Thursday, June 21, 2012

So I'm looking for that Facebook status update ...

And somewhere from a deviant recess in my mind comes :

"should have been wrapping my hands around something hard, woody, pink, 11 inches long and covered in rubber tonight. But I ended up getting a cold shower instead"

Perfectly innocent explanation officer ... honest :-)

Here we go :
Small confession - last night I did have my hands wrapped around something pink, hard and wooden ... We were scheduled to have another game tonight, which fell victim to the weather extremely early ... But I did a little bit of prep work for it last night.

One of the ways cricketers customise their gear is to put extra grips on their bats. More grips on top of others makes the handle a different size. I prefer having 2 and a half grips, with my preferred bat already having a handle shape that makes that half a grip.

I had been using the same orange grip as countless seasons before but my batting has been rubbish this year. That kinda called for a sacrifice. Enter the pink bat grip. I'm already using the Pink Cap for fielding :
But I had no pink stuff for batting in. Hence a minor switch in gear in search of a change of luck.

No joy with the weather though. The "cold shower" from the Facebook update was what I got walking between the office and where I'd parked the car. Absolute, horrid, torrential rain. Tonight's game was cancelled early this morning, considering it was due to be played on an artificial wicket shows how heavy the rain has been.

Bit of cricket info - to get those bat grips on needs special or not so special tools.

What you do is roll them up into a donut/torus shape and then roll the donut down the handle of the bat. Trouble is, the donut likes to squish down really small. The one I took off the bat has a hole in the middle that's barely big enough to put my finger in. However, you need to get the rolled up grip over a handle that's an inch in diameter.

Hence the tool in the first picture. It's a "proper" bat gripping tool, in other words it's a conical bit of wood that fits over the handle. Roll up the grip on the tool, fit the tool over the bat handle, roll the grip on to the bat. Jobs'a good'un.

Or you can just use a similarly tapering fitting from a vacuum cleaner. (Vacuum cleaner pipes are roughly the same size as a cricket bat handle - Spooky.)

As long as you don't do that when your mum is looking ...

PS Talking of pink stuff - CQ's Race For Life is still hungry for donations and our Thumper's going for the San Fran Avon Walk soon.

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