Ah rats' cocks. The pitch, by council standards, was just about ok (again the rain had taken a lot of sting out of it). The bowling was mostly terrible. Three batsmen had already made 50 and retired (thank Christ, otherwise there'd have been carnage). I'd got to about 30 at a run a ball with no trouble whatsoever, but with 9 overs to go and only one wicket down I figured I had to hit out. I tried for four overs, and barely connected once, other than the occasional edge past the stumps. I scored much slower than if I'd just batted normally, and ended up with 38. Not a disaster, but a 50 would have been nice.
Earlier in the season I'd made 46 off 25 balls, so I know I can do this sort of thing...what went wrong? Really dunno. The pitch wasn't the easiest for full-on slogging - we'd scored quickly off the many bad balls, not by hitting through the line - and everyone else's attempts down the order at smacking it came to nothing. I guess the earlier innings was based on proper shots, whereas in that situation I was just trying to hoon the lot for six. It was probably the right thing to do, I just wasn't quite good enough. I got caught up on reverse hitting the spinner into the big space behind square on the off side, when actually using my feet to him might have been the more sensible choice. I was either thinking about the shot - which put me off the shot I was playing - or trying to play the shot, and missing.
Worse was to come in the field - two dropped chances, to go with one in the last game. One was a slip chance down by my ankles which I just wasn't ready for, and then an absolute shocker at deep midwicket. The problem's simple: hard hands. The solution: I have no idea. Chuck me the ball in training and I'm usually ok - not great, but I can hold the simple ones. Still, good fun, though our team really need to get some new oppositions....we've improved beyond recognition in the course of a couple of years. We still know how to take a photo though....
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