.
Another day off but a few of us got together and completed a cycling session with Mad Max then went through a core session with him. He then informed us we had a beach session in the morning at 9.00am – we knew it would be tough!
I got picked up by our keeper Reece Young and we headed for Sumner beach and as we are driving there it starts pouring with rain so we are thinking there might not be too much running on the beach going on! As we got closer to the beach the rain stopped it was very windy and reminded me very much of a winters day in the north east, it was very cold! We started with a long run along the beach followed by some sprint work then a game of beach touch rugby.
It was the first time this week we had all been together so we went through the Auckland team talking about their players strengths and weaknesses. It was handy as we had played them the week before so we had something to work with.
We then headed out for a warm up, we had a centre wicket session. I got through eight overs in the middle then had a long bat trying to work on hitting the ball at the death of an innings!