Your Cricket Jaz's Cricket Diary

[Jaztheman]

Well, was going to make one of these last year but I decided against playing for a club. However this year I am joint captain for school and am going to try out for a local side. A friend that plays for the local sides U15s and Men side said I'd probably get into both teams which would be great. I have my first training session tonight at my local club so hopefully that will go well and I'll impress. My first cricket match for School is on Thursday and we will no doubt get thrashed as our team is pretty poor; bar a few players. It's going to be a rollercoaster ride...

Details:

Hand: Right
Bowling type: Right Arm Fast Medium(for age)
Batting type: Very agressive batsman but against quality bowlers I play alot of defence
Batting Number: Anywhere from 3-5 depending on where I want to put myself.
Bowling Number: Open the bowling for School

 

[Jaztheman]

Monday 18th May

Went along last night and there was only around 9 people there - perfect size to get myself into it. There were quite a few players missing obviously, but at least I could get in there whilst the group was small. All we basically did was a bit of fielding, catching and attempting to perfect the on drive; that was a laugh to say the least!

My on drive was going well, I think, but I seem to flick it off my legs too much and have to really get my head down to drive it. Got training on Wednesday for school and then a match on Thursday for school, which should act as practice for the drive, hopefully. Also might be having a match for Southend CC next week which would be quality. Saying that, I'm a bowler and they haven't seen me bowl yet so would have to take the word of three people there that know me; dunno if they would. We'll soon find out but hopefully we'll have nets soon and I can strut my stuff.

 

[Jaztheman]

Wednesday 20th May

A school training session devised by myself and the other co-captain would mean that we would train up the keeper whilst all other players would focus on their specialised talent. This didn't go to plan however as everyone came over to what we were doing and being stubborn, which comes with being from Essex, I guess. We ended up letting them all bowl and bat with myself giving the wicketkeeper some practice with the gloves. I was bowling pretty darn well and when showing the other players how to play an on drive, defensive and playing a shot down the ground straight back to the bowler, I noticed my batting had come on quite a way, technically.

After a decent session, which had the recipe right for a disaster, it was time to go home after a packed day which also included gym in the morning before school and cricket in training; just the basics. We needed the training session afterschool as we had a match today which I will post about tomorrow. It was a very mixed match, with one team winning rather easily and bar far the better team.

 

[Jaztheman]

Thursday 21st May

We got a little bit of practice in before our opponents arrived at our 'Fortress'; Eastwood was their name. I decided to not do the toss and let the other co-captain do the toss, which he won and decided to field as we had discussed earlier. We didn't expect to win the match at all. I'm just going to sum up the innings quickly as I can't be bothered to write much detail. They scored 123/3 off 16 overs but shouldn't of got anywhere near that total if our fielding was much better. My fielding was very good with me sprinting and diving at full stretch to save two boundaries but I was the only one to put much effort in. All in all; there was 9 drop catches! There were three drop catches off my bowling whilst I also had 2 lbw appeals and 4 played and misses; I was bowling the best I've done in a while. Figures of 1-24 off 4 overs weren't as good as I deserved and I should of got at least 4 wickets, but my line and length was the best I've ever got it, which is the main thing. My wicket was around the wicket to a right hander and a yorker took him by surprise and smacked his off stump; my best ever wicket. Chuffed with the bowling but disappointed by the team effort.

Onto our batting and it was basically terrible. I let myself bat at 7 as to give others a chance and valuable experience, but we found ourselves at around 30/6 when I came in to bat. Our top scorer in the top 5 was 7 runs! I entered the crease with the other co captain at the other end and knocked a single off my first ball. He then got out to put the score to 31/7. A fantastic partnership then came around as we then got the runs ticking and got to the late 40s. Ryan(other batsman) then hit a full toss straight into the air and was caught, ending our partnership. Some late slogging saw us end up on 55/9, which was not a bad score considering we were 31/7. I ended not out on 14 runs and will definitely be batting up the order in our next match. My on drive was much better after the training earlier in the week and I was finding the gaps well.

A very good match for me, but my school team was seriously... rubbish. We lost by 68 runs.