Game 3 - another win :-)

Had game 3 of the season tonight, here's the Twitter style match

"twitter style match report - dark sky, no rain, ages before batted, bashed quick 9, silly dismissal. Comedy fielding, got a run out, fell badly - shoulder's gonna hate me. WE WON !"

That's a quote from a Facebook update. Wonder if it would fit inside the Twitter character limit ? I don't use Twitter. I suspect with my Wall Of Text tendency, I would get irritated with the character limit very quickly. Or it might make me structure my thoughts better.

Wasn't sure if the game tonight would happen - the hot weather has broken, with cloudy and overcast dominating today. The conditions were much better today, although :

Work - better if it's cooler (and therefore cloudy)
Cricket - better if the sun's out (so you can see the ball)

The light can be a real problem for evening games, in the last few overs it can be very difficult to see the ball. Plus the sun gets very low before the light goes completely. It's one reason I wear a hat or cap, with the main reason being that it keeps my hair under control.

Yeah - actually worked out as good conditions to play in. I didn't notice any swing from their bowlers (the ball will go sideways through the air cos of "cricket strangeness") but it was nice and cool. I batted at number 3, which is a position I don't usually favour (trouble getting my mind switched on) but I think I did ok today. Bashed a 4 that could easily have been a 6 (gotta trust what the fielder says) and didn't waste too much time out there. I'm having trouble making anything from quicker bowling though. Need Deep Thought on that as my approach to scoring off them isn't working.

I helped our team along before trying to run a single to the keeper to get our better batsman back on strike. (I got run out). I think our team scored 154 off our allotted overs.

Fielding next :-)

Captain understands now that my shoulder has pretty much had it. Not sure if the team understands and it frustrates me too. Now that I have SPEED, I want to use it. I have about 90% movement from my shoulder, it's just the throwing and bowling action that's a problem. That's much better than when I got the original injury. For a few months after that, I could not pick up anything with my right arm because of ouchies when it felt like the arm was being pulled out of its socket.

That's in the past though. Now it just hurts when I throw the ball too hard or if it just feels like bitching at me. Or ... Anyway - sad thing is that while I now have SPEED, I can't throw the ball when I catch up to it. I only have maybe 1 good throw left per game and that'll hurt. So I field where I don't need to power throw. It works out, it's just frustrating.

Comedy fielding. I did better tonight but I'm still rushing the fielding somewhat. You can take too long to do something by trying to do it quicker. Run out attempt 1 saw me get the ball in the ends of my fingers, where I couldn't get a good throw away. Run out attempt 2 was better :

Batsman dabs the ball down
Sleepy sprints in and pounces
Easy one handed gather, underarm throw to wicket keeper
Perfect placement to the side of the stumps,
Keeper takes the bales off
Run out !

Sweet.

Getting run outs for the team make my day as a cricketer. It's not just that wicket, it saves more runs because it makes the other batsmen more tentative about taking you on. Oh and it also means that the Sleepy's Pink Hat Bounty fund is now at £5, which I may double to £10 per run out because they are so rare. Just gotta find out which charity the BM Girls used for the cake sale and then I'll send the Pink Hat Bounty to that after the end of the season.

Shoulder ... Ooops.

Late on in the game, I went for one that was just outside my comfortable range. So I dived ... And a dive that led with my right arm stretched out to grab the ball. I didn't quite get there and the dive saw me fall awkwardly on my right side - the side with the bad shoulder. Yeah - that hurt a bit. But I kept going with the fielding. I've only left the field through injury twice in 23 years :

Once to put knee pads on after taking 3-4 blows to the knees in quick succession
(knees felt like they were exploding)
When my nose got bashed the first time

Great fielding plus better bowling saw us to a comfortable win by about 40 runs (I didn't see the final score).

I'm on leave now so I'll be taking it easy with that shoulder. I won't know what shape it's in until tomorrow morning because the adrenaline and natural endorphin painkillers mean that unless the damage goes above a threshold, I just won't feel it.

I think I've recruited another future cricketer. One of the player's wives came along, with a 3-4 year old in tow. He got very curious about my batting gear. I think his tiny fingers managed to get to the finger part of the gloves ... just :-). My helmet almost fit him too (little big). My batting pads would have gone up to his shoulder.

ACK ! 2 minutes to midnight ! Hits "post". MWAH !

PS Another bit of amusement - one of our teammates (not playing tonight) took his dog to the ground for its walk. Friendly pooch, very curious about us. Sniffed my fingers a few times but was a bit too hyperactive to stay still long enough for a good stroking. Poor Kam though - one look at Kam and it's GROWL BARKBARKBARKBARK ... We don't know what he did ! Although it could be that he was the only one of us holding a bat.