Best yet

This evening's youth match for the under 9 age group proved to be their strongest display yet. Playing against a strong side who made no bones about approaching the game to win rather than give everyone a go we managed to restrict them to an attainable target and were unlucky to fall short. Some strong bowling spells from each pair in the first innings made me proud as their coach whilst the best batting score that they have so far achieved was the icing on the cake. A good deal of their parents were able to come along and support them in their venture which I'm sure helped them. It's matches like this; the excitement on the kids faces and the pride displayed by their parents that makes all this worthwhile.

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow

A wet evening almost saw the end of another colts match but with a little perseverance we managed to get the game through to a result...

...not the one we wanted but still a completed game.

The lads were, to be blunt, a little disappointing tonight. Their fielding let them down albeit in the rain and their batting left a lot to be desired with only 10 and 11 avoiding a dismissal. Although costly in terms of the runs we could have scored the youngest player in our side this evening was the only one to play with a straight bat in the way that we have been coaching them. To his credit he stayed at the crease for 10 overs. It was his first game, playing against kids 3 years his senior, but it was definitely a promising start. If he continues in that vein he will become a good player.

Flawed Prospect

We have a young player at our cricket club who will I'm sure become an absolutely fantastic cricketer; the sky is indeed the limit.

The only flaw is that he has a slight skip in his delivery stride as he comes into bowl which I have now made it my mission to fix. Getting a bowler to remove a habit like this is a notoriously hard thing to achieve so I have my work set out but fortunately he is young enough to allow for this to be done and keen enough to learn, making me believe that this is not beyond him or indeed myself.

Please wish me and him luck :)

A club feel

Tonight's coaching session went well with the younger kids playing a little match and the older ones in focus groups moving between the different aspects of the game.

What was more encouraging was the parents coming into the clubhouse and using the bar and perusing the many photgraphs displaying our proud history. Many thanks to Pritts for ensuring that they were all welcomed including the cups of tea and coffee he served to the Mums.

Mayhem

I turned up to the coaching session about 30 minutes early to get prepared as I knew we were at least one coach down. 3 of the lads turned up about 15 minutes early so I went back into the clubhouse to get the kit out. By the time I walked out the front door again there were 18 or 20 kids standing there all asking different questions simultaneously, their parents all wanting to pay the fees, subscription or purchase the kit! As more kids turned up I started to panic, here I was on my own with 33 kids potentially about to cause havoc unless they were given some direction. There are as few simple fielding drills which can include all the kids at once so I started with one of those just to make sure that they were active, I asked all the parents if we could deal with monies at the end of the session and then kept my fingers crossed that one of the other coaches would turn up early.
Thankfully Herman and DelBoy turned up fairly quickly and we were able to break the horde down into more manageble groups. The session turned out to be a roaring success, the kids loving the little games we set up and the parents sat on the sideline watching. We had something like 10 or 12 new kids turn up this week and we also had a good number of the existing group sign their forms. What had started as a desperate effort to introduce a few kids to cricket at our club has become a strong and ever growing youth section with some very promising players. I'm proud to have been instrumental in the success so far and I'm sure that all the kids will be doing me proud out on the field each week. To all that have helped me in this endeavour I pass my hearty thanks.

Organisation

There were 3 elements to my day. Coaching, Training and Drinking. Each believe it or not required a huge amount of organisation with only one of them working out positively for me.

The coaching session that we ran today went like a dream. We had 18 players turn up this week which shows that it was worth persevering back in the weeks where we were only getting 6. There is nothing better than seeing the kids improving week on week. We are getting such a great group of players and I can honestly say that it is a privilege to be able to work with them. It's a credit to their parents and schools that these children are keen to make friends with every newcomer and are just as quick to offer some advice of their own when their peers are struggling or when the younger ones don't understand. The group already have a team spirit about them and are clearly enjoying the game. I cannot wait for the season to start and to see them out on the pitch in their first few matches.

Training on the other hand was a palaver. I was bowling pretty well for me but when it came to be my turn to bat all hell broke loose. One player in particular was arguing the case that he wanted to bat in the net which admittedly would have suited his ability better. The issue though was never there to start with. He had expressed his wish to bat in the net to another player who had stated quite clearly that he was not in a position to make a decision, no one person was in charge. Each week any player who wants to bat in either net need just say that they are padding up to bat in whichever net they choose. Normally this works itself out based loosely on a mix of who turns up first and ability. Granted this can often leave one net sparse on potential batsmen and the other denying players more time but this is a sacrifice that I think most batsmen are prepared to take on the basis that a short period of time facing good bowling is better than only being able to play 1 in 3 balls. This time though the argument raged on until I lost my temper and said that I would bat in the weaker net just to shut people up and make sure that the aggrieved party didn't leave the nets as he was threatening. This just caused more mayhem when someone started complaining that I was taking too long to pad up for a net session that was as good as a waste of my time anyway! I wish I could have bitten my tongue but I didn't. I let him have it with both barrels and surprisingly it had the right effect. Everyone I think was a little surprised at my outburst as I am not normally the sort of person to air my feeling so openly, but they all seemed to end the disputes and get back on with training without too much trouble. My thanks to brother's PL and AL for moving nets for a while to offer me a more challenging session, something that I wouldn't have expected from them.

My day was topped off by a well planned evening falling into ruin before we even got there. The plan had been to get some of the old school gang out for a few quiet beers and a good catch up. Some of the guys couldn't make the initial start time and with the Israel vs England game being televised so early we decided it best to move the meet to 20:30. The next one was my fault, timings went out the window as I was trying to get the coaching kit tidied away and a quick call to Kryten saw the meet at the pub moved to 21:00. Sinbad, who couldn't make it originally, called me and asked to poach a lift. This set things back somewhat as directing him and then giving up and heading out to find him turned into a nightmare. We eventually caught up and made it to the pub by about 21:45. I got a round in and then tried to settle down for a quiet drink and a good chat with friends but Sinbad's mood was odd and he seemed to get louder and louder in what was clearly a quiet pub. I got more uneasy as the time passed, having that feeling that people kept looking over to find out what the upset was. I eventually gave up and made arrangements to get him home. He was clearly upset by something and the only way he could cope with it was to act up in this way. This was really out of character for him, I just hope that he is OK and will get in touch with him tomorrow to make sure.