Warm-ups, aches, and a no-ball

This always happens: the team joins up for a tour and we are worked really hard up until a couple of days out from the first big game. And it’s been no different here. The amount of time we have been on our feet training in this last week has been more than, I would say, normal and the by-product is that there is a tired set of boys. The bowling coach wants his piece, the fielding and batting work need doing and our physical trainer wants his piece too. The schedule has been tough and it’s not about to get any easier over the next few days.

In the last two days we have played Bangladesh and Ireland in warm-up games. It was Bangladesh down here at Wormsley, where we’ve been training and then up to Derby to the County Ground to play Ireland. Both were good games for different reasons.

The Bangla game was a tight one. We let them get away to a pretty handy start with the bat through some not-so-good bowling, myself guilty of some very good and some very bad; which was also the problem in the Ireland game, but I’ll get to that soon. We pulled it back really nicely through the middle with Dan [Vettori], Nathan, [McCullum] Butts [Butler] and then didn’t do too bad at the death as well.

We needed 147 to win. Not a big score, but still one that was going to take a bit of work against a disciplined bowling attack. We needed 12 off the last over and it came down to the last ball for us to knock it off. Nathan did this in typical McCullum fashion, six off the first ball and then a four off the last to secure the win. It was a bit of a wake-up call and the review early the next morning brought forward some parts of the game where we need to take chances more rather than sitting back and hoping it will happen.

I had been bowling really well in the training game situations that we’d be doing out in the middle and then came into this game with an uneasy feeling and didn’t get it quite right. As I said I was either good or bad. And I know why; it’s never been easy for me to control some of the emotions that are needed to replicate the good things ball after ball.

As I said, we were up early for the review before heading up to Derby for the Ireland match. It was raining down here and raining in Derby when we set off. The groundsman had assured us the rain would stay away for the afternoon and we’d get a full game in; and this groundsman was right. The rain stayed away and we got a full game in.

We bowled first and I got through my first couple of overs for around six runs; a big difference from the day before. My third over wasn’t quite as good, but I’ll take the improvements from the day before. Again we tied it up really well through the middle, Dan, his normal self, and Jesse [Ryder] contributing a two-over spell for just four runs and picking up three wickets at the same time; a little game changer right there.

My death over wasn’t great. I started with a no-ball what went for four. I haven’t bowled a no-ball for quite a while and it annoys me a lot when I do, especially when it’s a free-hit to follow. I managed a dot ball on the free-hit, thank goodness, although the rest of the over was again either good or bad. A slower ball that went for six and an attempted yorker that went for four, not my best work I then finished off with two dots which I was pretty thankful for.

So we had 150 to chase. Not a bad score and it was going to take some work getting that was until Ross Taylor stepped up! Eight sixes in one innings takes you a very long way to winning game and that we did with about three overs to spare. Some of the sixes were huge; one clean over the players sheds at extra cover into a pretty strong breeze. And that was that, an ice bath for me, a warm shower, a quick meal and we were back on the bus heading back down here. I must mention Guppy's [Guptill] innings of 47 off 45 who started us off well and then took the back seat role when Ross was going off.

The bus trip was tough, my body, along with most of the others, was a bit sore and tired after two games in two days with the four-hour return bus trip.

It was an early start again this morning, straight to the ground to get some training in before Scotland took on the West Indies at Wormsley. I had a day off bowling today and was quite happy about it; my back was a little sore and tight. I got our physio to get stuck in and loosen it up. I’ll tell you, for all the pain she put me through if it hadn’t felt a lot better when I got off the table I was never going to get back on. I’ll be getting back on, I felt a whole better. Nice job Kate! I had a good bat and then we headed off to do some fielding at another ground so that game could start. I’ve always got work to do here and after we had finished I went back and did some more as I wasn’t happy with what I had got through in the session. I’ve been having problems picking up the distance of the ball off the bat. So I had a whole heap of running catches to work on. The only thing about working like this is that you sprint and catch a ball then sprint and catch another. It is a killer. I caught a couple I didn’t think I’d get to but then dropped a couple I had over-run. This distance thing is annoying me. Maybe I should have taken up the offer of getting my eyes checked when I was in Napier last.