I’m afraid Week 2 was a little uneventful so I thought I’d spare you the extra few seconds it would take to read it! A couple of quiet training sessions and a couple of twenty minute jogs and that was that! I will just mention that we won our game convincingly on Saturday, bowling our opposition out for 180.
We had a Twenty20 competition today, it’s a new tournament in New South Wales where the winner gets to go to India and play against some of the best players in the world. So today’s a day that our club is taking quite seriously. Myself and Ben Harmison are both included in the squad. The day consists of three games so it’s a long day. I’m not involved in the first game where we fielded first, the boys had a good twenty over’s in the field and held the opposition to 124. Ben opened the batting and got us off to a good start hitting a quick fire 30. We knocked the total off with about two over’s to go.
Match two didn’t start too well for us, due to some great striking from, who else but, Mark Stoneman, who was playing for our opposition, St George. I caught him for 48, Rock can walk away happy with both batting well and nearly breaking my hand when taking the catch! They racked up a total of 160. In pursuit we get off to a good start but lose two or three quick wickets, I walk in at five and try to steady the ship whilst keeping the run rate ticking. When I feel it’s time for a boundary, I dance down at the spinner, open up and crack a scorcher over extra cover for four! Well, that was what was supposed to happen, I actually missed it and got stumped! We went on to lose my one and only game of the day.
We won our third and final match of the day, we batted first this time and posted 170 with Ben again getting us off to a flyer. They batted well in reply, keeping up with the rate before big Mitch Claydon came on for a superb four over spell, taking two wickets and reducing their run rate, allowing us to cruise home for the win, by about twenty runs!
Gym – Our first real weights session of the winter, Mitch knows a guy out here, Salvo, who’s kindly going to help us out with our sessions. He is studying Health and Nutrition, there lies the main reason for wanting to help, the other being that he also has not a lot else to do in the day and figures that three pommies, one with an Australian accent, could provide some form of entertainment. He won’t be thinking that when he’s got the three of us passing out at his feet!
CTCC Training – A good session tonight, after doing all I need with bat in hand I went off to do some fielding, It turned out to be brilliant as a fairly un-experienced fielding coach came to me and Ben to come up with some drills, looking back over our summer we came up with some of Geoff Cook and Jon Lewis’s finest! The lads loved them, the majority of them were teenagers and I must say, they picked the drills up a lot quicker than we did at the Riverside!
Today we met Salvo at the gym, a gym that unfortunately for us, includes a 25 metre pool. I say unfortunately because we were hoping to use it simply for the odd recovery session. But, I forgot to mention that Salvo enjoys a drink or two at the weekend, so come mid-week, when the fanatical fitness side of him comes out, he makes up for it. But as his unofficial training partners, we cop it as well!
We start with six sets of two lengths at every minute, myself and Mitch both start like rockets and leave Salvo in our current, however come the fifth and sixth sets the tables have turned – we find that Salvo has paced himself and it’s me and Mitch that are left behind, not swimming, more like fighting for dear life!
CTCC Training – After a good gym session during the day, training tonight was a bit disappointing, some of the nets are being re-laid so the only thing we can do tonight is fielding. I would usually be hugely keen for a fielding session but after spending the day in the field on Saturday it means I haven’t batted for a couple of weeks. However it’s not possible so fielding it is! You always get plenty of competition with little fielding drills, bringing lots of banter in all forms, Mitch comfortably taking the reward for loudest mouth!
Disappointed today as we’re washed out, a bit surprising as I didn’t think the pitch was in that bad a knick. But I have just come off a season where we would have played on ice just to get a game in especially if the sun was out!