Iain O'Brien's Cricket Blog

http://iainobrien.co.nz/

2009-10-15T05:37:00.006+13:00

If you didn't know, this blog has moved.

http://iainobrien.co.nz/

It contains the usual blog as well as some photos that I've been taking.

Get across and sign up or use the RSS button at the bottom left of the page to follow.

See you there.

Updates

2009-06-22T04:48:00.001+12:00

Hi all....

a quick update done just now over at http://iainobrien.co.nz/

Catch the updates too at twitter, look me up. Iain OBrien

NZ vs Scotland + India and Australia

2009-06-08T05:52:00.001+12:00

iainobrien.co.nz

Another Update - T20

2009-06-02T01:38:00.000+12:00

www.iainobrien.co.nz

In London Now and the Previous Two Warm Up Matches

2009-06-02T00:01:00.000+12:00

www.iainobrien.co.nz

Warm Up Games - Bangladesh and Ireland

2009-05-29T03:59:00.001+12:00

www.iainobrien.co.nz

Get acorss and have a read!!

In Camp - Day Two

2009-05-23T07:48:00.008+12:00

www.iainobrien.co.nz

get yourself across and check it out

www.iainobrien.co.nz

2009-05-22T01:19:00.001+12:00

I've just put up a very quick post on the new site.... Head over, sign up and keep reading. It'll be good to have you along!

www.iainobrien.co.nz

The New Site

2009-05-20T19:59:00.004+12:00

Right then, it's finally happened. You can now find my blog at:

iainobrien.co.nz

It's not quite 100% finished, but it's there, it up and it looks pretty good, I think. I's appreciate your feedback too, leave a comment here, maybe also tell me some things you'd like to see in it....

I'll be putting up a post either tonight or tomorrow morning so get there and have a lookie.

Stay in touch

OB

Another Week in the UK

2009-05-14T04:23:00.000+12:00

I’ve got a bit of time on my hands at the moment. Playing for Leicestershire in the most recent Championship match (4 day) I got hit in the ribs while batting in the second innings. I’ll come to that in a bit.

So, so far over here I haven’t done as well as I’d have hoped. In my first couple of matches my action wasn’t really there and had to do some work on it during a training session that I managed to squeeze in before this Championship match. I had a good little bowl out in the middle in training, slowed everything down and just concentrated on a strong load up and release. My run up rhythm came quickly and then all of a sudden I was hitting the catcher’s glove hard from a nice length. It had come back to me and I had learnt some more about where my action needs to be and how to get it there when it falls over.

We turned up to the ground in Bristol, where Glocestershire are based, to a pleasant surprise. I had been told of the cold and somewhat dank changing rooms that were on offer there; we were very happy to get use of the new changing rooms. They were fantastic, comfortable and easily a large enough area for a International team; a couple of very good baths for either hot or cold baths. Nice work Glos!

The pitched looked like something I wanted to bowl on and was really impressed with our openers getting through the morning session without loss; a great job by these two. Unfortunately it didn’t quite continue. We lost eight wickets around the 80-90 mark and scratched through to 133. After such a great opening partnership we didn’t do well enough after that. I was pretty happy with my 23 and got through some tough stuff too.

I was looking forward to bowling on this deck; I had watched the Glos bowlers get some pace, bounce and a little movement; a couple of things that I don’t mind. I bowled well, I was really happy with how it came out and the lengths I was hitting. Of course, as normal, I was trying to bowl a touch fuller than my natural lengths are, not quite hitting it, but still making them play, and miss, in areas I want them to be playing in was what I needed to be doing after a average couple of weeks here at the start.

I got through 32 overs and ended up with two wickets. I feel that on another day it could have been maybe six or seven. I have certainly bowled worse and had more wickets. Thirty two overs is quite a few but I felt really good, when you bowl well the body is generally doing the things it should be and body parts don’t hurt as much. It’s when you don’t bowl well that the body hurts as the sequences are out and you end up muscling rather than using rhythm to get it in the right place. Of course the baths were used for both hot and colds as I’m always trying my best to keep the body right for the next day.

Second innings batting and we’re 260 behind. A tough ask to save this one if the weather doesn’t interfere. It didn’t, and we ended up getting 71 in front and Glos knocked it off without loss; a ten wicket loss. It was a pretty good effort to 331 with a couple of lads getting some real good scores without going on to make them special. Always need guys to make sores special as they can be the winning, or saving, of a match. I got 31 in the second innings in a partnership of 55 with Carl Crowe. I earned every one of that 31 in this innings. I got a pounding from Steve Kirby from over and mostly around the wicket. Mostly I feel I played him quite well, he was quick and aggressive. I have had a lot of short stuff since the Gabba Test in Australia and am getting better at facing it. As I’ve said if I can get under a bouncer early I generally get under the rest. I couldn’t pick up (see) Kirby as well as I have picked others in the past and it was tough. It took a lot of mental effort to try not to back away and just slog. I tried as hard as I could to stay in line and play as solidly as I could and in that effort I got pinned by stepping out of my game plan. I had a pull shot that I stepped away from and opened up my right side, the ball went thud and I knew I was in trouble.

I tried to warm up to bowl during the change of innings but just could not get through any part of my action without it hurting, lots! So I sat in the changing room with ice on my side. I had thought earlier in the day that if we had of got 150 in front we had a chance of winning. Not to be and a couple of games on the bench for me.

Because I know you all care..... The ribs are coming along ok, a lot better over the last couple of days that it was in the first two. I had a good work out in the gym this morning with Suzie, our Leicestershire Trainer, I couldn’t do everything I would do normally but got through some good stuff and will get back in there tomorrow to do more.

Some people have asked why I’m not off playing in the IPL, well cause I’m here playing for Leicestershire. I got asked to play during the India series but as I had already signed for Leicestershire I couldn’t take up the offer. I just spoke to Graham Napier, who’s just been selected in the England T20 WC team and has been a team mate of mine at Wellington; he said he had a great time with his team Mumbai Indians and throughout the time he was there in the tournament. Hopefully next time it comes around I’ll get a chance to play as it looks and sounds like a great tournament to be a part of.

The Trip here and the last couple of weeks....

2009-05-06T03:01:00.001+12:00

Well, it’s cold here right now. I’m at home in England, on the couch about to pack and drive to Bristol for the start of tomorrows Championship match vs Gloucestershire.

I’ve been over here for two weeks now after a few extra days back in NZ waiting on my passport to come back with a Visa entry stamp in it to come and play for Leicestershire.

I must, again, thank the good guys at Post Haste for helping me out a whole heap. My passport had to go to Canberra, Australia, to get the Visa. I knew that as soon as it came back into NZ on its way back to me the ‘track and trace’ number that I could watch on line would be activated. So as soon as it landed and was in the Post Haste system, I was on to them to get it to me ASAP. The last week I was back in NZ I was never far from a computer so that I could check to see if it had got back to Auckland on its way back to me in Wellington. I had been also changing my flights, almost every day, hoping the passport would turn up. So, at 3.45pm, a couple of Tuesdays ago, I saw, online, my passport had reached Auckland. If I was to get out that day I would need to; a) somehow pick it up in Auckland as it wasn’t going to make it to Wellington in time; b) change my flight and hope that there was a seat available. So that was one nervous, stressful and in the end a successful afternoon. Flights changed, that was the easy bit. Picking up the passport that was going to take some magic, and somehow the planets aligned and it worked out! Again, Post Haste, Jimmy Sales, Phil and the others who helped out, an massive thank you from me and of course my wife.

So, I’m here now and have played three one day matches and one Championship match for Leicestershire. The schedule is pretty tight and time off between games isn’t as much as we would get at home in our domestic season.

We haven’t had a great start to the season with our first win only coming yesterday against Ireland in the Friends Provident Series. So far I haven’t really succeeded as I would have hope to in the competition. I had two weeks off in NZ before getting here and really enjoyed doing very little and letting the body have its rest. I am a bowler that bowls best when I’ve been bowling and bowling. So I was in a catch 22 position. I needed the rest but I also needed to keep bowling to hit the ground running here. I was hopeful that I could get into the grove over here after a couple of trainings and find my form quickly. I haven’t unfortunately and last week’s Championship match at South Gate vs Middlesex was not my best showing, at all.

Yesterday was better, the action is almost back to where it should be, and the adjustment of lengths to bowl on slower and lower pitches has been the tougher part. Coming from a Test series on some good Test pitches to County cricket on early season low and slow decks has been a little frustrating. But that’s what I have to do my job on and I have to get on and do my job, learn, adjust and get some wickets for the team.

So far the weather has been pretty good; although, as I said, it’s rather cold today and has been quite wet. The decision to take the IPL to South Africa looks to be a good one, apart from the early few games that were rain affected and the weather here, in the UK, was outstanding. I’ve been trying to keep up with the results and how the NZ boys have been going, but as I don’t have the channel they are being played on I don’t get to watch much of the footage. So it’s cricinfo for the match reports and live scorecards. It’s a tight competition and some upsets have been played out right the way through. I’m looking forward to catching up with the guys once they get over here for the T20 World Cup to hear how this one has been.

Right then, time to pack the bags, pick up a couple of the lads and get on the road to Bristol. I’ll be back in a couple of days times with another update.

And so that you’re in the loop... look out for iainobrien.co.nz very soon... and get in touch if you want to get your company’s logo and link on the page.

NZ vs India - 3rd Test - Wellington - Day Five +

2009-04-19T14:23:00.001+12:00

Probably about time I sat down and did a bit of a catch up, starting with the final day of International cricket for the summer in New Zealand.

Originally I was going to get this done sitting in the departures lounge of Auckland Airport as I waited for me flight to the UK to join up with Leicestershire County CC, but as I am still sitting here in Wellington, over a week after my original departure date I thought it was about time got this all down.

So, Day 5 of the Test match, our only task was to save it, to fight it out for a draw. One thing we had in our favour was the rain forecasted for the middle of the afternoon that would probably stick around for the rest of the day. The pitch was still flat, no real wear and tear and the windy day makes it hard to bowl; so we had a chance to do something strong, not roll over and hang in there for the day, or at least till the rain came.

I was batting with Dan when ‘that’ rain came in. Rossco had been brilliant, a great hundred at a time when we needed a couple of guys to stand up and save a Test match. The other guy that stood up was Franky, his 50 and partnership with Rossco was the game saver. Although very secretly and humorously, I think I saved that Test match single handedly. Ha! Eight down and I joined Dan. Our only plan was to bat for as long as we could, hang in there and hope the wind died down so that the rain could pass over the ground. Wellington has a funny weather pattern. If it’s windy, really windy, like it was, it won’t rain at the Basin; the rain hangs about the hills and doesn’t fill in the gap in between.

We could see the clouds filling in out the back of the ground; the hills were slowly disappearing. A good sign if you don’t want to lose a Test match. I had decided that if I got a bad ball I’d hit it from Sachin. He had troubled a couple of the guys and picked up two wickets. I didn’t want to be his third and I didn’t want him to be able to get away with bad balls. I got a couple of full tosses, one I hit straight to Sharma at square leg, not clever, but, fortunately for me, be put it down and we lived on. It was Sachins googly that I was most worried about. I got a shortish leggie that I cut for four and the next ball was the googly from about the same area. For some reason, I just forgot about the googly, and went to cut this one, then, as it spun back into me a bit sharper than I then thought it would, I had to change my shot and only just got some wood on it. I then started reading what I was going to get. I was trying to predict what he was going to bowl to me and make sure I was in the right place to a) not get out and b) hit runs.

I was doing ok to Harbhajan, no real intent to score off him, but I still didn’t want him to be able to bring to many guys in close looking for a bat pad. I kept trying to sweep him early in the over, to get a single and therefore off strike, and then keep him out towards the end so that I wouldn’t be on strike early in the next. It was the formula that I had used through the series and it’s been working. I’ve doubled my Test match runs in these three tests. I had 61 runs in my previous 14 Tests. I scored 61 in these three Tests, and am really happy that the hard work I’ve been putting in on my batting is paying off for me and the team.

The rain was getting closer and Zak was brought back on with the wind behind him. He’d been brilliant throughout this whole series. The last throw of the dice before the rain came in. Dan and I had spoken a couple of overs ago about trying to slow things down as much as possible in between balls and overs. We had to try everything to give the rain as much time to get to us. I know it’s negative but I would rather draw a Test match that we can’t win than lose it. We’d managed to slow things down a little, but not much, it’s not that easy to do it when you are out there. Intentions are easy; carrying it out sometimes is harder! With Zaheer coming back, his longer run up and a change in field meant there were a couple of delays that Dan and I were happy about. At one point, off a very short run up, Zaheer started his run up before my head was up and ready, a great chance to pull out, take up some more time and make him start the ball again. I did much to the disapproval of the Indian guys around me. But you could also tell that they would be doing the same thing as the smiles behind the words said something else.

Half way through the over the rain came in quite heavy, Dan turned and started to walk off, almost not waiting for the Umpires to call it. I tucked my bat under my arm and followed him. We’d made it; we’d got through to the rain.

The next two hours were spent wondering the halls of the Basin, checking on the weather and hoping it would stick around. The covers came off twice in that time and were then hastily put back on.

And that brought an end to the Indian Summer. A one nil Test series loss to close out a summer that wasn’t great but it wasn’t too bad either.

I’ll be back in a couple of days with an update of what’s been happening in the last week, and a couple of possible changes to the blog....

NZ vs India - 3rd Test - Wellington - Day Four

2009-04-06T21:03:00.001+12:00

My summer of bowling has finished. I have just had a massive feed of fried chicken, approved and signed off by both our trainer and physio. I need to put some weight back on my body and fried chicken is a good place to start. I haven't had a feed like that for a very long time and I am actually not feeling the best after it as my body isn't used to a high fat meal at the moment. But I'll survive and I'm sure I'll be ok in the morning.

So, we're chasing down 600+, well not really chasing it down but we're out there hanging tough to draw this match. Chasing that score, on any deck, has never been done, not even close and it won't be done here in Wellington. Time is the only thing against us and with us.

India batted for over an hour this morning, I opened up from the Adelaide Road end into the wind. I wasn't feeling as strong or quick as I was the night before even after a good rest and massage, all the bowling has really taken its toll on my body. My first couple of overs went just fine, lines ok, lengths not bad. And then Yuvraj happened; eighteen off one over. Three fours and a six, and my lengths weren't too bad, maybe a touch short, but not so much that I deserved to be hit like I was. He can play. It did though loosen him up and Tommy got him to go hard on the drive and nick one through to Rossco at first.

Tommy then claimed his second of the morning when Timmy took his first Test match catch at fine leg, it also just happened to be his second and third catch as he juggled it a couple of times before safely coming up with a smile and ball in hand.

It was great to be off the park and to take the bowling boots off for the last time In NZ for a while, the boots got thrown towards the bin as they won’t be coming with me to the UK and I have another pair ready to go.

No matter what, there is always that nervous feeling as the boys go out to bat. It's just in a cricketer’s nature to be nervous and sometimes for no real reason at all. The new ball was always going to be the tough part to get though, the Basin deck has been, for a long time now, a deck where the new ball does a little; as seen yesterday when I got one to jag back to VVS. This was the danger time, the first 15 to 20 overs of the new ball combined with Khan, who's in great form; and he got two in that time.

We were four down when bad light stopped play at drinks in the last session; Rossco and Franky got us through from 84-4 to inevitable early close of play at 167-4. For this Test, daylight savings is coming in very handy.

Day five tomorrow, the last day of international cricket this summer in NZ. It's been a long season and only one warm up left, and it's a batting warm up too. I'm hopeful of not needing to bat tomorrow, but if called on I am looking forward to trying to break my new PB that I set in the first innings; I only have 19 to beat, but that's a lot of runs when you only average around 5.

NZ vs India - 3rd Test - Wellington - Day Three

2009-04-05T21:34:00.001+12:00

Well, it wasn't quite a scythe that we took to the Indian batters, more a small, not so sharp, butter knife; but we hung tough and were rewarded with two wickets just after lunch and then a couple late in the day.

It was always going to be a hard day, the pitch was flat the wind was going to be tough to deal with and our bodies are sore and tired; it was going to Test cricket, plan and simple.

We obviously wanted early wickets, and they just didn't come. I started up wind, where I have made a name for myself here in Wellington. My first couple of overs were ok, but not great, I couldn't quite find my areas and I have a feeling I was trying to hard. I finished up wind and soon had a go down the breeze. Now I was really trying to hard here to bowl fast and I didn't do my job very well here. I wanted to bowl quick, hit the deck hard and then see if I could get a 'wafty' drive for a nick to pick up a wicket. I was too straight and then to wide to Gambhir and didn't really get to bowl to Dravid. I really wanted to bowl to the right hander but just couldn't manipulate the over to get Dravid on strike.

Tough first session, I got into the changing room and lied down on the floor next to my gear bag, pulled my jersey over my head and wanted to go to sleep. I was really done at this stage. Energy was gone and I just wanted lie there, not move, just go to sleep. I couldn't though, Baz wouldn't leave me alone. Sometimes you do need others to get you up, to keep you going; normally I have more than enough of that spirit, but right then I was done, and those couple of words from Baz were enough to get me up and to the lunch room for a meal. After a meal, I headed back to my seat in the changing room; the coach came over and checked how I was. I told him I was, well, tired. He went off to see our trainer and our nutritionist to see what could be done. I had a 'squeezy', basically a high sugar gel shot, and a strong cup of coffee, in a pill form. It would take a bit to kick in but I was hopeful that I could get through the next session feeling ok.

Dan started up after lunch and we had success pretty much straight away. A really clever piece of keeping from Baz brought the downfall of 'the wall.' Dravid sweep one straight into Baz's guts as he shot down the leg side to cover the shot, and it stuck. Genius! Next in was Sachin, now this guy has looked so good the whole tour. From his One Day hundred and plenty in Christchurch, his 160 at Hamilton and his runs in the first innings, he just looked like he belonged at the batting crease. Dan got him to nick a slower one to Rossco at slip and we had a double breakthrough and had seen the back of two amazing cricketers. I bowled a six over spell down wind in this second session, I just though I'd try to get through it by being as 'dry' as possible, trying to give away as few runs as possible. Two maidens in my first three overs and then I, again, got straight to Gambhir, who was still in and looking solid. Not my best spell, but not my worst and I had found a nice little rhythm with the wind at my back.

At tea it was a protein bar and a couple of waters for me, I was feeling a bit stronger now and had got past that lethargic faze that went through in the morning session. I didn't bowl too late in the session, we took the new ball and I got first crack with it into the wind.

I really wanted to do my job up into the breeze and I had a new 'rock' to get to work with. Success, I got a touch straight to Gambhir, again, but this time, the new ball with a little more pace of the deck, got past his bat and into his pad. I went up and was absolutely certain that it was out, so much so that my appeal started with my back to the Umpire in a “that's just out” appeal that McGrath used to do. I had a wicket, Gambhir, who has played so well on this tour and we had a new batter out there to come hard at.

My next over and VVS was on strike. My only plan was to stay quite full and have him drive me through the off side, well try to drive me, anyway. I hit a real good length and, somehow, got the ball to deviate back off the seam into the top of off. That's a great feeling, going through the gate, on a good deck, to a great player who is in and seeing off stump rock back, a little. After the days play was over and I had done my hot colds, showered and was sitting in the shared eating room, VVS came in and we had a quick little chat about the delivery. He was amazed at how sharply it came back into him. I've seen it on the replay a couple of times and I don't know how I got it to do what it did. I'll take it, don't worry about that, the only thing to take from it is to make sure you hit the seam with a new ball on a flat one, you just never know.

I was feeling really good now, the rhythm was great and I felt like I was bowling as fast as I had done in the match. I had some kick of the pitch and it was fizzing through. No more wickets, but I'm pretty sure I left an impression on Dhoni, well on his arm anyway.

The light called play to an end with about 35 mins left in the day. We'll start 30 mins earlier tomorrow to make up for it. I have no doubt that India will keep batting and to be perfectly honest, that probably suits up. Chasing 500 will be nigh on impossible so the more time that India take out of the game by batting means there is less time for us to bat and hold out for a draw. So bat on boys, my body hurts enough as it is, another half day in the field won't do to much more to it, and you never know, I might pick up a couple more wickets.....

NZ vs India - 3rd Test - Wellington - Day Two

2009-04-05T08:28:00.000+12:00

Not the day I was hoping for is an understatement.

I sat down to write this a little earlier but wasn't really in a good mood and what I was typing was a little bit angry, I was having a bit of a moan about a few things, not related to today's play either. But I'll leave all that cause I'm feeling better now; best not to blog angry, huh!?

Today didn't go to plan, I think it's fair to say. It started off pretty well, Tommy (Matrin -> Marto -> Tom Marto.... get it??) picked up Sharma, 1^st ball of the 3^rd over of the day. We're off the park, boots off and feet up.

I spent the day switching between the changing room and the viewing area trying to change the luck of the guys out there. Don't move seats if someone is in, don't talk about how good someone is playing; these things can jinx or curse and innings. So I was up and about trying to find a place where the luck was good.

Khan bowled really well today, he seemed to have it on a string and even the bad balls ended up as good ones. I've bowled my share of short wide ones and they've ended up at the boundary not wicket taking deliveries, it was with him today.

I was padding up just before tea, I was hoping to be tucking into a big feed as a part of a recovery day. Soon after tea I was in, Khan still bowling well and Singh drifting it and spinning it a little from the other. It was Baz and I again, hopeful of another partnership with him that would bring a little respectability to our score. We were going pretty well together, the pitch was playing pretty flat and I was feeling ok. I got a couple of very good bouncers early, the first one didn't miss by much, just pulling my head out of the way right at the last second. After those couple I was feeling better about picking up the ball and getting under the short ones. If I can get under a couple of bouncers early I start to feel a lot better about batting, it means I'm watching the ball and am picking it up early. When I fend and swing at early bouncers it means I am having issues seeing the ball and I may not last to long.

I hit my new top score today. 19. Nothing special, but still it's a personal best and I'm pretty happy about it. I should have and could have scored more too. I nicked one that I had been hitting well in defence trying to look for a single. I was disappointed to get out in that way on that track and it now meant that we had to go back out and bowl, that I was more disappointed about.

It hadn't been a warm day and it certainly wasn't warm heading back out to bowl now. The shadows were long, the wind was cold and most of us are pretty tired but we went out there to give it everything.

I got to do my usual role of bowling into the wind, it was quite a good breeze but tomorrow is set to be stronger again. I got through four overs pretty good and then got a crack down wind. I had been looking forward to this and was going to go real hard and crank as much out of my body as I could. I hit some pretty good speeds and I am looking forward to a good run down it tomorrow, although my main role will be from the up wind end where I'll have to work hard getting to the crease and concentrate harder as the wind can blow you off course at the top of the jump. It's more about muscling it there rather than using rhythm to get the ball down the other end.

Lets hope for a good day tomorrow and that we can scythe through the most prolific run scoring team there is.

NZ vs India - 3rd Test - Wellington - Day One

2009-04-03T22:14:00.001+13:00

Just another day in the park, huh! The body is pretty tired, even my arms started to feel lethargic this afternoon; I could really do with a couple of days with my feet up watching our boys bat. We have a pretty damn good chance of that happening too, we need one more wicket tomorrow morning and then the boots come off, recovery continues, I'll eat plenty, drink lots, wear my compression tights and stretch lots. But that doesn't happen until we get that last wicket.

Tough start today, we would have loved to have batted first on that pitch; it looks and has played like a good One Day wicket. Seeing as we need to win this Test to draw the series we had to take a chance, play the extra seamer and bowl first. It wasn't quite the start we'd hoped for though. Sehwag, again, took the attack to the new ball. He really has no regard for how openers 'should' play, it's exciting that's for sure and I can tell you I was a very happy boy when he nicked one, off me, through to Baz. It wasn't quite the length I was trying to bowl to him, it was the line though and when Dan got to the huddle to celebrate with us, and I got a big hug from him. We know how much getting Sehwag as early as possible changes the course of the first session and day.

Franky, in the next over, removed Gambhir with a cross seamer that held its line and smashed into his pads. The game just changed and as it did in the first Test, it was around a drinks break. Franky and I, at home at the Basin, put a 10 overs set together, 2 wickets and just 19 runs. Bowling in partnerships is such a huge thing in any cricket and when both guys get it right, or close to it, pressure from both ends, things often happen, the pressure has to be released somehow and it's those moments that can define a Test. It was in the last Test where the Indian batters absorbed everything we could throw at them in those pressure situations.

This first spell, though, wasn't what I was trying to do. Sure it was a good effort with Franky but my lengths weren't quite there and when I got my length right, I was too wide to be effective. When things are like this it's important not to try searching too hard for the right things, it is important to get through it for the least expense as possible and to hang tough for guy bowling from the other end.

Now, playing at the Basin Reserve, Wellington is special. A true cricket ground, one of the few left in NZ. Grassy embankments, terrace seating, a couple of grandstands, tree filled hills, a big blue and a gentle breeze and there really isn't too many more places in the world that I'd rather be. The sport mad and knowledgeable Wellington crowd filled every spot there was on the embankment making for a great atmosphere and a good fun day. Thanks Wellington for coming out to watch, it's great to have you there! You certainly got your monies worth today.

After lunch I opened up and found my lengths almost straight away. I just had to concentrate on holding my action for a little bit longer at the top of my jump. Doing this though meant my jump would be longer and I had to take my run up marker back a touch. The ball started to swing a little for me too, just a little, not much, but enough to keep it interesting.

This afternoon after we had taken the new ball I had a chance to bowl to the tail. My second over here wasn't the best I'd bowled, every. To Kahn I didn't quite get it right and I went for four, four, four, four and then a two. One ball left, I bounce him, gloved through to Baz and obviously I'm pretty happy. I knew that I needed just two wickets to reach 50 Test wickets, I couldn't do it in the second innings at Napier, and my chance was today. This was my 50th test wicket, something that I had forgotten until Guppy reminded me in the huddle, I was like “oh yeah, that's right.” I had completely forgotten. I'm really proud of reaching this little milestone. To be fair, it's 48 more than I thought I'd every get the chance to take after my first couple of Tests where I picked up just the two wickets at 98 a piece. This last year has been amazing and I have loved every minute of it (well almost, there's been some really tough times too).

Hopefully we'll pick up the last wicket tomorrow quickly and professionally and get off the park for a well earned rest.

NZ vs India - Napier - 2nd Test - Day Five

2009-04-01T11:47:00.001+13:00

It's blog time...

I know this is a day late, for that you must forgive me, or not.

Yesterday, when I would normally wrap up Day 5 and the test match in this blog, was not a day for me to be doing to much; except that I was flat out trying to sort out recovery from the Test, travel plans, visa applications, get a hair cut, attending and speak at the Wellington Cricket Age Grade Prize Giving and then eating, which I had almost neglected all day. Not the day that I needed after three days (273 overs) in the field. The day I would have prescribed, in a perfect world, would have been a sleep in till 9 or 10, up for some breakfast, off to the pool for a swim and a spa and then the rest of the day doing nothing but eating and drinking water. That didn't happen, I was busy all day!

So, Day 5. We needed early wickets, two wickets, as I said, would hopefully open up the tail. We had to get two early to have a chance of getting the next couple with a harder newer ball and then the tail to come. Tommy opened up and he had Sachin caught by Baz at a time that kept us in the game. We then went as hard as we could, doing everything we could think of to dislodge VVS and Gambhir. I took over from Jeets and hit the crease hard, got through my first two overs with out really troubling either of these two. So the plan had to change. Dan and I decided I would just go as hard as possible at them, bounce them, bowl full, slower balls, just go through every variation looking for either something out of the deck or a mistake from the batters. Round and over the wicket to both, a lot of bouncers with a field set for hook shots and fended shots. I came as hard as I could for as long as I could, three times I asked Dan for “one more over” and he gave it to me, and then called me off after and eight over spell. It was good honest competition on a track that offered no variable bounce and very little spin doing everything we could to force a mistake.

I didn't feel to bad out in the park. My body was tired, sure, but I was still feeling energetic, still feeling like I could be the one to make a difference, the one to take a three wicket spell and change the game. I didn't take a three wicket spell, let alone take a wicket in the second innings, but i gave it everything until the bails were lifted mid way trough the last session of the match. I was happy with what I gave to the day. I kept my pace up right through the innings and even bowled my quickest ball of the match in my last spell. I did though miss a catch off Dan's bowling. I was at mid on to Gambhir and Dan got him to hit one, pretty comfortably, to me about waist height just to my right. I saw it early, felt like I moved well to get in a good position, but I grassed it. I can't tell you why, it hit my left thumb, which was strange, never really went it and bumped out. I almost picked it up as it bounced out, but it was just out of my reach. This is about the worst feeling there is, dropping a catch of the skippers bowling! I spoke to Baz about it later and got his thoughts on what happened from his view. He watched it all the way to me and said that it actually 'swung' on the way to me really late. This would make sense as to why it hit my thumb as opposed to the middle of my hands. It's not an excuse, just something I have to watch for harder. More work I have to do to be better. I really wanted the ground to open, swallow me up and transport me to a different place. I even gave the earth a chance to by scratching a long line in the grass so that there was already an opening it could open up and take me away.

So the day finished, both teams shaking hands and we're a pretty tired, but happy team. That is a massive turn around from the Hamilton Test and had it been a boxing match, we would have won on points. It's not though, and the result is a draw, we trail the series 1-0 and are looking forward to playing back at the Basin; my favourite ground in NZ to bowl and play on. It's normally windy here and this is something I've learnt to do pretty well, bowl into the wind. It's a tough job and someone has to do it. I learnt early on, while playing for Wellington, that if I was to make it for Wellington I had to pick a tough job and do it well. Often there isn't a tougher job than bowling into the wind, so I picked that one as the one I would take on. If you find a job that no one else wants to do, learn to do it well, it's yours for as long as you can do it for, and that's been my secret on me making and staying in the Wellington team, and how I got my chance to play for the Black Caps.

This morning has been a little stressful, I've been trying to get a Visa application sent away so that I can get over to the UK and play for Leicestershire CCC. It's been a tough process and time is really against me. I have tried to call in as many favours as I can to get it worked through quickly, but as the application has to travel to Canberra, Aust. to get completed, the travel time is probably what's going to kill me. Fingers crossed that the good people at the UK High Commission like cricket and push it through ASAP... please! Courier Post NZ and Pace Couriers NZ have been very helpful in getting it away as quick as possible, thanks heaps Jimmy and the others involved there! Fingers crossed there, hopefully it gets back to me before I intend to fly out on the 9th.

A light couple of trainings this week for me and the other bowlers before we start on Friday in the last and most important Test match of the year. Of course they are all important, and in fact every Test match is the most important one of the year, but the next one is always the big one, and this one is huge.

NZ vs India - Napier - 2nd Test - Day Four

2009-03-29T22:49:00.001+13:00

To call that a tough day at the office is an understatement. We battled, we toiled, we slogged, and we did everything we could to take from dislodge the Indian batters; alas there was only three on view today.

Up around 8am this morning to post my Day 3 blog and catch up with a couple of emails, off to breakfast at 8.30 and then to the ground at 9.30. We’re on the park for arm ups at 10am and I get through my stretches, throwing, fielding and warm up deliveries and am off the park about 25 minutes before start time. In this time it’s usually a couple of waters, a sit down, get into my whites and then out for a few more warm up balls about 7 or 8 minutes before the start.

I wasn’t feeling to bad after all of yesterday in the field, sure I wasn’t as fresh as I’d have loved to be, but not too bad considering. I was to start up this morning, but as I bowled the last over from the Beach end Dan had to bowl one to change me around. The plan was to continue with what we did yesterday, hang tough on our lengths and make life as hard as possible to both score and be out there. My rhythm had come back to me last night and I was warm ups had gone well so I hit this spell with a good feeling. I started well, hit my areas and had that ‘snap’ in delivery. The pitch really wasn’t helping us to much so it was going to be a case of us doing different things to create results. I use the crease a lot when pitches get flat or when there’s a lot of movement, for different reasons. Pitches like this I use the width of the crease to create different angles, going wide, maybe in the middle and then back to close to the stumps, in varying patterns. By doing this I can ‘explore’ different parts of the pitch to find out if there is anything there variable and also by changing the angles it means my stock ball is different, but still the same, it just starts from somewhere else.

I hadn’t used my slower ball much so far but set a field for it and gave it a run. First one Gambhir stroked through the off side for four, the second one, next ball we went up big for an LBW shout. I thought it was pretty good, the ump didn’t. The plan worked, just couldn’t get the umpire to agree!

Gambhir batted well today, took his time with everything and has scored a very good, be it slower than he normally would, hundred. He batted all day, something I’d love to do..... one day! Maybe this was the pitch I could have done it on.

I haven’t seen the replays, but from reading a couple of articles on the net it seems like Dravid was unlucky to be given. We had toiled hard for a breakthrough and finally Dan got one that looked like it got some bat onto pad and off to Howza at short leg. Dravid had been extremely patient, 62 off 220 balls, that kind of patience is what he’s built a career on. Great to watch from the best seat in the house, but we don’t mind if his next stay is a little shorter!

We toiled all day for that one wicket. Just 205 runs were scored in the 90 overs. We pushed hard and they absorbed what we offered. We beat the bat, we got a few nicks that didn’t carry, a couple of inside edges that passed not too far from the stumps, it just wasn’t to be as good a day as we had yesterday with the ball.

We now head into day 5, 62 runs in front needing eight wickets as quick as possible. It’ll just take one break through, early, to maybe swing the game. One may bring two which then opens up the tail and from there, maybe, a great Test match win.

We’ll be pushing hard again, don’t worry about that. Who knows, maybe something special tomorrow?

NZ vs India - Napier - 2nd Test - Day Three

2009-03-29T07:29:00.003+13:00

If yesterday was a near perfect day, then add that to today and together they combine to make the makings of a very special match. That is two amazing days in the sun.

As it sits India are 267 behind with nine wickets in hand. We bowled them out 314 behind our score in the 95^th over of the innings. I put that in a pretty straight forward way because it’s quite an amazing situation we find ourselves in.

After having our bums smacked in Hamilton, defeated by 10 wickets, we have turned it right around, on a very, very good batting track. We’ve given ourselves a chance to pull off a huge and special win. We’re not celebrating at all yet, but the thought is there and in the hard times that we will find ourselves in over the next couple of days, it will spur us on to go to the next level.

I didn’t have the best of days with the ball. For some reason I just didn’t have ‘it’ today. The rhythm wasn’t there, the snap on delivery wasn’t there (till later) and the result was consistency issues; I wasn’t terrible, but it just didn’t feel very good. My first spell today to Dravid and Tendulkar was not what I was after. First over a maiden the next went for eight; to straight and then to wide. And the majority of the rest of the day was similar. I couldn’t settle onto my normal lines and lengths and have a lot to thank the other bowlers for today. Martin was outstanding, Dan and Jeets kept doing what they started the previous night and Franky hit great areas all day long. I felt like the weak link today, and that happens, sometime you just got to take a back seat and watch the others perform; I didn’t bowl in the 2^nd session of the day because of it.

Jeets got the breakthrough for the day, Tendulkar on 49, looking to push one into the off side to bring up his 50, it takes the edgy and Rossco, at slip, takes a special catch. Jeets takes off on a celebratory run out to deep cover, I think he was happy! Thoroughly deserved and appropriately celebrated.

Jesse got the next break through, his outstanding match continues. A short wide one and Dravid slashes, takes an edge and Baz completed a very good catch. I’d bowled plenty of those short wide ones today, and none of them even got close to the edge of the bat! The change bowler worked a treat and India was 246/5.

With the new ball taken and with Tommy (Martin) running hot we were treated to a special spell of fast new ball bowling. A seven over spell, taking three wickets for 29 runs turned our day dramatically. Tommy’s areas were great, asking questions with pace and a little movement with the new hard rock on the flat track.

I still wasn’t feeling great; I had the newish ball in hand and a couple of lower order batters to bowl at. What a great way to turn a day around. And then it all goes wrong, a bouncer that I didn’t bowl hard enough heads a long way over the boundary by Harbajhan, not the result I wanted. I thought I’d try him out again, this time making sure I got the bouncer up high, it worked and Tommy took a great catch at fine leg to give me my first wicket. The batters crossed and Khan was now on strike, hitting good areas was all I was telling myself. A little wide, this one, and he slashes at it, Jesse at gully, jumps and takes a screamer. India all out and we head back to the shed and then we’re all looking at each other; make them follow on or not, 314 behind, we have to, no other option really.

Tommy and I shared this new ball. These nothing quite like what a couple of wickets does for ones confidence. All of a sudden things were feeling really good. With two wickets in two balls to close out the previous innings, I was on a hat trick. The thing about being on a hat trick is that you want to give yourself the best chance of taking a wicket. So fullish and straight was where I was going. Sehwag hits it back past me for four; oh that’s right, he don’t care, he’s hitting everything everywhere!

I had the snap and bounce I was searching for all day long, my areas were tight and lengths good. No wickets for me tonight, but another one for Jeets. Sehwag looking to score freely from ball one again and spin, again, was the key to the breakthrough.

So as we head into Day 4 the team has a very good feel about it, we haven’t been in the field to long that the tiredness should affect us today. We have to hang tough to our plans and when we get it wrong get back to where we should be and let them make the mistakes. We have to keep our standards in the field and keep the energy up so that everyone can feed of it. One of the biggest days of cricket is just around the corner......

Comments are now being moderated so they won't appear untill I read them and realease them.

NZ vs India - Napier - 2nd Test - Day Two

2009-03-28T19:21:00.001+13:00

After some serious internet problems here at the Hotel, Day two blog is here... Day three will be posted in about 12 hours...

Is that the perfect day of Test cricket? If it’s not, it has to be so damn close. I have never clapped so much in one day’s play ever before; there was 50’s, 100’s, a 150 and a 200, not to mention partnerships and also the team score milestones. That’s a special day!

It was a batting warm up day, we love these. A quick non contact game (we all want to play football but aren’t allowed), into stretches and then you go and do as you please. I headed off to do some catching work, and was terrible. From there I went and had a little bowl just to get the body moving and just in case the unthinkable happened and we had to bowl this morning after a collapse. I went and grabbed one of my Aero pads, my gloves and bat and had a good few hits before heading into the changing room to grab a coffee, a water, take the boots off and put the feet up for the morning to watch some bloody good cricket. What a treat we were given.

Jesse just kept on doing what he had done so well yesterday, the pace of his innings was something that bellies his eight Test experience. Runs were not a problem for him, and if they were, he’d just wait for the next ball or the next over. Franky was equally as good, there was no pressure to score at any certain rate, just to hang in there, keep the good ones out and score of whatever else there was.

Franky got into the 50’s before Jesse called him through for a single that just might have not been there and was run out. It was great partnership that blunted the new ball last night, got us through to this morning and again blunted the attack.

Jesse was then joined with his One Day opening partner, Baz. These two bat well together and have a very good relationship out there in the middle, no different today. It’s amazing how easy great players can make it look and these two just cruised along picking up, it looked like, singles at will and boundaries when the ball presented itself.

It’s a very good feeling knowing two guys are in and you’re not needed for a while. A good feel around the viewing area, papers read, crosswords done, I got about four numbers into a suduko before I couldn’t get any further without guessing; I used to be good at these, I need more time watching the boys bat to get my skills back up!

It was very proud moment watching Jesse get close and then get to 200. I’ve spent a lot of time with him with the Wellington team and here in the Blackcap’s. A great moment he won’t forget and one I felt privileged to watch.

Dan joined Baz after Jesse dragged the next ball after celebrating his double hundred. Again, these two bat very well together, Baz’s power and ability to score freely with Dan’s unorthodox scoring areas generally makes for a partnership that moves along quickly and is a good watch. These two worked the singles well and kept each other going.

At tea we had a chat, the plan was to bat the same way for the next 10 overs and then have some fun for the following five overs. In this course we’d be taking the NZ score past 600 for just the third in history. At the start of the day 500 was a long way off and would have been a great goal, the post moved with the quality of our batting today.

I got a quick bat, cut short a chance to maybe post a new high score on a deck that produced a lot of runs. Dan declared the innings closed, with me on one off one, when Jeets chipped one to midwicket. There were 24 overs left in the day. We had planned on just having 15 overs at them meaning the new ball would still be newish in the morning, getting two bites at the cherry. It turns out that the declaration was genius.

Sehway came out and played just like he did in the One Dayes. Amazing for a captain to come out and play with that much freedom. Dan brought himself on at a point where Sehwag was just getting away from us. It worked; six over wide mid on 5^th ball and out on the 6^th. Sehwag tried to repeat the shot and just managed to toe it into Baz’s gloves. There was a collective weight off our shoulders and a pause to catch our breath seeing the back of him on this deck. It didn’t stop there. Jeets came on and drew a shot out of Gambhir, only to find Dan at mid off and we’ve got two with the night watchman wondering out.

I had bowled three overs at this stage, nine off my first and then two maidens to follow. I had found my rhythm and Dan took me off and took over the bowling. I was disappointed to be taken off, especially with the chance to bowl to Sharma and maybe have them three down tonight. Not to worry, Dan picked up the wicket and we’ve got them three down; brilliant. Everything Dan touched today turned golden! Long may it continue!

And that was as good a day of Test cricket as I’ve ever been a part of. A team score past 600, and not having to bowl until the 6^th session of the Test. I’ll take that every day of the week!

NZ vs India - Napier - 2nd Test - Day One

2009-03-26T22:17:00.001+13:00

Now, I don’t mind days of Test cricket like those.

We got to Napier on Monday and trained on Tuesday. I had a look at the pitch on Tuesday morning and then, still two days out from the Test match, I was pretty keen for a bat on it. It’s always a road up here; it’s as close to Adelaide as you going to find in NZ. I had another look at the track on Wednesday and I still wanted to bat; so it was no surprise when Dan won the toss this morning and chose to bat first.

We were a little surprised when Sehwag was at the toss with Dan, MS wasn’t to be playing; quick laugh at an overheard joke that he wasn’t playing because Craig McMillan (ICL) was in the commentary box.

We were twenty one without loss after seven overs, not a bad start, and then it all went wrong for three overs. Sharma hit his lengths immaculately from ball one and picked up the first wicket. Mac might have been a touch unlucky, given out caught behind; replays suggesting he didn’t get a touch on it. How, then, a little late on one, chopped it back onto his stumps and next ball from Khan, a short ball, and Guppy’s fended it to gully of his glove. Twenty three for 3 in the 11^th, what a difference a couple of overs make and I can tell you that there was that uncomfortable feeling around the shed at the time.

Jesse joined Rossco out there and they did some special things together. They rewrote the record books with a partnership of 271 in 59.2 overs. That was the highest partnership for all wickets vs India and also the highest 4^th wicket partnership vs all teams. Amazing that Rossco and Jesse, in their 16th and 8^th Tests respectively, could carve out something so special in a situation that desperately needed a partnership, of note, to turn our day right around. It was 294 when Rossco departed with one of his trademark slog sweeps; we hadn’t seen it this innings till now, a top edge and a great catch right in front of where we were sitting ended his innings. Their partnership really gave us the chance to make it our day.

Jesse and Franky saw us through to stumps although the later may have been a little lucky with one decision towards the end; you take the luck when you get it because it sure bites you in the bum at other times. There was one nervous Baz sitting next to me towards the end, “just get through it Frank” we kept hearing.

So my day was spent on the couches in the viewing area, trying to stay warm as in the shade with the little breeze that was around it was pretty cold; helping out with the crosswords that were being done, where I could; having a couple of coffees; eating sandwiches; just basically doing as little as possible so that I’ll be as fresh as possible for our turn out in the field.

Hopefully by the morning, my morning, someone will tick over the 1,000,000^th view of this blog in my 69th entry. That’s a pretty scary number. Thank you all for reading and commenting!

A mate of mine has a couple of auctions running at the moment; proceeds will go towards the New Zealand Softball Team. Check it out; your hero’s captured on a cricket ball. http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/twi14_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ

NZ vs India - 1st Test - Hamilton - Day Four

2009-03-22T16:54:00.001+13:00

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I hate losing! It doesn’t matter who to, how big, or if the writing was on the wall, I just hate losing.

We set India 39 in their second innings to win the Test. A 10 wicket hiding we were served. Out played in all departments meant that we weren’t even close.

Test cricket is hard; it’s supposed to be. It’s tough cricket for five consecutive days. It’s hard on the body and extremely hard on the mind, and that’s probably where we’ve let ourselves down. The concentration that is needed to perform for the periods of time that is needed in Test cricket takes its toll and is a tough skill to have, learn and posses. Only the best have it and only the best have that selfish streak that puts such a value on what you’re doing out in the middle that you going to go out there and do it yourself no matter how ugly you make it, you’re going to succeed. I don’t think we showed enough selfishness. I don’t think we ‘gutsed’ it out for long enough, we didn’t show the fight and determination needed. Test cricket can make heroes, more than One Day cricket can. It’s your Test record that goes down in history and is spoken about when you’re finished; it’s our history that we’re creating, and some of us are not doing enough to be remembered for very long at the moment.

We had to bat out the day and bat into day five to save, or maybe set up something in this Test. We were bowled out soon after drinks in the last session just 38 in front.

I was hoping for a very lazy day, feet up watching some genuine Test cricket batting. Not to be, I was padded up and out there just after drinks in the middle session. I joined Baz out there; last time we batted together was in Adelaide in a similar situation and we put on 50 for the 9th wicket; of that 50 I got none, it was all him and a couple of extras. A 36 ball duck, the fifth longest duck time wise in Test cricket, but a partnership none the less. We decided that the same strategy was the best way to play; Baz would take the majority of the strike leaving me with one or two balls at the end of the over to get through. It’s not a pretty way to play, and it’s tough mentally turning down runs for both of us, but it was a means to an ends at the time, and it worked. Together we put on 76 for the 9th wicket. I got 14 off 44 balls in the 100 minutes that I was out there and I was loving it. Every now and then we wouldn’t be able to get the single to get Baz on strike for the next over and I’d have to start on strike. This was probably better for me as it actually gave me a chance to score a couple of runs. It’s my job to not get out, but also to get Baz on strike for the majority of the over. So a couple of sweeps and pushes got me some runs and off strike.

Our ‘annoying’ partnership, that’s annoying for India, not us, was curtailed when I was given out caught in close off Harbhajan, his 6th for the innings. At the time I didn’t think I had hit it and when I got back to the changing room and watched the replay and ‘hot spot’, there was no visible sign of a nick but that’s the way it goes. I was a little disappointed as I needed just one more run to beat my previous best of 14* against SA, a somewhat shorter innings, just six balls that one was (0, 6, 4, 0, 4, 0). On the flip side, earlier in my innings I had come back for a second run to the bowlers end, a throw from long off right next to the stumps, bails off and it was close. I turned around to Baz and gave him the thumbs up; I thought I was in by about a ‘foot’. That was how it felt and I have now learnt that there is a big difference between feel and what the TV shows when it comes to run outs. A really long wait meant that it was a whole lot closer than I thought. I was watching our viewing area for an initial feel from our boys as the TV replays would be playing up there, I was watching the Indian viewing area for the same thing. Signs coming from both areas were of one thumb up and one thumb down, nobody was sure. I got the benefit of the doubt there and maybe that was my luck done for the day.

Sitting around a losing changing room is not much fun and it’s not supposed to be. I got packed up, sorted out washing from clean stuff, had some food and chatted to the physio about a programme for me over the next couple of days in regards to my side. It’s coming along good and I had a gym session this morning where I didn’t feel any discomfort, it feels like a bit of a bruise on the 11th rib, almost like it’s been banged against the top iliac crest (pelvis) in delivery, probably one of the bouncers I was trying to bowl in my last spell.

Travel to Napier tomorrow, a place that I have always liked and have, just recently, had some good success on the park.

Losing is easy, winning is hard, we have to be harder!

NZ vs India - 1st Test - Hamilton - Day Three

2009-03-20T21:27:00.001+13:00

A tough day at the office is probably the best way to sum up today. We bowled India out just on tea this afternoon, although I was already off the park with ice on my side. I had walked off when they were eight down with a niggle, that was just starting to increase, in my left side. I had already bowled a couple of overs with it and it wasn’t going away so I thought it best to get off and start some treatment before I did something really bad that would rule me out for the rest of the match and maybe the series.

So, I sit here, with an ice pack on my side, a curry in my tummy and a night of broken sleep ahead as I’ll be getting up every two hours to ice it; the joys of this game!

Today wasn’t too bad, that was until we let their tail wag and lost three before the end of the day. We had a chance to bowl India out for just under 200 in front, and in the context of the pitch, that wouldn’t have been such a bad effort; in saying that we gave away a few runs in ‘boundary balls’ that we need to clean up on. We need to keep the pressure on for longer periods of time.

I took the ball first thing this morning, one ball to bowl to finish off my over that we stopped in last night when bad light called halt to play. Not a bad ball, in the channel, left alone, felt ok. Good feeling; the body was a little tired from the heavy field and the overs from the day before. I spent a bit longer than normal bowling in warm ups to get things a little looser around my body. My first spell was ok. Nothing special, bowled a couple of maidens bowled a couple of balls that released the pressure off the batters, one of those spells that could have been better. Tommy picked up Singh with a beauty, from round the wicket it pitched and just nipped back and hit the undefended off stump. There was the feeling that we could have that session we had been working towards, that session that turns the game. It wasn’t to be; MS and Sachin dug in and held us out till lunch.

Sachin, yesterday, wasn’t at his best. He got through to 70, but it wasn’t the 70 you’d associate with him. A half chance off Dan early, French cuts past the stumps, plays and misses and some timing that I would have been happy with but maybe not him. And with all that, he still got 70. And that’s the class of the guy, even when he’s having a ‘not so good day’ he battles through it and does well. Today, though, the real Sachin was back; timing, balance and 160.

I came backfor my second spell, after Tommy had started up after lunch. MS and Sachin looking pretty well set. The only plan was to keep sticking to the plans. I bowled as hard as I could into the deck, trying to get as much bounce as I could and coming back to fuller balls, just looking for anything I could get. After what seemed like an age I got MS to slash one to Jesse at gully. He initially claimed it and then wasn’t sure. MS held his ground, umpires went to the 3^rd Umpire and not out was the verdict; technology available, used in the right way and the right decision made. Just a couple of balls later, a short ball and a feather of a glove through to Baz, we got MS and a breakthrough.

A couple of overs and a few short ball later, I was trying to keep Sachin at the end he was at with a last ball of the over bouncer so Dan could bowl to Khan at the other end, and I got my second for the day. Sachin tried to ride it and nicked it through to Rosco at first slip, it went pretty slowly to him, and in that time there is always time to think the worst. Rosco was safe and India was eight down.

I had a couple more overs here and then had to leave the field. I was pretty keen to keep bowling and hunt for one, maybe two, more wickets, but common sense rules here. There’s still a second innings to bowl in and two more Test matches to try to win.

We’re three down over night as we head into day four. Mac might have been unlucky to not have had his decision referred to the 3^rd, as MS did, and was given out caught at 1^st slip.

It’s going to be a tough road to try to win this one, but with the nature of the pitch, we certainly can bat and bat and bat, take some momentum into the next match and who knows, maybe give ourselves a chance to knock them over later in day 5. Stranger things have happened.

NZ vs India - 1st Test - Hamilton - Day Two

2009-03-19T21:59:00.001+13:00

And that’s why I love Test cricket. A tough day in the field and I feel fantastic; well not fantastic like on top of the world, but it’s great to be out there competing with some of the best in the world.

It wasn’t too long before I had the ball in hand today. I had bowled just the one over last night and I had felt great. I warmed up well today, the ball came out well and I was really looking forward to taking that feeling into the middle. I ran in for the first ball, and always with the first ball, I was worried about my front foot; that confidence doesn’t always come straight away. Front foot good but rhythm not the best; sometimes that’s the way and you know that feeling right away. I bowled a six over spell here, it was ok, nothing flash, but not as good as I had hoped for. In this situation sometimes you just have to ‘suck it up’, accept the fact that it’s not perfect, pull back and just concentrate on doing what you can do to help the team out. I got through that spell without much damage to the scoreboard and was looking forward to my next one, where hopefully the rhythm would be back.

We did have a little piece of brilliance from Franky early in the first session. Gambhir called Sehwag through for a second, Franky picked up and hit with just over one stump to aim at. Sehwag, the guy who has been causing us so much grief was gone. Genius Franky, nice work!

That next spell didn’t come till after lunch and now I was feeling pretty good. First ball out was right about where I wanted it, next ball, not. This is something I’ve identified and it’s been the way since my first Test match. More often than not my first ball is good and my second is not. First ball to Ricky Ponting, my first ball in Test match cricket, length ball, just outside off. My second, leg stump half volley, luckly for me, fielded by CC at square leg. But that’s the way it’s been, it can only be a concentration thing. There are always things to work on!

Feeling good, and bowing to the plan, hanging tough, doing what I’m supposed to do, not trying things, just sticking to the plan, and it paid off. I had bowled three overs in a row at Dravid, a couple of maidens and one that cost a couple. Ball after ball trying to hit lengths that I wanted, and I snuck one through his defence. Top of off and the stump out of the ground, at first I wasn’t too sure to believe it, I was waiting for a ‘no ball’ call or something; nothing, it was all good. I enjoyed that moment, one happy boy. There was something funny happened here too. Just before I started the over I said to Dan, at mid off, “Something’s going to happen this over.” I wasn’t sure if it was going to be something good or something bad, but I just thought something was going to happen. Dan did reply, “Good or bad??” Anyway, second ball, I got a wicket, I turn back to Dan and there was that little moment you just look for out on the park!

The rest of my day was ok. The legs did start to get a bit heavy towards the end of the day, which is to be expected on this outfield that is a bit softer than some. The sand based outfield drains really well, but is softer than normal and this means you have to work harder to run and get around the park.

Overall I was pretty happy with my bowling and instead of the crazy intensity of an ODI where good balls often go to the fence; good balls here are treated with respect. We held one of the best batting teams in the world to three runs an over on a pitch that was pretty placid pace wise and it certainly didn’t move around as much as it did on the first day.

We’ll head back out there tomorrow, stay strong to our plans and keep India’s lead to an absolute minimum. It just takes one good session to turn this game right on it’s head.

162,000 views since I posted yesterday... wow!! Thank you all!! Lets just keep the comments safe for all viewing, please!

NZ vs India - 1st Test - Hamilton - Day One

2009-03-18T21:43:00.001+13:00

Sixty one for six before lunch and I’m sitting in the changing room contemplating putting my pads on; that’s not how I envisaged this morning going.

A look out of my window before heading down to breakfast, skies a blue and it looks good for a great day of cricket. Flick on the telly to get watch the news and see the weather report, look like showers some stage today are on the menu; nothing strange there this summer. Good breakie with a relaxed Guppy, who’s debuting in this Test, posted yesterday’s blog and then off to the ground.

Pitch looks good, in fact, if we win the toss we’re going to bat first; which is what we ended up doing, but through losing the toss that was. I was pretty keen to get the ball in hand and bowl first, I always am though, I like to get out there and squash the nerves by getting into it. Not to be today, back in the shed, boots off, feet up and got set to watch an entertaining morning of Test match cricket.

Guppy and Mac were looking good early, Mac his typical watchful self and Guppy continuing the timing he’s had during the OD series. The Indian’s bowled well and as the session went on, their lengths adjusting to the pitch, they got better and better, really making life tough for our boys. Not only tough but taking their wickets too. And at lunch I’m almost padded up. Not perfect.

Now, after lunch it was a different story. Jesse and Dan were out in the middle together, Millsy padded up, next in. Mme after that partially padded up. And that was how we stayed for the whole session. At the start of the session, with us 61-6, the plan was to push and grit it through to 150, maybe 200. Jesse and Dan did an amazing job and heading into the 3^rd session the target had changed to 250, maybe 300. One record breaking partnership, two tons and the game changes, not necessarily back in our favour, but certainly a whole lot better prospect than being dismissed for around 150.

Jesse and Dan, together, broke the 7^th wicket partnership record vs India and both scored great 100’s. Dan’s third ton and Jesse’s first, a real special moment for him. This innings Jesse was out paced by Dan, not often that Jesse’s strike rate is second to many and that fact makes it an even better hundred. When the going got tough, he hung in there, gutsed it out and did something special on a track that tough.

Soon before Dan was dismissed with Millsy, Tommy (Martin), Flynny and myself sitting in the changing room, not daring to move as to maybe upset the ‘whole balance’ and something bad happen out in the middle, the mood was pretty good, a little bit of banter was being thrown around. It’s tough to sit around waiting to bat, and for Millsy, sat there with his pads on for about three hours, it was really tough. Unfortunately he got a beauty first up, so after waiting so long for a hit, with his new bat, no less, he was walking back and I was on my way out. Jess was getting close to 100, I was facing a hat trick ball and I was just a little damn nervous about the whole thing. I got through that ball and the next two in the over. I scored eight while I was out there, trying my hardest to not get out. Runs didn’t matter, it was about getting Jesse through to his ton, and I couldn’t do it, in fact I did about the dumbest thing I’ve ever done on a cricket filed, and I’ve done some dumb things. I walked past one from Harbhajan, my foot got stuck and I couldn’t make it back to my crease. Embarrassing; yes. I was trying to get to the pitch of the ball and push a single, get Jesse on strike and watch him score the last couple of runs he needed to tick over the ton. I felt so sick heading back to the changing room knowing that I had made such a bad mistake, I felt like throwing up while watching Tommy face out the five balls left in the over. I still feel bad about it now, but there is one positive side, Jesse made it and Tommy saved me some one of the worst feelings in the game. I owe Tommy a couple of red for that!

We got through seven overs in the field before time was up in the day. I just bowled the one, felt ok and got a little bounce; I’m looking forward to exploring that a bit more tomorrow. A very important day tomorrow, we have to get out there and bowl well, stick to our plans, use whatever there is in the track and make life really tough for the batters; nothing different there.

NZ vs India - 1st Test - Hamilton

2009-03-18T08:03:00.001+13:00

Test matches, I just love them. I am really excited heading into this series. We’ve had a couple of good days here in Hamilton building into this first one, training hard out on the park with our fielding drills and then into the nets going hard to prepare for the change from white ball back to red. It’s not the just ball that changes but the whole attitude. There is a different atmosphere in the nets, a little more relaxed; probably because there aren’t as many balls pinging around like when we’re training for One Dayers and T20’s. And testament to that was during a net session for the 4th ODI, our new manager, David Curry, learnt a valuable lesson; never turn your back on the nets. He wore a tracer from the middle of Guppy’s bat in the back. Ouch!

The Different skills needed for Test cricket have been practiced hard; the temperament, the control and the ability to resist temptations both by batters and bowlers and from what I’ve felt and seen I have a good feel about heading into today.

A long training on Monday in the nets making sure that everyone got in what they wanted, everything they needed to be in the best space. I bowled about seven overs in the nets and worked on a slightly new grip on the ball which should help me swing it more than I have done in the past, or at least give me a better chance to swing it, and it felt pretty good, my areas were good, lengths good and the energy at the crease good. It’s was a nice day to bowl, not to hot, but warm enough to keep warm in between bowling times. I had a long bat on Monday too. I have been putting in a lot of effort in making myself a better batter to the point where I was one of the last to leave the nets. I faced a couple of very handy net bowlers and then got the bowling machine cranked up for some short stuff. Unfortunately the surface wasn’t the best for what I was trying to do; from the same length it was bouncing from my hip to over my head, just to bigger difference to be comfortable with. So I went and grabbed the tennis racquet and some hard tennis balls and got our fitness trainer to serve me up some bouncers. Good stupid fun trying to duck, dive and play these balls. They still hurt when they hit you, but they’re not going to break a bone or cause to bigger injuries if they hit; although I do have a nice bruise on my right hip from one of the bowling machine balls....

Yesterdays training, the day before the Test starts, is a little lower key. It’s about making sure you have done what you have to, to be at your best going into this match. You do whatever you feel you need to do. We did some fielding first and then I headed over to the nets to get a bat in before the batters turned up and kicked me out. I had Jeets (Patel), a good young leggie (Jono Hickey) and one other quickie who I asked to bounce me every ball; he was quite awkward to play, really good for me in decision making! It was a good net and I got what I wanted out of it.

Batting gear off and got ready to bowl. I got through three overs in the net and then headed out to the middle to bowl three balls from each end on a practice wicket, next to the strip, just to get the feel of the ground again. I felt really good; pace, bounce and a little swing and kiss and I was back to the shed to put the feet up and rest.

There is a feeling going into this match that both teams could be doing some time out in the field, or grazing, as we call it. Both bowling attacks haven’t been as good as the other teams batting line up and so far it has, very much, been a bat dominated series. The only hope is that the decks we get have some bounce and pace in them. We’re not looking for green seamers, but just something that we’ll be able to run in, bowl hard and get the returns that you sometimes don’t get from One Day wickets.

So sit back and enjoy the action, I just can’t wait to get out there!

3rd and 4th ODI's.

2009-03-16T22:03:00.001+13:00

It’s been a while, right... Well, here it is, here’s the last two of the five match One Day Series.

Hamilton’s weather was like the rest of the country when the NZ cricket team arrives; showery! The rain has plagued us the whole summer but mostly in the One Day series’.

We batted first and looked pretty good by getting through to 270 in 47. Another couple of good innings from Baz and Jesse at the top gave us a great start and we probably shoud have scored more from there, although it was a handy score and one we could defend; if we bowl well, that is, which is what we didn’t do again. Millsy was accurate and his figures in the storm that was Sehwag and Gambhir stood out at the top of the innings. My figures took a hammering, again. I still feel like I getting through my bowling pretty well, I’m just not quite getting the accuracy that was needed in this situation. The rain played a big part in the second innings. It cut down the Indians chase, not that they needed it cutting down. With the rate of scoring these two were going at they could have chased down our total in just over 30 overs; it was a bit of carnage out there. In any case, we didn’t do ourselves any favours in the field, a couple of half chances that on another day may have stuck, didn’t. Another amazing display of hitting from Sehwag and good rotation of the strike by Gambgir gave us a 10 wicket loss. That hurt, no one likes loosing, but to get a hiding is a different story.

We moved on to Auckland for the final match in the series and guess what, the rain followed us. Thankfully it stayed away once the match got underway.

We were out for warm ups at normal time but the drizzle came in, the covers went on and we went off. The stands were already virtually full by this point, it was a sell out up here, and it looked like the whole of the Indian community had come to watch the match. With the amazing attendance and noise, you just have to give a big well done the Auckland Indian community. The previous night Rossco and I had gone out to Syliva Park Mall to do a signing at the Canterbury store, our clothing brand. Two thirds of the signatures were for Indian supporters, it is amazing the support they have given to cricket since ‘their’ team has been in town. We were even lucky enough to be offered a curry from the owner of the Spice Trader food court restaurants; he had popped in while we were signing autographs. Very generous man, and a very good curry, thanks! Oh and thanks to the guys at Canterbury, I’m loving my new Warriors shirt!

I had sent Dan a txt in the morning, before we meet up for our team meeting, that I wanted to open the bowling. I really wanted to take the attack to the openers. I had a plan and thought that the earlier I bowl the better it might go. It worked, kinda; wasn’t quite rewarded with the wicket(s) I was after but I did cause some problems, that was till my fourth over; which went for 19. I had the ball swinging back into the Sehwag and was trying to swing it away from Gambhir. For some reason I just couldn’t get my lines right to the ‘lefty’ and bowled to many wides (well, one is too many). My fourth over I was still trying to be aggressive with my lines and lengths, Sehwag came hard back and got the better of me in that over. I then had to retreat to the boundary to, again, lick my wounds and put in every effort in the field. Jake and Jesse came on to bowl and changed the game. Jake took two wickets early in his spell and then Jesse picked up three through the middle order. The game had changed and we were finally in front in a One Dayer; it had been a while. I came back on towards the end and picked up a couple of wickets quite cheaply to finish off the innings. I’ll take the wickets but really it was like painting over rust, made my figures look ok, but there is still some work to do underneath, and I’ll get that work done and I’m looking forward to the next bout of limited over cricket that I get to play!

A chase of 152 and the mood is pretty buoyant in the shed. Baz was bowled early but that didn’t stop Jesse and Guppy taking the attack fully to the Indian bowlers. Jesse was special today, everything just came out of the middle and he looked the class player we know he is; no slogging, just amazing cricket shots. Guppy got into the act too hitting, again, clean cricket shots, some with just beautiful timing. Rossco finished the job with Guppy once Sharma got his man. Jesse and Sharma had had a little run in on the field; nothing to write about, but it was exciting viewing seeing two good players, go hard at each other for a period of time. One player was dominating the other and then, in time, the other getting his own back.

It felt good getting one game back in the series, sure it was a little hollow wining a ‘dead rubber’, but they still need wining. A couple of beers and wines in the changing room, I got one of Sharma’s shirts signed up for an auction for the NZ Foundation of the Blind which will go up in a couple of days and then back to the hotel for a couple more reds.

I meet up with Mikee and Nick from Autozamm (these two wonderful guys had passed on some signed Autozamm albums for me to pass onto the guys, and we’re enjoying them, thanks heaps) a bit later in a bar and meet some of their wonderful friends. I had a great time catching up with these two and meeting the others. I was amazed at how many people I meet had either read or heard of my blog, it’s still a little weird that so many people read it. So, hi to Charlotte (C4), Tamara, Brian (about every good NZ band) and Juliet (Satellite), thanks for a great night! And to you Bridges (Z, C4... etc....), yes I know you’re reading.....

We’re now in back in Hamilton, the rain has stayed away, preparing for the three test series. I’m really excited about this upcoming series. But you’ll hear enough about that over the next few weeks!

I will apologise for not getting this out earlier, it’s been a pretty tough schedule with play, travel and getting enough recovery time to sit and basically just let the brain rest has been hard. It’s not harder to sit down and do these when we lose, quite the opposite really. But I can assure you I’d rather go down the harder route and write about wins......

The Update. Wellington and Christchurch ODI's.

2009-03-10T09:03:00.001+13:00

Wow, last night was fun, if you were in the crowd that is; that’s value for money for the paying public!

Unfortunately I was dropped for this match or fortunate for me if I was to believe some txt from friends; fortunate not to be a part of the exhibition of batting and the onslaught the Indians brought to the ground yesterday. I don’t feel fortunate at all. I was gutted to be dropped, it hurt a lot. I understood but it still doesn’t sit well when you’re sitting on the side line wishing to have an effect on the match. The match would have been different if I had of played, no matter how you look at it. It might have been my day and things gone my way, maybe doing something special, or not, I could have had a really bad day and we got beaten by more. But either way I’d have preferred to have had the opportunity to have been a part of that match.

I hadn’t bowled as well as I had hoped, or as well as I can, in the previous two One Dayers (Napier and Wellington) and that was the reason I was passed over. I had missed too often to Sehwag and he had hurt me (42 runs from the 21 balls I had bowled to him in the two ODI’s). After the Wellington match I had a pretty bad night (and half of the next day), the night (and day) when the demons come out and play with my head; like they sometimes do after efforts that haven’t been good enough. Add to that a couple of personal things going on and my head space didn’t make for a great place to be. But this is the test, how I deal with this stuff and I you bounce back.

Wellington’s ODI I was looking forward to. Just the second time I would get to play at the Stadium in front of a noisy home crowd for NZ. I was buzzing. I had bowled as well as I had ever done the day before in the nets, hit my lines and lengths virtually perfect to the plans we’ve set out; and this is one of the reason why I was so disappointed after the match.

I had the opportunity to watch some highlights (mostly lowlights for me) on the TV when we got to the hotel in Christchurch after the match as well as spending time ‘inside my head’; I noticed something that originally I had been very happy with. I’m not going to mention it yet but I feel that my consistency, accuracy and my ability to stick to a plan, my strength up until now, had been affected by one thing. And it’s something I have been doing in training but not taking with me into a match. It’s possibly the one thing that has held me back more often in my career than anything else. I went to our Bowling Coach for a chat straight away. It was from here I was able to escape the dark times and demons in my head. A positive chat and quick look over some analysis information from the T20’s and ODI’s previous and I felt normal again and ready for the next day’s match. I wasn’t to play though.

My bowling at Wellington wasn’t great, although if you take out the stats to Sehwag, I wasn’t too bad. He’s just hitting the ball so well at the moment, playing with no fear and it’s coming off. In my first over he slashed at two deliveries that flew either side of Jake, at point; had one of them gone to hand, things might have been different. Unfortunately I bowled too many balls in areas that we have basically declared ‘no go zones’. After a couple of rain breaks, which were forecast, I bowled one more over, in the batting power play. This wasn’t my best work but I did pick up a wicket, a small chance to celebrate, although the ball I got the wicket with wasn’t one of the better balls I had bowled; I’ll take it though and on days like that, you got to!

So, yesterdays match. As I said, wow! For the first time in a long time we were without Dan; he had a wife, and now baby, he HAD to be with. Congrats mate! That meant that Baz would be captain. And as any captain worth his salt does, he won the toss.

Sachin was special yesterday and it was only an injury that halted him in a charge for 200, individually. That’s a pretty scary thing to think about; one player scoring that many runs in an ODI. Again though, the thing we take from it is that we didn’t bowl very well to him or the others. It was not a 390 pitch or ground; it was more like a 320 pitch and ground. The boundaries are very short in places and are very difficult to defend on a good day, let alone yesterday. It was good, though, to see the sun shine and the DL sheets stay in pockets.

After so many fireworks it just got better for the crowd. Jesse and Baz opened up the innings, and really opened up. Jesse’s hundred, on any other day, would have been a match winning knock. This was his first ODI ton and against a very good bowling attack, in a chase that was going to need some special things to happen, he really showed how much he’s learning about his game and sticking to his strengths. Baz’s knock was another display of how much he has moved on as an opener; boundaries and then singles to get the ‘on fire’ Jesse back on strike. Unfortunately we just couldn’t keep the run rate up without losing wickets; that was going to be the problem in a monster run chase.

With Millsy and Timmy at the crease the chase was virtually gone, although with nothing to lose, they swung and swung hard. Millsy hit his first ODI 50 in brilliant display of hitting and with Timmy they put on 83 in about 7 overs. At one stage there was a thought going through the ‘shed’ that this was possible if things kept working in our favour. I was sent out with a message to tell them to ‘just keep swinging’ basically take any thought of being fancy and actually ‘trying’ to win it as opposed to ‘if it happens, it happens, keep playing with no fear.’ That was all good until Munif Patel got taken off for two delivers above waist high and was replaced with Pathan; the change of pace meant the boys had to play slightly differently, and with that change, Millsy was dismissed. Tim was then dismissed the next over and game over; a chase to big but one that was entertaining and where four of the lads hit new high scores.

Now, in Hamilton, a curry for tea, a good nights sleep and off to the nets tomorrow to keep working on being better....

Not quite just yet.....

2009-03-08T09:44:00.000+13:00

I know you’ve become used to my reasonable level of quickness to get these blogs written and posted; sometimes though it’s just not possible.

I just have not had the time to get anything down since the last game in Wellington. I will though, of course, cover it off in my next post after this 3^rd match in Christchurch. Sometimes life just gets in the way of a good story, and at the moment there are a couple of things that have to take precedent over getting the blog done. No apologies, it just hasn’t been possible.

Iain

NZ vs India - 1st ODI - Napier

2009-03-05T08:18:00.001+13:00

Ouch, that hurt. We got pumped yesterday, we weren’t good enough and we felt the full strength and abilities of the Indian team.

Dan lost the toss, yeah, we were quite surprised too and we were asked to bowl first; with rain forecast for later in the day it wasn’t the worst thing to be batting second knowing what you need when disruptions and recalculations happen. It just so happens that we let them score too many runs that when the recalculations happened, the task in front of us was a pretty steep mountain to climb.

We bowled well below par yesterday. The plans that we had kept pretty tight to in the two T20’s worked; yesterday we didn’t stick to those plans enough and gave destructive batsmen deliveries in their areas, not ours. Our plans are right, we reviewed yesterday’s game and plans, extensively, this morning with the aid of the ‘Hawk Eye’ data that showed us that when we were in the right areas the scoring was limited and when we missed, we got pumped.

There are some positives that come from last night’s hiding though. We bowled poorly and India pumped up. How is that a positive? Well, had we bowled well and got pumped then where would we have to go; it’d have to be a whole drastic rethink. And when we did get it right we did cut their scoring shots and reduce their scoring abilities.

I felt good last night, at times, and then at other times I just couldn’t get it to the right spots when I needed to. My first over was a maiden, it wasn’t quite right, but I’ll take that first up. My run up felt smooth and it was feeling easy at the crease. I didn’t have to try too hard to let it go, the rhythm was good; which annoys me even more as I didn’t bowl well enough consistently enough.

We came off for rain and were off for quite a while; this reduced the overs back to 38 for each innings. Now we really needed to come out and bowl well; not to be! We had got through 4.3 overs before the break. It’s always the way when you take your boots off the rain clears up, but you want to keep them on so that you’re ready to get back out there as soon as possible. This was the case last night. I had kept my boots on for quite a while and went and changed them to my trainers while there was a heavy shower coming down. As soon as I came back out the rain stopped. I should have just kept my boots on and the rain might have stayed and saved us a thumping!

Soon after we came back out I bowled to Sachin, he dropped to about silly mid on and I ran through to try to effect a run out. This is where things get interesting. I clipped Sehwag’s leg on the way though and tripped him up, completely, face first into the deck. I picked up the ball and threw it at the stumps not knowing he had ended up in a crumpled mess on the floor; I thought I had just clipped him and he had kept on running. If my throw had hit I know for certain that we would have not pursued the appeal. The next ball got smashed back over my head very hard indeed. At the end of the over I went to Sehwag and gave him a pat on the back, no hard feeling pal!

At drinks, while we were fielding, a message came out to us that the Sri Lankan cricket team’s bus had been bombed and shot at. We heard that there were injuries, and some serious, but to who was unknown. It felt weird at that point, a little like it was in Australia when the bush fires we killing families there. We’re out here playing a game we love and so many people are hurting and it’s not their fault. I had to concentrate really hard on the game from this point on not letting too many thoughts about the Sri Lankans float around.

In August we had a training camp back in NZ, I had traveled back from the UK to attend. This camp was in preparation for the Champions Trophy that was to be held in Pakistan. During this camp a team from the ICC held an ‘it’ll be safe over there, you’ll get amazing security’ presentation. Even the then Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson came with the ICC group to assure us of the safety. After we had pounded the ICC group with questions and scenarios, we were given guarantees that ‘Cricket’ would never be the target! How could you ever make guarantees like that? We were accused of pontificating, when in reality we were just stating our fears, yes from safe little ol’ NZ, but that’s just what they were.

Back to last night’s game, huh!! We were set 278 after the score was adjusted because of the break in the innings. The opening Indian bowlers did what we didn’t do. They bowled great lines and lengths and in the evening air got the ball to swing. They tied down our openers until they both fell trying to break the shackles; on other grounds in NZ, Baz would have had a six, not here in Napier with its long straight boundaries. A couple of medium sized partnerships followed with Gupy, Rossco and TS, and then it started to rain again. In the rush to get as many runs before the rains set in TS was run out by a good throw from the boundary and as the 3^rd umpire was making his decision the covers were brought back onto the field. This interruption left us needing 15’s for the eight overs; this was going to be a tough ask. It meant we needed, almost, to go from the first ball bowled. Either way there was going to be fireworks, runs or wickets. Unfortunately it was wickets. This meant I got my first bat in ODI cricket. I joined Dan and we decided on a simple plan “see the ball, hit the ball”; I, of course, tried but without too much success. I did get a message from a mate today saying I played every shot in the book, well, yeah I might have, just didn’t quite come off!!

Dan then decided that our goal was to not give Harbhajan four wickets for the innings, sure thing mate, maybe a little easier said than done! We both ended up not out but there were no celebrations, hugs and high fives as we ran through for the winning run because we were not anywhere near where the target.

Back in Wellington and I’ve just got back in from the worst meal I have ever paid for. It’s fair to say I won’t be going back there! I have a radio interview at 7.50am in the morning; there goes the big sleep in. Training tomorrow afternoon and then off to meet the Prime Minister. Then, Friday, the 2^nd ODI from the Cake Tin and here’s hoping for a slightly better behaved crowd, just don’t throw stuff guys, it doesn’t help anyone!

I support the New Zealand Foundation of the Blind as a charity; I’ve got two auctions going from now that the Foundation will prosper from, so please bid and bid large. One is my signed shirt from this T20 series and the other auction is Bendon McCullum’s Man of the Match medal from last night’s match winning knock. Brendon will sign the back of it before I send it and I will send a photo with it of McCullum signing it as proof of authenticity.

New Zealand T20 Playing Shirt -Iain O'Brien - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=200315119560

Brendon McCullum's MoM Signed Medal - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=200315120905

NZ vs India - T20 - Wellington - Match Two

2009-02-28T19:45:00.003+13:00

Two - nil; who’d a thought. I can honestly say that going into this T20, two match series, that I didn’t think it’d be like that. I had a chat to Dan last night after the match, “Dan, how cool is this? Two nil, you thought we could win it two nil?” Even he thought it’d probably be a ‘one all’ series draw. We sat back and enjoyed the great feeling around the changing room.

We spoke about how often that NZ teams get into winning positions in matches and series and let it slip, last night was the chance to fix that, maybe we’re not the best team on show out there, but we got it done, ugly, pretty, gutsy, whatever, we got it done.

Dan won the toss, again... I just cut and pasted that from my last entry! I keep it on the clipboard to cut and paste in as it seems to be so frequent. We were going to bowl on a deck that looked like it had a little bit in it. There was a match before us on the deck, NZCPA Masters vs the ACPA Masters, and I got to watch a little of it on the TV before we headed down to the ground; the pitch did a little but towards the end it flattened out alright. We expected it to do just little so bowling first was always the best option.

Tim bowled a great first over and I had the second. For some reason I was a whole lot more nervous at the time that I had been for a long time; a home crowd, a big crowd, a noisy crowd and two destructive batters was the recipe that made my heart beat crazily! I tried to make a joke with Jake, to maybe lighten the moment, standing 15 meters away, he couldn’t hear me it was so noisy out there, so that didn’t help. Right then, relax; remember the plan; see the delivery; smooth bouncy run up; feel the rhythm; relax the shoulders; jump strong; hold the front arm; release the back shoulder; feel it off the fingertips and hope it don’t go for six..... It didn’t, just a single but ball three and 5 did race to the fence of Sehwag’s blade for fours. I couldn’t find the lengths I wanted to bowl, that over just didn’t go where it was supposed to go. My next over was better, one run and one wicket from it, and the wicket was Sehwag. I had a quick chat to Baz before this ball, he had come running down with a piece of advice, something we’re asking the senior players to do more of, and, well, the result was handy; not quite the execution I wanted with the delivery but Sehwag was gone and we’re a happy bunch of boys!

Butler start to the bowling crease saw Gambhir find the middle of his bat but two balls later the danger man from the last match, Raina, sent a catch Timmy’s way and he obliged. I sprinted as quickly as I could from fine leg to get to the huddle; that was what we needed.

My third over of this spell wasn’t quite right either, good bouncer first up to Yuvraj was followed up with a straight half volley, not the best from me, and he, as he should have, deposited me back over my head for a four. Damn, come on OB, get it right. I finished that over with 1 for 23 off 3, not to bad, but could have been a whole lot better. Got to get my execution right, the plans are right; I just haven’t got the ball in the right areas.

My last over, the 13^th of the innings and Yuvraj is still in and being dangerous. I snuck a dot ball in to start, the next one though went a long way, in fact it only just missed my parents in the crowd; honestly missed them by two rows sailing just over their heads! Another dot ball and then what we were after, not the best delivery of mine but with Jake out on the cover fence he wasn’t going to turn that catch down a metre or so inside the rope. There was just one more run of the over and I finish with 2 for 30 off my four. I’m ‘kinda’ pleased with the figures but not with how I bowled overall. I’ll bowl better and can guarantee you that I’ll go for more; I still have so things to work on, but I know what they are and have the opportunity to do so over the next few days.

Dan was very good again and Jesse bowled his four overs for just 18, these two combined meant that we held India to 149; a target we would have been happy with at the start of the match.

Baz, again, was just so special. Jesse and Baz put on 53 for the first wicket in real quick time; Jesse’s six of the first ball of the innings really set the tone for the early chase. When these two boys combine it is one of the most awesome things to watch and with us all watching from the ‘dug out’ we were constantly up and down off our seats in awe and excitement.

Rossco, again (I love using the word ‘again’ in this way, repeating quality performances is one of the big things in our team) was special. Twenty seven off 25 balls in a well paced innings with only two boundaries. He’s showing great skills as a dangerous boundary hitter and in innings’ like this one, the ability to turn over the scoreboard with singles and twos.

Ifran’s second to last over, the 18^th, was as good as it gets at this stage of a game. Five runs and two big wickets turned the game right around on its head. Up until then we were going along very nicely and then all of a sudden things started to get a bit tense in the ‘dug out’.

There were then 12 left to win from the last over and Ifran to bowl his fourth; if it’s anything like his last over then we are in trouble. The brothers are out there, Nath on strike, single off the first. Single off the second with Baz on strike; really could have done with a boundary there to calm our nerves. Another single followed off the third ball leaves nine needed from three balls and Baz on strike; we’re not out of it yet! Bang, Baz goes through midwicket, four, we’re all off our seats shouting and clapping. Five off two now and bang, Baz goes to the boundary again, beats the straight fielders to the sight screen boundary; amazing! One off one, field is up and as if to add tension to the moment Baz swings hard and only just, and I mean only just, clear mid off for the winning single. Benches cleared, we’re all out of the ‘dug out’ celebrating, the noise inside the ground was amazing and the noise that we were making was almost as loud.

Last night was the longest time I have ever spent in a changing room, longer than we spent at Perth and I thought that was a late one. There was no way I was going to be on the early bus, I wanted to enjoy this for as long as possible. We got back to the hotel, I had a quick shower and put on my favourite Illicit T-shirt (http://www.illicit.co.nz/product_detail.asp?p=1619) and headed out with the guys for a couple. Town was packed; it was as everyone from the ground had piled into the one bar. What an atmosphere, I don’t know how many hands shakes and pats on the back I got last night, certainly more than I’ve ever had, thank you all for being so friendly, great night!

Up and off to the gym this morning, a little bit tough to drag myself out of bed, but it had to be done and I feel pretty good for it. We have the rest of the day off before training tomorrow morning here in Wellington and then head up to Napier to prepare for the ODI series. I always look forward to getting to Napier; a, I love the place and, b; I get to catch up with my best mate and his fantastic family! Catch you soon DNWO!

New Zealand T20 Playing Shirt -Iain O'Brien - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=200315119560

Brendon McCullum's MoM Signed Medal - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=200315120905

The last 24 hours has been amazing for my blog, thank you. A record 75,000 views in the 24 hours after I posted it. Amazing! If you want to advertise through my blog, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com. Just imagine how many people you can get to....

NZ vs India - Match 1 - Christchurch

2009-02-26T22:21:00.004+13:00

Winning is an amazing feeling and it's not necessarily something we've done enough of in the last 12 months. Last night was amazing. Last night we won. Not going to get carried away, but it was a great feeling beating the World Champion T20 team.

From the previous evening when we had had a very good 'scouting' session to crossing the white line last night just before 7pm I had a pretty good feeling about this match. Our 'scouting' notes were as complete as I've ever seen, it's not a complete document by any mean stretch of the imagination, but it's a very good place to start and we've added to it since last night; it's evolving. In fact the first thing I did after we came off the field was to write down some notes on a couple of their batters, I spied Dan doing the same thing, we'll discuss these before the next T20 in Wellington and re work some of the plans from there.

There is huge interest here in NZ for this series as I'm sure there is in India. There are a lot of excited Indians living here as well as the NZ public who have been looking forward to watching some of the most talented cricketers on this earth play on our soil. While walking around Christchurch there has been a lot of well wishes coming from the friendly public, it's an enjoyable thing when a stranger walks past and wishes you luck for the match and series. I really hope the crowds come out and support us at the grounds, like they did last night, and make it as fun as atmosphere as possible.

So, the game.... Dan won the toss, again, it is ridiculous how many he wins; never gamble against Dan, or do so and Dan, I'll take a cut! Oh yeah, Dan chose to bowl first.

It was to be Timmy and I to open the bowling and he'd get the first over, not quite the start we were hoping for though. Sehwag was amazing in the short time he was out there. With him and Gambhir opening the innings it's fair to say i was pretty nervous heading into my first over after Sehwag had taken Timmy for 19 off the first. From the notes we had gathered on these batters i had made some shorter notes that I had on a piece of paper in my pocket. I referred to these quite a few times while we were out there, in time I'll have them in memory, until then, I don't mind having to refer to my notes so that I am not getting the plan wrong. A quick little school up on them both and I'm into it. I felt pretty good, I did notice myself running in to hard for the first ball and pulled it back before I got to the crease, relaxed into it and got off to a nice start. I finished the over in the best way possible, a smile on my face, a leap and punch in the air, a whole heap of high fives and middle stump lying flat on the ground; now that is a great feeling! Gambhir, one of the danger men, gone but no chance to relax because there's a whole heap of those danger men to come.

I wouldn't normally recognise that I was running in to hard until maybe my second over, I was really pleased that i picked up on it first ball and gave me ever chance to get it right throughout my spell. I started my second over the same way i finished my first, except it was leg stump lying on the ground this time; they must have watered the stump holes to help them come out when hit, don't mind that as it does look good when a stump comes tumbling out. That's Sewhag out, 26 off 10 balls, one of the most destructive batters in the world and we saw, first hand, how destructive he could be in his short stay. Jake did say to me, ironically, in my second over that “we might be able to get this ball to reverse later” after the punishment the ball had taken while being hit at, into and over the new stand in construction.

I finished my first two overs with figures of 2-13, not the worst start and was feeling good getting around the park, fine leg to fine leg a couple of times, anywhere to keep out of the action as my fielding is a 'work in progress'; I'm not that bad but I'm certainly not as good as some of the others. Baz is always on my case with my throws to him and I was pretty happy not to get a angry look, a shake of the head or some 'expressive encouragement' from him the few times I had to get the ball back in; I'm working on it, but i do think I have the 'yips' when throwing back to him.

I came back for an over in the middle stages with the hope of a wicket, defensive plan to Raina and on the hunt to IK Pathan, the over went for five, happy with that, but no wicket. At that stage an over of 5 we were pretty happy with and that gave me 3 overs for 18; not bad with this batting line up. Alas, from there my figures then took a hit. I bowled the 19^th over, Raina, still in and playing a great knock, with Harbhajan on strike. My plan was to try to keep the Harbhajan on strike as long as possible and try not to bowl to Raina; it didn't quite work out like that. Single off the first ball brought Raina on strike, it's now my job to get him off strike with a single, hit the hole with a yorker and hope it just goes for one. I was slightly to full and he hit a low full toss over the small boundaries for six, damn! An adjustment next ball and I'm just slightly to short giving him the chance to get under it, and he did, it went a long way up and with Guppy under it I though there was a chance for him to catch it; not quite, it just sailed over his head for another six. Dan and I changed the field and changed the plan as that one wasn't working, the boundaries at here in Christchurch just are not big enough to keep with the original plan. Dot ball, brilliant and then he's sliced me past 3^rd man for a sweet four; not much I could do about that, Dan and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, it was a good ball and he's got it away, fair play young man!! Just a single off the last ball and there's 18 off an over that actually wasn't that bad in terms of execution, although not perfect, sometimes it happens that way. I was a reasonably happy lad walking off the park, after the explosive start India got off to, the skilled hitters they have and the small boundaries 162 was going to be a tough score to defend.

We got off to a slow, or measured, start and lost Jesse first ball from Sharma in the second over of the innings. Wickets always slow run rates down and it did exactly that! Nine runs of three overs is a slow start but that was all it took for the lads to find their timing. Fifteen of the next Sharma over and then 11 of Khan and we're back on track, looking pretty and feeling good.

All the guys from there played really well, Rossco just continued on his great form, Baz played the anchor role and batted though and with Jake coming in at the end blazing 29 off 15 balls in his comeback match we had the game won with seven balls to spare and some power hitting still in the shed; not a bad place to finish a game!

A very happy changing room, we didn't have the luxury of being able to sit around at the ground for to long as it was a pretty early start this morning, a short turn around between games and training this afternoon meant it was a pretty early night.

Back in Wellington now, it's tea time and I'm starving! The last couple of days have been huge for my blog, over 20,000 more views yesterday alone. Thanks for the support and for the sometimes 'crazy' messages left on the comments..... If you want to advertise through my blog, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com.

I did bump into a mate at the end of the game who I hadn't seen for a while. Mikee from a pretty damn good NZ band called Autozamm, along with his mate Nick, also from Autozamm, who had been playing 'O' week in Christchurch, had changed their flights to stick around and watch this match, so when I heard they were out the back I got myself off there for a catch up. Last time I saw them they were opening for Powderfinger and Silver Chair, and of those very good bands Autozamm easily were the best on stage that night, they cleaned up. Good to see ya mate and I'm looking forward to seeing you play again soon!

The Day Before the Big Series

2009-02-24T21:32:00.003+13:00

Last time I sat to type we were 2-2 in a 5 match series against the Aussies; that's a while ago now. No apologies, I've just been really busy. The series stayed level after a wash out in Brisbane, a match I think we would have won seven out of ten times from that position. The T20 a couple of days later we lost, too many dot balls marred our batting innings from a position of strength to one of desperation. We couldn't quite get over the line, a very disappointing way to finish a close series, one that we could have won and taken the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy back across the Tasman.

Now I sit here in Christchurch with the dreams of warmer climates in my head. The tour to Aust was a warm one, most days there around and above 30 C, it's 14 C today, not warm enough for me, and really not warm enough for our opponents. Oh well, poor them; welcome to NZ boys! I actually passed most of them in the street yesterday, rugged up, I bet they can't casually walk along the street at home, they must be loving it, apart from the weather, that is.

Tomorrow nights T20 I am looking forward to. Huge interest over here - this is the big tour here of the summer. The series against the Windies was weather marred, hopefully we get full opportunity to play these games in some great weather on some great decks, although if the cold weather helps us make the visitors feel uncomfortable, I'll take evey advantage we can get.

Sine getting back from Aust I've missed one T20 for Wellington, a rest after the tour, and been back for the two remaining matches. Had a couple of great days out at a special place called Castle Point, great beaches and just an amazing place! One wash out and the second one, up in the lovely Mt Manguanui at Bay Park, on a lovely day where we, Wellington, had a one sided win. I was only needed for two overs at the start of the innings, was coming back for a third in the 20^th over except we bowled them out in the 19th; Graham Napier finishing off a great season for Wellington by picking up a couple of cheap wickets in his four overs before he heads off to join the England 'A' team on their tour of NZ. Nap's has been great over here for Wellington, his season has been brilliant for both himself and us. He's bowled with pace, energy and smarts the whole time and I look forward to seeing him in the IPL and in the English domestic season. Great job mate, catch ya soon, hopefully in a County match over there!

Right then, till Thurs, where I'll be blogging the T20 match vs the Indians, that'll do for now. Enjoy.

If you want to advertise on here or advertise your company sticker on my cricket bat, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com

And if your interested, I'm getting on average 2,348 views a day, with my best day at 26,000 hits. Amazing, huh!! I can't believe it! That's some pretty good numbers and it's only going to get bigger during this Indian series; if you want to be a part of it.

Thanks, everyone, for reading and having an interest!

NZ vs Australia - ACG - 4th ODI

2009-02-12T22:49:00.003+13:00

So we head to Brisbane with the series drawn at 2-2. Tuesday night’s loss had turned this series into a real nail bitter.

It was another typical belter at Adelaide, a ground known for its great batting decks, this one, no different. Dan won the toss and we wanted to bat first, so we did.

Before play both teams lined up for a moments silence in memory of the people that have lost their lives in the bushfires in Victoria. This has been a very surreal event to be over here and living through. The news is constant, the papers a full of pics and stories and I really just can’t handle it. I’m on the outside looking in and I just can’t watch or read any media. It just gets to me so much, my over active imagination starts thinking of what if it was my family over here going through this. What if it was our house that had gone, if my parents, my family had been caught up in it? I just can’t imagine what these people are going through. I just play cricket for a living, it’s the best job in the world, I’m so happy about where I’m at and what I’m doing and then there are these people that have just lost everything, and more! My deepest sympathies go out to all the people involved and the ones directly affected. And to the people out there fighting the fires, dealing with the misplaced families, the volunteers and the people that have given so generously to the funds you people are amazing!

Baz’s shoulder had come through ok, so he opened with Gups. Good little start from these two, 69 for the first wicket into the 18^th over, sure they weren’t racing along but nothing helps more at the end of an innings than wickets in hand, especially when setting a total. We then lost two more wickets for the addition of 17 runs. 69-1 to 86-3 is a big setback and it took another good partnership from Taylor and Elliott to put us back into a position that we could launch from at the death. Rossco and TS are in great form, they put on 55 in 11 overs through the middle of the innings, is steadied the ship and calmed a few nerves in the viewing area.

When TS was dismissed for 26 of 28 we were 141, six wickets in hand and 16 overs left; pretty handy position to launch from and look for around 260. Not to be, we lost Cumming in the next over which was a huge loss for us and him; he’s been in some pretty good form in the domestic competition back home, I should know, he’s taken me for a few runs this summer.

We scrapped our way to 244 with a good knock from Millsy. Rossco innings was great; he was dismissed in the power play off a ball that he generally puts about 20 rows back, just one of those things, but his knock gave us a good chance!

It had been a pretty cold day so far, easily the coldest of the tour so far, and in saying that we’ve managed to miss pretty much all of the very hot weather that has been around. We’ve been playing in temps of 30-38C but the days either side of the matches have been up into the mid 40’s; we’ve been very lucky, especially bowling first in the heat.

I headed out to the field with three layers on top as opposed to just the playing shirt as it has been in the previous three games, it was going to be hard to keep the hands warm and get the body back ready to bowl again in the later spells.

I bowled pretty well today; my areas were more consistent than in the three previous games. I wasn’t running in quite as quick and it felt pretty smooth through my action. I still have some consistency things to work on, but on the whole I was pretty happy with my bowling. My first ball I bowled Clarke hit me over the top of TS at mid on who got a couple of fingertips to it, a chance first ball, it just could be my day, and three balls later and I’ve got Clarke to hit one to Fults at short cover, happy days! As good a start as I could have asked for.

I came back on towards the end of the innings, we needed a wicket, and I couldn’t deliver two overs for seven with two overs left in my ten.

We really needed to break the partnership, mid on and mid off up, a slip in and playing with the dice. My ninth over went for too many as Hussey took the bait to hit over the up field. He did it well and I didn’t quite get my lengths right, next over was back to the simple death plan, and it paid off; David Hussey out second ball. This was the gamble we took at Sydney too, try to get wickets or restrict runs, in this instance trying to restrict runs by going death maybe was the better option, for me anyway.

We hadn’t scored enough runs, but we still didn’t really give ourselves a chance with the ball. Millsy, again, was brilliant and since this spell of bowling I had some good chats with him on how he constructs his overs and his spells; personally it’s good to be doing pretty well and learning at the same time.

I’ve been picked in the T20 team that will be staying on for the one T20 in Sydney on the 15^th. Really looking forward to making my T20 debut, should be a whole pile of nervous fun! But first, Friday, a hugely important and special match. We have the chance to do something not ever been done before, win an ODI series in Australia. A real good feel around the team for this one and we can’t wait to play the 5^th match of the series in front of a big, and friendly, crowd at the Gabba.

If you want to advertise on here or advertise your company sticker on my cricket bat, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com

And if your interested, I'm getting on average 2,348 views a day, with my best day at 26,000 hits. Amazing, huh!! I can't believe it! That's some pretty good numbers if you want to be a part of it.

Thanks, everyone, for reading and having an interest!

NZ vs Australia - SCG - 3rd ODI

2009-02-09T22:58:00.004+13:00

No big party last night, alas.

Although we did take it closer than some thought and hushed the crowd towards the end of the match. Bowling first, again, after Dan won the toss on a track that looked pretty good for a One Dayer; and it was. There was a change at the top of the Australian order with Warner missing out and Haddin opening; what a week for him.

Haddin and Clarke played with more positivity than we'd seen so far in the series at the top. They played well, hit the bad balls, and turned good balls into boundary options by moving around the crease. I think they trusted this pitch a little more too, or gambled harder, hitting some good balls, through the line and over the top.

My first spell wasn't too bad. We had planned on being quite aggressive with our lines and lengths and to take wickets as early as possible. I ran in hard and bowled as fast as I have done, things felt good, I even had to take my run up maker back a foot so that I didn't end up 'no balling'. I let go of a yorker that slid under Haddins's bat and fizzed past his off stump early in his innings, an inch or so straighter and it could have been a different day. It wasn't until my second spell that I took my first wicket; this was my first over in the 'batters' power play and the third of my spell. The ball change had just happened and it was a really hard and newish looking ball. It was certainly an opportunity for the batters to score quickly with the harder ball, but also for the bowler to hit the deck hard and see if it does anything off the harder seam. And it did with my first ball, one just jumped a little off the deck and Baz took catch of D. Hussey's edge; the perfect start to the power play. I managed to get through a wicket maiden here with White facing out the last five balls, all dots. That's as good a result as I could imagine at this stage of the match.

Earlier in the innings Baz had been keeping up to Millsy and had worn one, which bounced a little more, on the point of his right shoulder, it flew away as if it had taken the shoulder of the bat. It had been giving Baz a lot of trouble through the innings and at drinks he shot off for a pain killing injection. Soon after he came back on he ran Haddin out with his left hand, his right arm, at the time, wasn't too much use.

I came back at the 'death' and I was tossing up in my head whether to gamble to take wickets or just try to bowl dots. I guess I should have just bowled dots. I got a couple of balls in the wrong place and they ended up at the fence and when I went back to my other dot or one run ball options I was a lot better and picked up a wicket with a yorker, the last ball of my 10 overs. This really annoyed me, why was I gambling, why wasn't I just trying to limit their scoring options and possibly picking up wickets when they made the mistake. It's a fine line between being reckless and economical. It was one of those days that could have been better; a couple of inside edges past the stumps for boundaries, some good balls going for four, that's One Day cricket; ride the luck your making or get hurt trying to make it.

Our run chase didn't start to well, Baz wasn't able to open. In fact, he wasn't going to bat at all had we either got their comfortably or not close at all. Fults stepped up to the opening spot from three and everyone else came up one. Not a perfect scenario but one of those that you just have to get on with.

Fults played well for his 40 and that steady ship gave us a chance in the chase after losing Gups and Rossco early.

We lost three wickets pretty quickly in the middle, Broom, Millsy and Dan fell in a space of about four overs; this really stalled our chase. Timmy came in and hit a couple out of the middle and all of a sudden Baz has his pads on sitting behind Jeets and I. We still needed a hundred odd, but anything can happen with one guy in (Elliott) and Baz at the crease, and it almost did. The crowd was noisy and expectant for an Australian win, they eventually got it, but not without some nervous moments.

It wasn't to be though. Once Elliotts innings came to an end and Baz departing soon after that left Jeets and I to get 30 odd of three overs; a bit of a big ask, but we'd give it a go. I got three bouncers in a row from Hilfenhaus, not surprisingly. I got under them like a top order player, except that in this form of the game and in this situation we needed runs, not me to not get out. I've worked so hard to get rid of the pull/hook shot from my game that I now have to re learn it to certain situations.

As I mentioned in my last blog Grant Elliott has started up his own bat company with a couple of lads in our Wellington Firebird's team. It's taken a while to get off the ground with getting ICC approval being the hardest task. Finally, "buzzbats.co.nz" is up and away. And there is no better way for TS (Elliott) to be getting his product out there than by scoring 61* in our win that the MCG and then yesterdays amazing 115 at the SCG. His knock yesterday was as good a One Day hundred as you're going to see especially in the circumstances. He was bumped up the order after Baz wasn't able to open to four from five and looked comfortable from ball one. And now in his 14^th One Dayer, with an average of around 85 he looks like the international cricketer he has had the potential to be. I'm sure that now he's promoting his own product when he's batting there's an even higher motivation to hang about and raise his Buzz bat.

So here we are in Adelaide, we're 2-1 up with two games to go. This series is important to us and last night's loss was a bummer, losing hurts, no matter what. In saying that we lost a game of cricket, and when you think about perspective it's not that bad at all. Families in Victoria and NSW are losing not only their homes, but their families. These bush fires are horrific. I know one of the Victoria Police that is out there doing their bit to help out, pulling double shifts and giving up days off to work; these fires affect so many people. I just hope as this series goes on we can do something to help the families, the fire-fighters and police and anyone involved with this disaster.

I've just come from our Captains meeting and I can reveal that as a team we are donating a considerable part of our match fee towards this disaster. It's a great thing that we can help out. We are also giving up a signed playing shirt to be auctioned off at the end of the series. Here's hoping that auction makes a small fortune, cause they need it!

If you want to advertise on here or advertise your company sticker on my cricket bat, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com

NZ vs Australia - MCC - 2nd ODI

2009-02-08T11:18:00.003+13:00

Welcome to the 'G'. What an amazing place to visit, to watch sport, let alone have the honour to play out in the middle in front of sports loving Melbourne crowd.

I had never been here before, been to Melbourne a couple of time in the past but I had never even visited. Training this week was hard; we came from a great last ball win in Perth and had to work hard on staying honest with our training as the heat and tiredness from the last game had taken its toll, on me at least. Heading out to fielding training in the middle was pretty special. The Great Southern Stand, not looking so 'Great' anymore as the new stand is a whole lot bigger, it is still so impressive; we could do with something like this in NZ, obviously not as big, but certainly as intimidating . The near vertical seating looms so high above you and you know they have a great view no matter how high they are up.

We won the toss and bowled again. We're playing on a used wicket, as we did in Perth; this suits us as we don't bowl as quick as the Australians and we have two of the best spinners in One Day cricket world; we're playing on decks perfectly suited to our current style.

Millsy was amazing, his first six overs went for 12 runs and picked up the heavy hitting Warner in that spell for just two runs off 11 balls. He is bowling really well at the moment and is leading the attack with the experience he has, questioning our plans and deliveries regularly, making myself a better player. This was the start we needed, it kept them in check and it showed us the lengths and variations we needed to bowl to be successful. Timmy picked up Hadden and we were right on top. Haddin's welcome to the 'G' was one I won't forget. He's had a tough week after the Broom dismissal in Perth, and lets clear one thing up right here, Dan never called him a 'cheat.' OK! Haddin, an Australian was 'booed' onto the ground. I never ever thought I'd have ever heard that; sure there might have been a few Kiwis in the crowd, but not all of 'Bay 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15' could be Kiwis! Interesting to see how the Aussie public viewed the whole drama.

I came on to bowl in the 12th over, still with the field up and started pretty well. I had been bowling well in the nets, hitting areas I had been asking of myself and had taken a lot of confidence into this match. I was bowling to my fields and then had a bit of a meltdown, it didn't cost me much, but it could have. We have plans to certain batters and I know these pretty well and have studied them and revised them plenty going into this series. All of a sudden I started bowling to Clarke not to plan. This meant the field was wrong for my areas and I leaked a three and a four in an area that wasn't patrolled as strongly as where I he should have been hitting. Don't ask me why, I can't tell you, but I owned up to it this morning in the review, and quite rightly, got a good stern telling off from Millsy. I'm learning, and fast!

I came back for the batters power play for the two overs from one end and was really happy with how I bowled in this 'scary' time. No wickets for me this time, but no boundaries either and we we're getting the feeling that we were well in front of this one.

Dan, again, was inexpensive and together with Jeets we stayed on top of them by bowling good areas and fielding well.

I was back for the 'death', three overs into the light wind that was cooling things down out there for us. Hussy and Clarke still out there and we needed a couple of wickets so we could, hopefully, drag back the score that was attainable by them. Guppy, out in the deep, pulled off a great piece of fielding from a Hussy hit off me. A slower ball which was hit high to Guppy at long on, it was touch and go as to it making the fence and him catching it, in the end, both happened. Gups caught it and with the momentum he had ended up over the rope, but flicked the ball back in before he touched the ground, turning a six into just a two. Genius! Next ball, I had Hussy, another slower ball, a real gamble, and Dan took a good catch at mid wicket.

Next over I picked up Clarke on 98, bowled him off his pads. I had hit him square on the toe the previous ball, and he had some time to recover from that, they hurt, a lot. Next ball he charged me to the leg side a little and I just bowled it as fast as I could into him, took his pad and into the top of middle. I was pretty happy with this one especially as it's never nice having hundreds scored against you. In my ten overs I only went to the boundary once; pretty happy about that too.

We then went out and put together a really strong and disciplined chase. Baz, at the top, was 'bloody minded' and stayed out there and gave us a great base to work from. Rossco, again, was brilliant, his runs were match winning. Elliott was amazing; his new One Day high score in a great chase at the MCG. The pace of his innings and the control he showed was what has been brewing in him for a while. And happy for him too as he has just started up a 'bat' company and this was the first time he got to use it, all stickered up out there in a One Dayer.

Another great feel when the winning runs were hit over the boundary. Elliott and Broom out there hugged and celebrated us on the side line hugged and celebrated. We're two nil up in a five match series. Who'd a thought! What a great feeling. A couple of quiets in the changing room, but not too many as we have to travel the next day and play in Sydney the day after that. Quick turnaround is required and we can't afford to take the foot off the gas. We'd love to win the series here in Sydney and celebrate it in style!

And to my club mates at home, nice job this weekend Petone Riverside, great win boys!

If you want to advertise on here or advertise your company sticker on my cricket bat, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com

New Zealand vs Australia - Perth - 1st ODI

2009-02-03T14:40:00.001+13:00

Well, well, well... This will probably be the toughest blog I've had to write. Don't want to get carried away, but .... wow, that's a great feeling; beating the Australians in their own back yard. We arrived here to a newspaper headline, "Even This Useless Mob Think They Can Beat Us." Well, actually, yes we did think we could win, and mate, we did.

That is as good a feeling I have ever experienced in cricket. The elation in the changing room after Dan hit the last ball of the match through the field for the winning run was pure, an amazing feeling. That's the most 'man love' I have ever seen in a changing room. It was just one match in a series of five, but after a game that roller-coasted until the last ball, our loss to the PM's XI and in the heat and conditions that we played in, we were one very happy bunch of boys!

I was nervous, and excited, heading into this match. My last ODI, my first one, didn't go so good; six overs, 1 for 59 in two three-over spells. Not good enough, hence it was my one and only match before yesterday. We lost the toss and bowled first, we probably would have batter first too had Dan [Vettori] kept up his run with the tosses. It was hot, and humid. This was going to be hard work which was part of the reason we were keen to bat first so that we could bowl in the cooler conditions. I passed Shaun Tait as we were walking heading off from warm-ups, just after the toss, he was pretty pleased he didn't have to bowl first up in the heat, and I couldn't blame him. Our 'Dirtys' and management crew did a great job around the boundaries and onto the field with the drinks. The boundary riders got drinks handed to them from the other side of the rope and the inner-circle fielders got drinks run out to them at great pace so to not slow down the play by the 'Dirtys'. These small efforts often go unnoticed but can add so much to the team's performance.

[Kyle] Millsy and Timmy [Southee] started the innings off well with the ball; both had it swinging and gave the openers very little to hit. Warner had looked dangerous since his debut in the Twenty20 v the South Africa; we were certainly weary of his abilities and Shaun Marsh had looked pretty solid. To have them both out within the first nine overs was the best start we could have asked for. Then a piece of brilliance from Neil Broom in the outfield, an amazing throw to run Ponting out was all we could have asked for. And as if lightning doesn't strike twice, Guptill, with an equally great throw, ran Michael Clarke out as he too came back for the second. That's four down, the top four, and we couldn't be happier.

I had started my overs by now and had started pretty well. Two balls stood out in my first spell though, one that went screaming through the covers to the fence and then another that met the fence quickly at midwicket as I dropped too short, with not enough on it, to Clarke after bowling him a good bouncer. A couple of poor follow-up balls, which let the pressure off, frustrated me.
Four-over spell to start with. Then I came back for a two-over blast and then finished up with four overs in a row at the end of the innings.

I have been bowling for Wellington in the batting Powerplay and have felt like I've done pretty well, I wanted to bowl in it for NZ too and I got my chance. My three last overs were in the Powerplay. Hussey and Hopes were in and it was time for them to take the attack to us. We had done quite a bit of scouting on both of these guys for this time of the innings so we had our plans pretty well-set. And it worked. I picked them both up in the first Powerplay over much to my, and our, relief. Both these boys are dangerous and by dismissing them pulled back the total that we would be chasing. Huss and Hopes were caught inside the ring, both mid-on and mid-off were up and that was the gamble, it worked. This Powerplay can work both ways, it's, obviously, a chance to score big runs, but for the fielding team it is a genuine opportunity to take wickets with the batsmen getting a touch more expansive.

We bowled pretty well at the death and Millsy picked up his fourth wicket of the innings, another fantastic performance from one of the world's best.

With 182 to win, it was the worst possible start we could have asked for. Baz [McCullum] was unlucky in the second ball of the innings after getting an inside edge into his pad to be given out lbw. Not much you can do about it. Then we lost Fults and Gup with the score on 25. Three for 25 and Australia have got the start they would need to halt us in our chase. It's not too often you see three slips in a one-day match but with Tait bowling fast and with a little bit of shape Australia had the lot in; attack and leave no questions unanswered.

We were a little nervous up in the shed; we knew it wasn't going to be the easiest chase on that deck. A 39-run partnership restored a little bit of composure to the scoreboard. Broomy and Rossco [Taylor] then put on 42 for the next wicket and we're looking good again, then Rossco and Millsy put on the best 62-run partnership I think I've ever seen and got us within 14 of the 182 we needed. It was here that things started to get a bit twitchy in the changing room. Rossco was dismissed with 12 runs left and 15 balls remaining; now it was going to be tight. I headed out the back of the viewing room to get padded up and ready for whatever scenario was going to be set for me.

Eight down, four runs needed, every chance that I was going to have to bat or at least get out there for a ball or two. I was really quite excited about it, actually looking forward to being out there when the winning runs were going to be scored, possibly having the chance to get them. It's a whole world away but I've had the chance for Wellington in similar situations to get out there and finish a game off with success so I was backing myself to be able to do whatever was asked, bat on ball and run as fast as I can!

I wasn't needed, Jeets, coolly scored two of the two balls he faced and Dan hit the last ball through the field for the remaining run to win. Hugs, cheers, high fives, you name it, we were enjoying it. What a feeling!

We stayed in the changing room till rather late on Sunday night, much to the displeasure of the security that had to stay at the ground till we left. Sorry guys, but we were having fun! We had a travel day yesterday, in Melbourne now preparing for the next match on Friday at the 'G'. I can't wait! Got a few friends to catch up with here, should be a good stay, I'm just hoping the temps stay down a bit!

Welly Vs Otago & NZ vs the Prime Ministers XI

2009-01-31T02:59:00.001+13:00

Welcome to you, where ever you are.

I’m currently in one of the lounges at Sydney Airport waiting to board our fight to Perth. Yesterday we played a match against the Prime Ministers XI, and well, to put it mildly, we didn’t do too well in the field.

But before I cover that match off I’ll take you back to the last round of the domestic One Day competition, we were in Invercargill, the bottom (pretty much as far south as you can go) of the South Island. We were certainly made to feel welcome, that was until we stepped out onto the pitch, that is. It was a typical home crowd that you come to expect in the South Island; they love their own players and love to hate the others, it was going to be a fun afternoon.

We bowled first and during the middle stages we were looking down the barrel of a chasing a score of around 280, that was going to be a lot, even with it being a small ground and a good deck. A couple of very good innings from three of Otago’s more experienced boys certainly set them up for an onslaught towards the end of the innings. We picked up a couple of crucial wickets at game changing times and managed to peg them back to 244.

I didn’t feel like I started this game to well with the ball. It wasn’t quit the start I had been having in the previous couple of matches. The thing that was very pleasing was the way I came back at the end of the innings and bowled during the batting power play and death, my areas and variations, alongside the field I had set worked really and contributed to the pegging back process.

This match finished in great style. Last ball of the innings, scores tied, Franklin, who had been in since the 16^th over and was on 86 off 97 in a perfectly paced innings, cleanly hits one through the leg side field to the boundary. We win, and I’m out there with him, as we’re nine down. I came in with four balls left in the innings, five runs needed, Franklin on strike. Franky and I had a quick chat, I wanted to know what he thought the plan should be, were we going to take the single if it was there or was Franky going to take the strike and look for two’s and boundaries? Franky backed me to get him back on strike so we decided that we’ll take every run we could get. Single off the 3^rd ball of the over, that brought me on strike, three balls left, 4 needed and I needed to get off strike, thus getting a single, anyway possible. I know you really shouldn’t pre meditate, but in this situation I thought it was maybe best. It was either going to be a yorker or a bouncer. A yorker it was, fast and into my pads. I wasn’t quite quick enough to catch up with it and maybe hit the winning runs fine of fine leg, but I did get enough pad on it to squirt it out to square leg for a single; that was once I picked myself up off the ground when the ball hit it knocked me off my feet and I didn’t have a clue as to where it had gone. Franky charging down towards me shouting yes said it had gone somewhere safe for a single.

Two balls, 3 runs and Franky nudges a two to get himself back on strike and tie the scores. He walks down to me at this stage and we agree that we’re just running, no matter what. Winning run off the last ball and that finishes the innings and our campaign with a not so good four wins from 10 matches.

It was a quiet night in Invercargill, early flight out in the morning and back to Wellington for the day. I had a couple of things planed to do in the afternoon; catch up with a mate and get along to a clothing shop were sponsoring me some T-shirts. Quite a while ago, before I started playing cricket for Wellington, I worked in a photocopy shop. I started out as a production worker, then moved out to reception and worked in customer services. During this time I met some pretty talented people that needed photocopying done. Students for their assignments, architects with their building plans, writers producing books and artists getting originals copied so they could sell the prints or send them off for possible job offers. There was one guy who was amazing, Marty F Emond. His stuff was cool, as he was and I spent quite a bit of time doing his copying. Since I knew him back then he and a mate started up a clothing company using his works as designs. I loved his work then and have a couple of signed bits stored away to get framed at some stage soon. Marty has since passed on but his work lives on through the “Illicit” clothing line. I wanted some of Marty’s T’s. So I got in touch with Illict.co.nz, pleaded my case, and happy days. Thanks Steve.

We’re now 10,000 meters above the nothingness that spans the central inland part of Australia; it’s a vast sea of scrub and desert with small towns dotted along some of the rivers. And that brings me to the last couple of days based Canberra, the capital, our first destination in this 22 day Chappell-Hadlee tour. We arrived to Sydney and bussed straight to Canberra, half way there we had a food stop and I slipped up. I had a bag of chippies/crisps. The thing is, we’re on a ‘eat better’ programme at the moment and I didn’t really think about it. I was hungry and felt like some chips. I could have done better for myself, and should have, and now will do. Everything we eat now we have to think about, I normally eat pretty well so it shouldn’t be much of a problem, but for some others there is a fair amount of good natured peer pressure on them to do better for themselves and the rest of the team.

Trained on Wednesday at the Manuka Oval, a hot day and it was forecast for match day to be even hotter. In the evening we had a reception at the Parliament Buildings with the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Both teams were there and were introduced to the PM by their respective captains. A photo, a couple of speeches, a mingle and we’re back to the hotel where I ordered a salad for tea.

Yesterday’s game started off how you’d like most One Dayers to start off; a good score on the board and batters getting in some really good time in the middle; none better than Baz’s ton. It was pretty warm out there and, 37 was forecasted, and you could see it was going to take its toll on us in the field. Fully hydrated and feed was as much as we could do before heading out to defend the total. And to cut a long story short, we didn’t bowl as well as we should have and were the first NZ team to have ever lost to the PM XI; not a first I’ve ever wanted to be a part of.

I felt like I bowled ok in the majority but let myself down with some bad balls and decisions when to bowl my variations. I’ll now head to training tomorrow with a couple of chats to Dan and Millsy under my belt and a greater knowledge on One Day cricket.

Just an update, cause I can....

2009-01-23T19:30:00.004+13:00

It’s Friday night, I’m sitting on my bed in my new place, that I only moved into last Thursday, watching SA bowl to the Ausies on the telly, and I couldn’t be happier.

My place is hardly huge; it’s one room and an en-suite. Kitchen, lounge and bedroom all in one; it’ll do for now as I don’t need to much space for myself and my couple of bags that I’ve been living out of for the last five months, although the bar next door could do with being a little less noisy. In saying that, as soon as I make this place home I have to leave, and, again, I couldn’t be happier.

I head off to Australia for the Chappell-Hadlee Series on Tuesday and in doing that I will check out of my accommodation and then move back in when I return, into a bigger apartment though that time!

I got a very good phone call on Wednesday afternoon; it was the one that told me I was in the squad of 14 for the One Day series. I knew that the phone call was going to be that afternoon so the phone wasn’t too far from me and it didn’t have to ring to many times before I picked it up. It was either going to be good news or ‘keep trying, you’re real close.’ It was the ‘good news’ call. Happy days!

It was quite a weird feeling being told that you in the Black Caps, again. I’ve been a part of the Test team for the last 15 months and have only missed one of the Test matches played in that time, but to get called into a ‘new’ group was like getting the very first phone call again; that wonderful feeling of hard work coming good and the excitement of the next few weeks ahead. I put some Bon Jovi on, loud, opened a beer, stood on my balcony and enjoyed the world around me; little precious moments where you can feel completely happy for the work you’ve done.

But it’s not all done yet. It’s only just started. I’m watching this game, on the telly, with a little more interest than I did the last couple. I picked up on a couple of things, sent some txts to a couple of guys asking opinions on a couple of the batters in terms of plans to bowl to them. I’m making my notes, being a bit of a geek, really!

This week has been a pretty tough one training wise, three hard fitness sessions and then weights today, alongside work in the nets. It’ll be a lazy night tonight with training at 8am tomorrow before heading down to Invercargill to play Otago in our last State Shield match.

Yesterday, Thursday, we sat down in the changing room, all of the playing guys in the Wellington team, and had a very open and honest chat about our form, what we can do about it and how we can turn it around for the Twenty 20 series coming up. A couple of guys walked out with their heads down after getting some honest feedback in regards to their role and how they’ve performed it. Honest feedback is often the hardest to take, but it’s the best to get; you know exactly where you need to make adjustments in your game and you know the people that have passed on the feedback are going to be watching, and helping, you get there.

Today was a good fun day, apart from the weights session, I hate doing weights. On the courier I received some new gloves, some never been seen before gloves from my gear sponsor AERO. Used them this afternoon and they’re a little different, as are my pads, but will certainly keep my hands safe! ADIDAS sent me a couple of pairs of boots today too, again wore them this afternoon in the nets, feel great. And to add to that, I had bought some golf clubs as a Christmas pressie for ME and they arrived today after taking a couple of weeks to get here. It really was like Christmas! Great day, huh!?

I’m going to try to keep getting these blogs in while in Oz, it may get a little tough with the gaps and travel between matches, but I’ll be doing my best to keep what’s going on out there and in my head updated as much as I can.

If you want to advertise on here or advertise your company sticker on my cricket bat, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com

Wellington vs Canterbury

2009-01-22T10:08:00.000+13:00

And like that Wellington Firebirds are out of the State Shield, the domestic One Day completion, and there is still one match to go. We’re rock bottom, we’ve won three from nine and in those six losses five of them have been, for lack of a better word, hidings. We have really lost badly in more games than we should have. Yes we are hit hard when the Black Caps are playing but in saying that, in the last two matches, one close loss and one beating, we’ve been at absolute full strength. Gillespie, Patel, Elliott, Ryder, Franklin and I in the one team should go a, very, long way to certainly winning more games than we lose. Excuses: I have none; we just haven’t played anywhere near consistently enough.

This last game was against Canterbury; we had been giving a sound hiding by them at their place early in the competition and we needed a win, let alone revenge win, to stay a chance in the competition.

We batted first on a track that we had already used twice in the previous two matches at the Basin. It was looking a whole lot dryer and tired than it had done in the last match against Northern Districts, where it was a very good One Day track! We really needed to score huge and hope the pitch got harder and harder to score on as the match went on and, hopefully, give us a chance for a bonus point by keeping them to 80% of our score; neither of those was to happen. We scored 217 off 49 overs which was Duckworth-Lewis’ed up to 220 as we lost that over in the middle of the innings because of rain.

Handy start with Jesse and Belly putting on 48 for the first wicket, but that was where that ended. The next best partnership was just over 30 and the rest averaging around 15; really not enough if you need to put a big score on the board. No sixes for me today, but I did hit one a couple of games back against Auckland... what’s that, you want to hear about it... oh, ok.... Nine down, I head out to bat with one ball left in the innings. “Where should I try to hit it?” I ask as I walk past the guys on my way out. “Over long on” is the answer. Not the biggest of boundaries at Auckland’s Eden Park Outer Oval so I guess anything was a chance. Tuffy had the ball in hand, I set myself up just before he lets the ball go into a bit of a golf stance, and I see it and hit it. Not over long on but over extra cover clearing the boundary and the advertising signs losing my balance in the process; I ended up running around the stumps past Hoppy, who was keeping, and back off to the shed to change and have the lunch break with a cheeky smile on my face.

Anyway, enough of that, I did have a promotion in this game to 10, from 11 in the batting line up. There was still 4.3 overs left when I headed out to bat accompanied by “Bad Medicine” by Bon Jovi; we get to pick our own songs to walk out to and I very much like this one! Shane Bond was bowling, it’s seems every time I bat against Canterbury I have to face Bondy, although this track wasn’t quite as quick or bounce as the last one. Bondy bowled really well, I couldn’t get bat on ball, he was bowling big leg cutters that were bouncing a bit too. I had no idea although did manage to get eight off the 13 balls I faced. Not quite the 600 strike rate in my last innings, but it meant we faced out our overs which added 3 extra runs to our score; we were going to need every run we could get our hands on. The innings could have been a little different with James Franklin given out LBW on 45. I’m not saying it was a bad decision, but sometimes they go your way and sometimes they don’t. No excuses, maybe things could have been different!? That’s why cricket is one of the most debated topics in the summer. So many little bit and pieces that can be dissected and discussed.

So, firstly we have to defend 220, but if we can we need to hold them to, or dismiss them for, less than 177; both were going to be big asks. And we couldn’t do either. Canterbury knocked it off for three in the 46^th over. Peter Fulton playing the anchor role and scoring a patient 85 off 122 which included a six and two fours in the last couple of overs he faced to pump that strike rate up just a little. He did the job they needed.

As I’ve said I’ve been working hard on my One Day bowling, and it’s paying off. I might not be taking as many wickets as some but my RPO has been pretty good. Two games ago I sat down with the analysis computer (called the ‘Pooch’, don’t ask me why) and looked the areas I had been bowling, the percentages of balls in three different line channels. The channels were ‘middle and leg’, ‘off and just outside’ and then ‘wide of that’. I then compared my percentages of balls pitching in those areas to a couple of other guys that had been bowling well and were having success and worked out that I had to change my lines a little. Since I did this analysis and worked on my lines my RPO has come down and I’ve been a better bowler; always learning, always trying to get better.

We now head to Invercargill for our last match, against Otago, in the series, there is still a semi and final to be played, we’re not involved; we’ll be training for the T20 competition which now follows; or, hopefully, selection for the Chappell-Hadlee series in Australia. Who knows!

If you want to advertise on here or advertise your company sticker on my cricket bat, get in touch with my admin on: ob.blogadmin@gmail.com

Wellington vs CD - Late and I've got some catch up to do too

2009-01-17T07:08:00.000+13:00

Arrr, that’s better. Back on track with a very good win against a very good team. The papers call it an upset although I just happy with it being a game where a couple of us (Wellington Firebirds) played better than they did. We are a good team; we’ve just been playing some average cricket.

Belly won the toss; I felt it was an important one as it looked like a deck that certainly would help the bowlers. It did, we just didn’t bowl to well to start with. It swung and did a little off the track and it looked like, to start with, we really tried to bowl quick and swing it big. Sometimes those things just happen without trying too hard as you get carried away with the conditions, wind up and it comes out all wrong.

I was into the attack in the 7^th over; a little earlier than I have bowled when coming on as the 3^rd seamer. I was quite excited about this actually. I wanted to get into it on. First over went for 6, next went for 4 with two wides in it. Ten off two, not the best start. It was pretty good from there though.

I had got out to warm ups in the morning with a bit of a sore shoulder. Had bowled at training the day before and everything had been fine, but the morning of this match there was a little twinge there, to the point where I thought I might have been doubtful for a start. I got into my bowling warm ups a little earlier than normal to test it out and give the ‘all clear’ to the captain. It wasn’t 100%, but it certainly wasn’t hurting as much as it was before warming up or feeling like I was doing more damage to it. Was pretty happy with the bowling first too as I wouldn’t have to cool down and then warm up again 3 ½ hours later.

I bowled my 10 overs in two spells, first one of eight and then two towards the end. I finished up with 2-33 with a couple of decisions that could, on another day, gone the other way, also had Howza dropped before he scored and he went on to get 88*; good players make you pay. I was pretty happy with how it came out. I have been working on bowling a bit straighter than I have done in the past and from the stats, in this match, I am pretty close to what I think is about the right amount of balls in the right ‘lines’ category. It swung for me and it came out as quick as I certainly could have hoped for. It just felt really good, in saying that I did bowl my first extras of this One Day campaign. I bowled three wides yesterday after bowling none in the previous four matches. I can’t even tell you why, it did swing, but from where I was trying to bowl it should have been fine. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, just as long as I don’t over step and get no-balled, that’s a real no, no!

Set 264 to win, CD had batted well and got more than I would have estimated at the start of the innings, but maybe less that they could have from 120-2. They did also score 55 off the ‘batters’ power play, 52 of them in four overs and I managed to sneak in the other over that went for three. That may sound like a bit of ‘trumpet blowing’ but I’m pretty proud of how things go sometimes and so why not show it.

We knocked 264 off in the 46^th over with six wickets still in the shed. There was even talk of possibly going after the bonus point by getting there by the 40^th over. Now that would have been cheeky and probably not a risk we needed taking after not batting so well, especially, in the previous two matches. Belly and Nap’s opened. A change at the top of the order with Nap’s heading up there to give the start of the innings a bit of a kick start, it worked. Off to a bit of a flyer and when this happens it makes bowling a whole lot harder; the nerves and mind start going, you start thinking about what happens when you bowl a bad ball, or even good balls disappearing past and over fielders. The pressure is back on the fielding captain, his job becomes tough. Belly batted through until we needed just two runs to win; a great knock and one that obviously won it for us. It wasn’t a classical innings but that don’t matter when you have success and win.

I wrote all that about 3 days ago, just prior to the match we have just played against Auckland and haven’t had a chance to post it because of travelling and playing and also moving. I’ve now got a place to live!

More frequent updates shouldn’t be a problem now.

Wellington vs Canterbury - plus other thoughts

2009-01-11T07:50:00.001+13:00

As it stands I won't be a part of the One Day series against the West Indies. I got the phone call a couple of nights ago and was told that they were staying with the same bowling unit. How can I argue, they're going great, doing their jobs and staying fit; everything they should be doing! And on the other side of it I'm doing everything I can to show that I'm up to International One day cricket. I'm bowling in the positions that the selectors have asked me to I'm hitting the areas, pretty much, that I should be but I probably haven't got the wickets that they'd want of me.

Our most recent game against Canterbury was another one of those poor performances that don't do anyone any good. You can come out of some bad matches with a couple of people doing well, this one though, no one really shone out. We put in a pretty good bowling performance and a score of about 270 was probably what Canterbury should have got to; we held them to 242 by picking up wickets towards the end of the innings.

I bowled my 10 overs by the 40th and took myself off the park. My back, which has been tightening up in the last match, was getting pretty sore. It didn't affect my bowling but it wasn't great to be standing around with in the outfield. I got some treatment as soon as I was off the park and it loosened up quite quickly, but as there was no point me heading back out there I took the time to keep resting it and doing the back arches that would help it settle down.

So, 242 to chase; not a huge target but one that was going to take some getting if Canterbury's attack got it right, and they did. Shane Bond came out, bowled quick and swung big and they were tight and consistent from the other end. After nine overs we were 35-1, not too bad, but from there it all went downhill. 45-5 off 15. 95-8. 164 all out. And in that 164 Luke Woodcock and I put on 42 for the 10th wicket, he getting past 50 and I reaching another One Day high score of 19*. In that 19 I hit my 3rd six of my domestic and international career. That added Andrew Ellis to a small group of three that I've put over the fence. Todd Astle in a First Class four day match and some other guy called Ntini or something in a Test match at the Wonderers. I'm not trying to brag or skite, they just don't come around that often so sometimes you just got to tell the world. Sorry Ellie, Todd and Makhaya !!

Still on the hunt for a place to live, why can't it just be easy? Found some good places, but no parking. So it anyone has a one bedroom fully furnished apartment (with some parking) that they want to rent me, get in touch! Am I asking to much??

Sat in and flicked between the NZ vs West Indies ODI and the Aust vs SA Test match. The lads doing a bit of a demo job of the Windies and then some genuine compulsive Test match viewing. It's this kind of Test match cricket that shows that Test cricket is not dead. Not even close. What an afternoon and evening on the couch and I'll be honest, I was flicking quite a bit back and forth, the ODI was a done deal quite early and the Test match just keep twisting and turning; Ntini and Steyn holding on, doing everything they could to hang on for the overs or the storm that was heading in. Seeing the Australians celebrate the 9th wicket like they had won the Test was entertaining especially as the cameras picked up on Smith walking out to bat as soon as he left the changing room. That was one of those wow moment s. I did want them to hang on and clinch the draw too, not to be.

The body is pretty sore at the moment. Tired muscles sore. I've just started a new programme at the gym and whenever you do, with the change of movements with weights, it causes the muscles to get a little grumpy and hurt for a couple of days. Went and saw our massage man this afternoon and then straight to the pool for a swim and a soak in the spa. That felt good in the spa, and the leg started to free up; although now, as I write this, they're sore again, but better than they were.

It's now the day before the next match vs Central Districts at the Basin, just got training in before the rain arrived. It looks like it could be around a while and may interrupt tomorrow match. We prepare to play, as always, but also mentally get prepared to be part of a 'stop start' match where we could be on and off the park.

Lazy afternoon watching the ODI and making sure I eat and drink well in preparation for tomorrows match.

Wellington vs Otago

2009-01-04T17:31:00.001+13:00

Days like yesterday hurt. It doesn’t matter that I had a reasonable game as it’s the end result that really matters.

We got destroyed by a team that has, over the last couple of years, played some impressive One Day cricket. Otago have never, generally, been considered favourites in cricket for a long time. We (Wellington Firebirds) went into the match as one of the two stronger teams in the country (us and CD) aware of what kind of cricket Otago can play. If they get their tails up then they are as strong as opposition as there is around. And yesterday they had more than just their tails up.

We had just come off a good close win against a strong Auckland team a couple of days earlier; that was the first win I had been a part of since the first Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong, it had been a long time! From there and into the gym the day after and training at 10am on New Year’s Day.

No resolutions, as I don’t do them, but I certainly have goals and if you’ve been reading, then I don’t have to mention them all. Apart from the obvious short term one (getting into the ODI team, there, I told you so you don’t have to go back and read...), there are still two Test matches towards the end of this summer, against India, that I am targeting to continue my Test match form.

Obviously, to play or to be in contention to play, I have to be fit. This is often the toughest thing to work with as injuries can just happen, freak things or general wear and tear over the course of what will be a longer season than I have previously been involved in. It started all the way back in Chennai on a NZ ‘A’ tour to play against India ‘A’ (a series we won too!). So the gym plays a big part in me staying strong physically, and the stronger I am physically the less likely that I fall to pieces. The problem with that is the gym sessions are tough and trying to work them into a full week of training and playing and also trying to get the rest needed to recover is the fine balance that we’re always looking for.

Anyway, back to yesterdays match, although the less said about that the better, maybe!

We batted first after losing the toss; we were pretty keen on batting anyway. It was a better start than we’ve had for a while as we got to 33 before losing our first wicket. This still isn’t good enough, but it’s going in the right direction at least.

A great 82 knock from Flea (Neal Parlane) in a partnership of 142 with BJ Crook, who backed up his last match score of 75 against Auckland with a controlled 65 took us through to 199 at the start of the 46^th when they were now both dismissed. In the last five overs of the innings we only scored 20 runs, that’s almost 30 short of what is quite often done at that stage of a innings with wickets in hand. It gave Otago the momentum to take into their batting innings, and boy did they come out swinging and it’s fair to say that, as a bowling group, we didn’t adjust and work the right plan quick enough. It wasn’t really good enough from a reasonably well experienced attack.

Otago knocked the target off inside 40 overs, it gained them a bonus point for getting there so quick, and really put us in our place. My figures, at the end, weren’t flattering. I felt I bowled quite a bit better than they would suggest, not a good as I could have, but I’m heading in the right direction.

Today, the day after yesterdays match, I headed up to see our masseur for a rub; my legs were starting to get a bit sore yesterday afternoon. During training the previous day I had done some extra speed work. I think this may have had some left over effect on my legs going into the match, not at the start, but towards the end of the overs in the field. I’ll either have to get used to it or have a look at the programme that I’m working to and see if we can make some changes.

Head to Christchurch tomorrow to play Canterbury on Monday and then fly back Monday night after the match. This is always tough, so it’ll be a quick pack up, quick shower, compression tights and travel kit on and off to the airport. It’s always a little rushed, but sometimes it’s got to be done; and it does get you home to your own bed (and family) as soon as possible. That’s if you have a home, a flat, or even a place to stay, I’m currently looking for a flat/apartment to rent for the remainder of the summer. I’m Kind a living like a hobo at the moment, skipping from house to house when I’m in Wellington. Not the best situation, but being used to living out of a suitcase it’s not that much of a problem, hopefully something will pop up soon.

That’s two updates in two day, hope you’re enjoying them.

Wellington vs Auckland - I know, it's a couple of days late.....

2009-01-03T13:42:00.000+13:00

It’s New Years day and I’m on the couch resting up for tomorrows One Day match against Otago.

A quiet night last night, went out and had a couple of beers with some of the Wellington boys, home by 12.30 very sober and very much looking forward to sleep. I’m not one for the late nights to often, especially when I know I have to get up and train the next day. I just can’t operate tired, let alone, with a hangover, at all!

Training today at 10am, but before we start training we debriefed the Auckland match from two days ago.

The first half of this game went according to plan, the second half, not so. We bowled Auckland out for 197 in the 50^th over. We’d bowled really well and really denied Auckland scoring opportunities through the innings. Nap’s (Graham Napier), again, was brilliant. Another four wickets to his name while Woody (Luke Woodcock) picked up three, including a double wicket maiden to start his first spell, genius!

James Franklin came back into the team meaning he would take the ‘new’ ball with Naps. This suited me as if I am to make the NZ One Day team, and play, I won’t be picked as a new ball bowler, but as the third seamer. A role that is more suited to my style as I don’t swing it as much as a couple of the other guys.

I had a chat, at the end of the Test series, to one of the selectors asking what I had to do to be considered for the One Day team. And this was one of them, being able to do the role for Wellington that I would do for NZ. So, the third seamers role, for Wellington, is mine and here I can do what I have been asked to do by the selectors; had a good day with the ball too. No wickets, alas, but that’s as good as I’ve bowled in a One Day match in regards to lines, lengths and variations. 9.1 overs for 34 that included 2.1 overs at the death, not normally a part of the game I’ve been stong with. I hit yorkers when I wanted to and my variations were spot on. As I’ve said, it’s such a confidence game and at the moment with the bowling I’ve had behind me and the training I’m doing I really feel good about being able to execute deliveries and my plans.

The second half of the match didn’t start so good; three down in the sixth over for just 17 runs. Enter Franky and BJ (Crook) for a 98 run partnership and when that was broken enter Nevs (Chris Nevin) for an innings that just oozed experience. We got there six down with 1.5 overs left in the innings. There certainly were some twitchy guys in the viewing room, myself included.

Training today went well. The body is still a little tired but I warmed up real quick and had some good rhythm in the nets. Today, for me, was about cranking it up to full pace and then going through the variations that I will be using tomorrow, including working on a new slower ball to go with the one I already bowl. The new one went really well and may just make its debut tomorrow in the match.

I wish you all the Happiest of New Years, all the best for it! Be safe, prosperous and most of all happy!!

Wellington vs CD - One Day Match

2008-12-29T08:10:00.003+13:00

A beautiful day in Nelson, Trafalgar Park looking great, it was just a pity that there really was only one team in it; and it wasn't us.

Wellington Firebirds, my domestic team, took on the Central Districts Stags in a one-day game. Both teams are the 'form' teams of the domestic season. So it shaped up as a very competitive match. To lose by 82 runs wasn't quite the result that was expected by either team.

I got back to Wellington from the Napier Test on Wednesday, straight to the gym and then the rest of the afternoon off. It had been a tough five previous days especially as we had bowled every day. I thought I'd get my gym work in early so I could enjoy Christmas Eve afternoon and the whole of Christmas day off. Boxing Day I was out for a run early before heading down to Nelson for a 'net' in the afternoon. Last time I did this flight I had some more issues with motion sickness and I wasn't looking forward to this flight at all. I had my little pill that is supposed to make me fine with the movements and it wasn't needed. One of the nicest flights I've ever been on. Sun was shining and the scenery is just amazing. I really do appreciate living in a beautiful country with some great views from plane windows.

Good practice, although still feel tired, maybe I didn't need that run in the morning, but I've got to keep doing everything I can to try to get into the one-day team. Good meal out with the Wellington boys and it's good to catch up with them; it had been a while.

Good sleep in a tiny bed, up and off to the ground for my first one-day match for quite some time. We had looked at the pitch the previous day and it looked pretty good, maybe thinking about bowling first on it, but not bothered if we had to bat on it. Arrived to the ground, deck hadn't changed to much so still looking to bowl first. We did win the toss and did bowl.

Graham Napier, of Essex, started us off well. In his first over, Naps struck twice and was maybe a little unlucky not to have a third which would have brought him a hat-trick. Great start and that was the end of that for quite a while. The deck played really well and the 'Stags' batted even better.

A reasonable crowd had turned out including some boys that had given some of us a whole lot of grief the last time we were here. This time, though, they were good fun and I really enjoyed a laugh with them at times. The boys, and girls, on the couch enjoyed their day, a little more than most of us Wellingtonians. Good fun, the way a crowd should be.

A 100-run partnership from Sinclair and Peter Ingram really made our life tough. Both batted really well and from there we were always playing a little bit of catch up cricket. At one stage there was a chance that we could be chasing 300, and on this deck we weren't too concerned that we were chasing 286. That was until we started batting. We lost two early and that really hurts when your chasing down a large target. We need a couple of partnerships similar to what we had already seen when we were in the field.

I had bowled pretty well, did let go of a few balls I wasn't happy with, but the majority were where I was asking them to go. I picked up one wicket, with a yorker, a ball that I am working hard on. Came off the park reasonable happy although I know there is still a little bit of work to go.

I found in the morning before the match that I hadn't made the one-day team for the first two ODIs against the Windies. I know I'm close though and a couple of good performances in this and the next couple of matches for the Firebirds will push me close and make the selectors jobs tough; which is all I can do!

A couple of good innings from the boys in this match but nothing to take us close. I went in with us needing over 115 to win. The better target was to get 60 and deny Central Districts a bonus point. That meant me, at 11, and Boam, at 10, were going to have to bat our socks off and do something special; we didn't do too badly. A final wicket partnership of 32 was as good as we could really ask for. I made a new top score for one-day cricket, 17 off 15, not huge, but it's a step forward.

The Twenty20 the other night was pretty special viewing. Gayle was amazing, again. Probably the least said about him the better; he might be reading. The one over 'bash' was interesting; added some more intensity to an already amazing tie. And again, Gayle ... Wow.
I liked the 'one-over match', except there need to be less of a gap between the action. It's a good format, and brings more people into the mix to separate a closely fought tie.

And that'll do for now, next game for Wellington is the December 30. I'll catch you back after that one.

Enjoy the festive season!

New Zealand vs West Indies - 2nd Test - Napier - Day Five - Part Two

2008-12-26T09:12:00.003+13:00

So, the 'Referral System' and my views on it; well, let me explain it first.

If either team is not happy with the decision of the on field Umpire from an appeal then, under this system, they have the right to refer it to the 3^rd Umpire. Each team gets three unsuccessful appeals per innings; that's a minimum of 12 per team per Test match. If your referral is upheld, as in you disagree with the on field decision and the 3^rd Umpire agrees with you, then you don't lose that referral. Following?? The system says that the footage has to 'conclusively' prove that the on field umpire has made a mistake for it to be overturned. But, they are only allowed to use TV replays, no sound, no 'snicko', and no 'hot spot'.

Got it, good.

So, in reference to Baz's dismissal, with the technology that is currently available, only the TV footage, there was no way to say that Baz defiantly did not hit it as you couldn't see 'daylight' between the ball and the bat because of the camera angles, therefore the 3^rd umpire had to stay with the on field decision. But if you look at the trajectory of the way a ball and the plane the bat was following there was no way that Brendon did nick that ball. A decision that angered not just Baz I can tell you. And this is where this 'referral' system fell over.

Shoe on the other foot, had the on field umpire given it 'not out' and the Windies referred it to the 3^rd umpire, again with the footage available, the decision would stayed with the on field decision. So from the replays he was, therefore, both out and not out depending on the on field decision. Confused! So were we! And this is not why the reason why the system was introduced. It needs some tweaks.

Firstly, three appeals are too many. Within the rules we contested decisions that, normally, we would have just moved on from and got on with the game. But as you've got three unsuccessful appeals, you may as well use them all up and have a crack at the 50/50 ones. The rule was put in place to right the wrongs of 'howlers' (like Baz's), the really bad decisions, not the 'iffy' (50/50's) ones. Maybe three in total for each completed innings (batting and bowling); a total of six per match per team...??

Secondly, if you've got the technology, then why can't it be used? 'Snicko' is not perfect as it picks up creaks in the handle, it picks up the rubber of the grip snapping and also other noises that are made out there. 'Hot spot' is also not perfect as sometimes where the 'hot spot' should be, or not be, isn't shown on the one angle of the footage. But when you combine all technologies the picture gets better and better. There is a better chance of making the right decisions.

If all three technologies (camera angles, snicko and hot spot) cannot 'conclusively' prove one way or the other then the decision should stay with the on field Umpire.

Jeetan secured his best Test bowling figures in this second innings, five for 110 off 46 overs. This added to the 25 overs he bowled in the first innings means he should be one tired boy. Both Dan and Jeets played important parts in this match. On a deck that just got better and better to bat on, and was great to bat on from ball one anyway, they did two jobs. Both Jeets's and Dan's economy rates were just a smidge over 2 per over for the match and came on in parts of the match where the batters were starting to control scoring rate. Controlling the scoring rate means you can attack a little more from the other end. And they picked up wickets too, 10 for the match between them.

Gayle was pretty good. Maybe, that's an understatement. He controlled the whole of the Windies second innings. His 197 was one of the best controlled innings I've had the displeasure of being a part of, and very unlucky to not get more. His dismissal was interesting. He attempted to pull Jeets around the corner, got a bottom edge on it straight down onto Baz's shoe which then popped up to his gloves. He certainly deserved more, but we weren't too worried about that at the time, in fact, still not bothered by it.

There was, at least, one more thing that was pretty interesting that happened in this match. And it just happens to include Brendon, again. It wasn't big and it wasn't clever, but it did show what can happen to people when the head gets all messed up. Daren Powell was having a little battle with Baz during the first innings. In fact it was getting a little bit heated out there. I can't repeat what was said here, as its second hand information and I could get in trouble if I get it wrong. Either way what happened wasn't great for the game. Powell got quite heated at Brendon walking at him while he was batting; he took exception to it and then produced what I'll call a 'brain explosion'. In the middle of one over, Powell ran through the crease and threw the ball, rather than bowled it; something that is rather naughty. In fact, as a bowler, that's about as bad as it gets. The following morning, before we took the field, we had one rather sheepish looking fast bowler come into our changing room and apologies for that delivery. And by the looks of it, that apology has got him off any disciplinary actions.

And that finishes up this match.

I'm now back with the Wellington Firebirds for a while. I'm hopeful of selection for the One Day series starting on New Year 's Eve in Queenstown. I know I have missed out on the two T20 matches that are tomorrow and the 28^th. So, Wellington Firebirds vs Central Districts in the lovely Nelson on the 27^th. Hopefully I'll get through that match with some impressive figures and really put the pressure on the selectors for One Day selection. I'll be back on here to cover that match with some thoughts on the NZ T20 match and whatever else is happening in my head and my life.

Again, Merry Christmas, hope it's a great day with the family! Now sit back and enjoy the NZ T20 and the Aust/SA Test match.

New Zealand vs West Indies - 2nd Test - Napier - Day Five

2008-12-24T19:07:00.005+13:00

Part One of Two

As we headed into Day 5 we knew it was going to be a tough day. And it was. The Windies were seven down and 210 in front. If we could pick up these wickets for around 40 odd runs, then we’d be very happy. That would mean there would be about 70 overs left in the day to chase around 250 and on that track we certainly would have fancied our chances. But by saying that, that means getting these three wickets was going to be hard work.

Day five and I’ve bowled ever day of the Test. The body was pretty tired, I didn’t have the muscle soreness that I would usually, but the body was feeling tired. I knew I was going to have to work hard for every bit of rhythm and pace out in the middle.

Early bus to the ground for the fifth day in a row; there’s no point spoiling what has been working. And when I say that, I mean it. Cricketers, generally, are superstitious. Although superstitious is almost the wrong word though. If something is going well then we will repeat those things we have been doing. A shirt you’ve worn when you done well is then considered lucky will be worn day after day. The Breakfast you eat before you head down to the ground will be the same as the day before if you’ve had success. A lucky bat, a lucky pair of socks. Any day when you done well, I can almost guarantee you that cricketers will try to replicate the actions that honestly have nothing to do with the end result because we are mental! We have issues. We believe in silly routines that hopefully will bring us continued success.

So I get to the ground early and tape up my feet to save more blisters appearing. The feet are still sore and aren’t going to get any better in the short term. I’m not complaining and I’m not the only one going through pain to play, not at all. It’s just that it’s my blog, and I can only really speak on my behalf. The blister on the ball of my left foot is the one the hurts the most. Every time I land to bowl it gets smashed up. But Iain, just get on with it, just bowl. Shut up and bowl!

Gayle and my ‘pal’ Fidel were batting. The first plan was similar to how I came out and bowled on the Saturday morning. Hit the deck hard, don’t try too much, keeping the runs down and hopefully knocking them over early. Alas. I started well. Rhythm and pace came early which I was sure was going to happen as warms ups had gone well. It didn’t last though. I don’t know if it was me being tired, possibly trying too much to bowl dots to Gayle or Gayle just deciding he was going to hit me everywhere. Probably a combination of all of the above, but in my fourth over I was made to look very much like an average medium pacer. He just upped his game; maybe the bouncer I caught his grill with woke him up and made him angry. Sixteen off my fourth, and therefore last, over was not what we wanted. We will have to chase every one of these runs down to win.

I head away from that over hurting. I’m doing my best and at the time it wasn’t good enough. I’m letting the team down. I was trusted with a job and couldn’t do it. And those reasons right there is why this game is so damn difficult. One day a hero the next you can feel like a nuffy even though you’re still bowling ok, things just don’t go your way. Yes, luck does play a part! And I wasn’t lucky today. I have mentioned in earlier blogs that when things like this happen I can sometimes shut myself off, get grumpy and not give enough to the team’s effort. It’s only normal to be disappointed and showing it and feeling it are often not the best things in a team game. I tried as hard as I could to get back into the game, to back the boys that were trying to do what I couldn’t. It took me a couple of overs to ‘get over myself’ and start giving what the team needed in the field. This is a big improvement from what I have been like in the past. Still got some work to do with it, but sometimes when you’re disappointed it just takes some time to be sociable again.

In the last over before lunch we picked up the last wicket and headed into the shed. 312 off 60 overs. We get this and it’s going to be one amazing chase.

We were heading in the right direction, not cruising, but I’m sure our batters are making them nervous. Unfortunately we lost a couple of wickets in the middle of the chase and things started getting a touch nervous on our side. It was going to be a twitchy afternoon. Baz joined Jesse and things were looking good. 140 odd off about 21 overs. That really is possible. The more we chase it too, the more chance the Windies have of dismissing us; a balancing act that both sides didn’t want to give away too much.

Baz was given out caught behind playing a pull shot. Instantly he referred the decision to the 3^rd umpire as he was sure he hadn’t hit it. The footage couldn’t ‘conclusively’ show that Brendon didn’t hit it so the decision stays with the original decision.

I’ll cover this rule off and the application of it in a couple of day’s time.

And that ended our chase. Sure we still had five wickets in the bank, but could we guarantee that we could get through the 15 overs remaining intact if we kept chasing.

A real hollow feeling filled the changing room when it was agreed, with nine overs to go, that a result was not possible for either team. Some real weird emotions ran through me, but mostly disappointment that I couldn’t have been the difference on the 5^th morning of this match. I tried as hard as I could the previous night to be that difference. I picked up a wicket and created a chance. I do take a lot of pleasure and confidence from my performance in the first innings but I wanted to have more of an effect at the important end of the match, to make the difference, to turn it into a very, very special match for me and a Test match win for the team.

I've got a couple of things to add to this in the next couple days, so keep tuned.

Have a great Christmas all, that's if you celebrate it, of course. I'll be with my parents, at home, a welcome day off.

If you can, check out the sponsors around the out side of this page. This will keep it free and keep me happy!

Merry Christmas

New Zealand vs West Indies - 2nd Test - Napier - Day Four

2008-12-22T22:35:00.000+13:00

I don’t know if you can hear, but that’s a bath running in the back ground, and once it’s full, I’m going to sit in there and finish writing this. Why, because I can, I want to and mostly because I feel like I need a damn good soak.

Now that’s a day of Test cricket; two down at the start of play and seven down at the end. With momentum swings at crucial points throughout the day it was one that could have gone any way. We’re certainly not disappointed with where we are; three wickets in the morning and we right back in there.

Bath run, lovely!

So today, it took us 16 overs to make a break through, and we get two at once. Marshall nicks one off Jeets and then Shiv, first ball, leading edges a full toss back to Jeets who happily takes the dolly catch. We got Shiv out. This is a cause to celebrate, and we do. That was one tight huddle in the middle of the ground, it turned into a bit of a rolling maul; we knew how big a wicket he is.

While we were waiting for Shiv to come out Dan asked me to warm up, we had a plan that we were going to implement against him. I was going to bowl the next over from the other end. Dan had spoken to Ian Smith, one of the Sky commentators about a plan to him, and I had a chat with Simon Doull this morning before we started along the same lines. Both suggested the same plan, I get the feeling that they had worked it out together and both were taking credit for it. Any way, we didn’t need it. A full toss was all it took, and that was about the only ball we hadn’t bowled to him in this series. Jeets had two in two and was on a hat trick. Not to be though.

Gayle was still and looking amazing. I’m not bothered about saying that, as he has been just brilliant last night and today. Sometimes you just have to admit that when someone is hot, they’re hot and let them be. Nash joined him and we were trying to attack Nash and defend, as much as we could, to Gayle.

We let Nash cut again. We really can’t let him do this. It wasn’t good enough from most of us to him. Gayle and Nash put on 124 and held us wicket less for over 55 overs.

We went into tea not with our heads down, but we certainly weren’t bubbly either. We came out from tea with some real energy. A great chat in the shed from Dan and Baz and we fizzing. We’re back out there with a purpose, with intensity and most importantly with the question ringing in our ears, “who’s going to stand up and make it their day?”

Franky had the ball and he ‘stood up’. He hit the deck hard, bowled fast and really rattled Nash straight after tea. And then pick him up with a short ball grabbing some glove lobbing to 2^nd slip for an easy catch. We’re back. It took us another eight overs to pick up our next wicket, Ramdin hit a soft shot to Flynny at point. Happy days. Franky finished a very good spell with some good reward.

All day I had been struggling with rhythm and it was important that this spell, my last of the day, was up in intensity, pace and hopefully the rhythm would come back. It did, and early. The first ball of this spell kicked through to Baz like it had been in the first innings. Just one ball and the confidence grows and that feel comes back. Again, I’m back. If I had all night to type, I’d try to explain what I’m talking about, but I honestly don’t think I have time right now. But I’ll try to soon.

I had a good chat to Baz before the spell, he asked me to concentrate on a couple of lengths that were successful for me in the first innings, and hit them well. Defend as much as we could to Gayle and attack Taylor who was now in. I had picked Taylor up in the first innings by getting him hooking. That was going to be part of the plan this evening, although he wasn’t coming to the party, at all. Plan B, the slower ball, again. Set him up with a couple of hard length balls, a good bouncer, which actually hit him hard in the grill; yes I did check to see if he was ok! And then the slower ball, the same one that I got Fidel with in the first. Same result. LBW. Yeah ha! That’s seven down with about five overs left. A real good chance to pick up at least one more tonight.

Fidel came out at nine tonight, I was quite happy about this. Again I was going to refrain from bowling bouncers to him because he is expecting them. I started with length balls, hard and heavy. I got him to nick a good one to second slip, unfortunately it was dropped. These things happen and I managed to hold back the disappointment that I had been showing, quite a bit, back in Bangladesh. A positive and forward move for me.

No more wickets for us tonight, but my nine over spell was a real positive for me and the team. I bowled an eight over spell in the first innings when I picked up the last four and it had been a long time since I’d done more. I was pretty tired towards the end but there was no way Dan was getting the ball out of my hand. Hopefully I can start up in the morning and take the momentum from tonight into that spell.

New Zealand vs West Indies - 2nd Test - Napier - Day Three

2008-12-22T08:04:00.000+13:00

Batting warm ups are great. We're two down and there's no chance I'll be bowling anytime soon. I head down early again to get a net in before we start to warm up proper. Over to Nelson Park to get on the bowling machine and I had a really good 'net'. Started with some full stuff, which wasn't really going to help me if I get a bat today as they're not going to bowl full to me anyway, then moved onto some shorter stuff, that's more like it. Felt pretty good, the feet were working and I was seeing it ok. It's always a lot different out in the middle though.

Watching Timmy Mac bat yesterday was just brilliant. Watching him bat today was even better. He was like a barnacle on the bottom of a ship, he just would not budge. No matter what the Windies threw at him they just couldn't faze him, just couldn't get to him. All day he just dead batted the good balls, ducked the short balls he didn't want to hook and stroked the fuller one where he wanted. He looked great and fully deserved this, his first, Test match hundred.

Jesse, again, hit the ball like nobody else can. He is one serious player and stroked his way to a pretty 57. We sit back in the changing room watching him bat with awe just wishing we could have as much time as he seems to have.

Today was a very special day for Dan, but it seems to have slipped by without too much of a mention. He joined an exclusive club, 200 Test wickets, and 3000 Test runs. It was a pity more wasn't made of it as this is one amazing club to be a part of. From me, congrats Dan. Amazing!

It was my turn to bat and guess who was bowling. I had a quick chat with Fidel this morning congratulating him on his 100 Test wickets which he completed yesterday afternoon. A quick chat and a laugh and a "I know what you'll be bowling to me when I bat" thought in my head. And I wasn't wrong. First ball, bouncer, I start to get under it, it grazes my shoulder and takes a bit of my helmet and heads down to fine leg, Jeetan and I come back for two. Maybe I was a little silly coming back for the second, although I'm not backing down from this 'fight'. Next ball, bouncer, I duck this one better, it sails over my head. Third ball, bouncer, swayed this one as it was a touch wider. Actually starting to feel quite good, I was picking the ball up early, even in the gloomy light, and felt sure in getting out of the way of the short stuff. Fourth ball, I was expecting this one to be full and almost set up for a drive; Iain, don't premeditate, it only gets you in trouble!! It wasn't full, another short one, and a late duck gets me under it quite safely in the end. Last ball of the over, this one has to be full. It was, thudding into my pads. I felt it was heading down and was surprised they referred the 'not out' decision. Third umpire agreed, not out.

For the first time in a while I ended up with a not out. These are, normally, good for the average, that's when you get runs that is. My 0 not out does nothing for the average but I do take confidence from innings like that every time a short ball passes me by without leaving an impression.

I was given the new ball. And it didn't go very good at all. Four overs for 33 is not how you want to start an innings. But that is what I've gone and done. I've bowled a touch to short and gave Chattergoon to much width. That's the consistency that I just can't keep for the whole match. It's a learning lesson though, and straight after the day’s play I chatted to a couple of guys, got some feedback and will go into tomorrow with a target to get those figures back in my favour. And maybe, just maybe, four wickets; but I won't get ahead of myself there though!

New Zealand vs West Indies - 2nd Test - Napier - Day Two

2008-12-21T09:40:00.000+13:00

And there lies Day Two of this Test match. A day I will never forget. A day I don’t want to forget. I have never felt like that in a Test match before. I had bowled 16 overs the previous day and woke this morning feeling a lot better than I would do normally. I’m not saying I feel that tired and stiff after 16 overs, I just felt real good. I had done my hot cold the previous night, had a really good massage and hit the sack after writing this. A good sleep, a chat to my wife this morning, breakfast and down to the ground early to get my feet strapped up for today’s play. For those that are interested, the big toe is a lot better. It was still a bit ‘weapy’ this morning, but wasn’t throbbing or painful to pressure. Good job that is otherwise the physio, who was ‘oh so very keen’ to get the paperclip in there, would have had some explaining to do!!

I wore my compression tights to bed last night, these aid in recovery, and I wore them out onto the field to play in too. It just keeps the muscles warm and ready to go. Warmed up well, felt strong and had a good rhythm to my warm up delivers before the start of play.

Dan told me, early, that I was going to be starting up and asked me which end. I wasn’t really bothered; whatever fitted in with the other guy the best is how I usually approach this subject. Maybe I should be a little more demanding in future, as I got the end I really wanted as Dan was going to bowl in a short bit from the other end. Tail wind and coming over my right shoulder, I couldn’t ask for a better breeze.

The plan this morning was the same as it was the previous night, to keep it tight, don’t try to much and be patient. I started with three maidens and had some rhythm that I’d been searching for, for quite a while. My 4^th over of the morning I had another maiden and two wickets to my name. Oh, that does feel good. Went from 2-59 over night to 4-59, at this time that was my best bowling figures in Test matches and I was feeling great in my action.

During this spell Dan and I spoke quite a bit, not anything you’ll pick up on the footage, but just in between balls, sometimes, he’ll suggest a ball to bowl or I’ll put a suggestion to him. Today, this was really working. Powell came in and had been there for a couple of overs, Dan suggested that it was time to ‘give him one’, that means a bouncer. One of the better bouncers I’ve bowled, helmet badge height, and flew right past him through to Baz. Right then, I’m going to bowl a few more of these. Next one, top edge down to the fine leg boundary, we caught each other’s eyes and he said “I won’t be ducking any of them.” And that was fine with me. Back to bowling a length ball, he baseballs it to mid on, hard. Millsy may have dropped it (no drams there), but he did stop the four. I did though have a real horrible feeling that maybe, just maybe, that was my chance of a 5fa gone. And after the next ball, Millsy asked me if I was thinking that same thing, this was though while we were celebrating my first 5fa in Test cricket. Powell gloved the next ball, a short one, through to Baz.

Mum and Dad had come up to watch today, it had been a while since they’ve been able watch me play for NZ live. It felt so good to do well, to perform, to have success in front of them. I gave them a ‘wave’ (not a real one, but they knew what it was) on my way through to Baz to celebrate with him and the team.

Nine down and my pal Fidel is in. Oh, did I want to bowl to him. Another chat to Dan on the way back to my mark, “mate, what are you going to bowl to him?” I replied, “I want to hit him, but I’m going to bowl length.” And a smile came across Dan’s face, which was what he wanted to hear. I had two play and misses and the over was done.

Shiv, who is just amazing, was still there. He is fantastic. So much patience and then when he wants to turn it on, he does so. Both Dan I were trying to manipulate the batter towards the end of the over so that we could both bowl to Fidel. Shiv was to good, and we pretty much only got to bowl to him.

I finally got a chance to; I had one ball left in my over. Since Dunedin I had been thinking about what to bowl him as a surprise. A bouncer was just too obvious and a yorker the same. I can bowl a loopy slower ball that, when I get it right, lands pretty much on the crease. And I got it right, from nowhere it droped onto Fidel’s toe and I’ve got six. The wicket I wanted, the four wickets we needed for the day were done, and, wow, I had all four. Sure I would have loved to have added Shiv to that tally, but I’ll take whatever I can get! I celebrated, maybe a little over the top, but at the time, I didn’t care; I was on top of the world. When I looked back at the replay, I felt like a bit of an idiot. I do, do some dumb things out there.

Off the park, my feet out of the boots; oh thank God for that. Toe didn’t give me any problems but the blisters were still sore. I went straight out to watch the Howza and Timmy Mac bat through to lunch. I did my hot colds at lunch; it’s time like this that you don’t mind doing the extra work to make yourself better for the next day. It’s almost a pleasure to get in that tub of ice, a sick man I must be. Sitting watching the boys bat this afternoon was a pleasure, real old school Test cricket. Two down at the close of play and the mood in the camp is very good. A very good morning, and cumulated into a very good day of Test cricket.

I had press to do tonight, a radio interview and the ‘print’ media to do a press conference for. I am starting to enjoy these. And they/you are reading this, so hi boys!

Had the pleasure of having tea with Mum and Dad tonight, really good to spend time with them. Now, it’s bed time. I’ll sleep well, if this buzz wears off that is!

New Zealand vs West Indies - 2nd Test - Napier - Day One

2008-12-19T22:10:00.001+13:00

So that’s Day One out of the way. Another midday start but this time the sun is shining. The deck just looked amazing, a definite bat first wicket. We all hoped that the impressive tosser, Dan, would come up trumps for us again. Alas, we lost the toss and are bowling.

Arrived at the ground on the early van, and headed straight over to the nets to get some work. I hadn’t managed to fit in a bat the previous day at training so I thought I’d get some in early this morning. It was good, hit the ball pretty well and ducked and weaved well enough to feel as good as I can going into this match. Quickly back to the ground and I had a quick TV interview before heading off to warm ups. A quick chat to Simon Doull about the preparation and way the match will go, also a quick chat regarding my blog. It seems that everyone is surprised that I am doing it, but as far as I can understand, they all enjoy reading it.....

During that interview I said that if we had to bowl first it wouldn’t be the end of the world. If you’re going to bowl on a batters deck then often it’s good to get in early, see what you can do when it is at its juiciest.

Stats from this ground, which is known as a batting ground, say that quite often the team that bats first after winning the toss will lose four wickets in the first session; which is what happened today. After a partnership of 43 I came onto bowl, the 14^th over of the day. As I said I felt good in the nets yesterday and took a whole heap of confidence into this match. First ball, one of the best balls I’ve ever bowled and we’ve got Gayle. One of the big ones gone and I’ve got him. I can tell you I was pretty pumped after he walked for the nick behind; the perfect start to my spell. The next ball wasn’t so flash, and two balls later, again, not so good. But I can tell you I’ll take the wicket of Gayle and go for two fours in my first over every day of the week.

I was feeling really good, the pitch had some pace and bounce, not sharp ‘take you head off’ bounce, but it kicked and carried through like a good Test deck should. There was just a little, and only a fraction, of sideways movement. Apart from that, a real good surface for a good days play.

Jeets picked up Sarwan a couple of overs later with a very good catch by Baz behind the stumps and we had them 2-54. Pretty happy at this stage, a couple of big wickets back in the shed and we’re bowling real well. Jeets was creating a lot of pressure by bowling maidens, not as a defensive plan, but by very good bowling. I had some pace and bounce at the other end and together we were bowling in ‘partnership.’ Partnership bowling is important; there is no point having one guy tie it up at one end while the other guy is getting flayed all over the park. It’s important to keep the pressure on from both ends by bowling dots and denying runs.

Marshall was next to go and I had my second. This time Jesse, at third slip, got one of those amazing catches. Just a little more bounce and managed to get him to fend it slightly down and to Jesse’s right. He got both hands around it barely millimetres off the ground. That’s three and we’re very happy.

Chattergoon, meanwhile, at the other end play a very good openers innings, that was until just before lunch where he tried to pump Dan through the covers and Howza took a great catch at 2^nd slip. Again, we enjoyed this immensely. We’ve got them four down at lunch after being asked to bowl and only gave up 74 runs off the 31 overs. Sitting pretty and the boys are going to enjoy lunch.

We didn’t enjoy tea so much. The Windies were still only four down. Shiv and Nash batted well, 150-4 after 64. We had done a great job of not allowing them to get away on us, so we were still very much in it, but we had to shift one of them as soon as we could. And, alas, we couldn’t quite do that as quickly as we wanted to. It wasn’t until the 5^th over with the new ball until Franky got Nash to drive one straight to cover, held happily by Flynny! This is where a good team will pounce, opened up an end, fresh batter in, and one that had his pads on for a long time. And we did. Dan replaced Franky and Ramdin left a straight one. Oh, those sorts of things are fun especially late in the day. If you see the replay you don’t see the smiles move off our faces for quite a while! So that’s six down and they’re 258 off 91.

It was a good day in the park, an honest day in the park. There was no really bad bowling, sure there were some bits that we could have done better, but we hung in there on a very good batting deck and we have four wickets to pick up as quickly as possible tomorrow morning. In saying that, we are well aware that this is the combination that put a whole heap of runs on us in Dunedin.

It was an especially good feeling taking the boots off tonight. My feet were sore. Never have I had sore feet like that before. Blisters and one banged up big toe on my left foot. The physio wanted a look at the toe, she wanted to pierce the nail and release the blood bruise underneath. I’ve never had this done before but it involves a lighter a paper clip and someone to hold my foot down. I wasn’t so game for this, but in the effort to try to reduce a bit of the throbbing I thought I’d give it a go. So I now have a burnt hole in my big toe nail and a lot less pressure under it. The paper clip was straightened out, heated up till red hot and then poked through the toe nail so that the blood underneath it can, well, squirt out. It wasn’t pretty; it didn’t smell too good; and I can tell you, it hurt. Oh, gees it hurt. Hopefully by the morning it’ll feel like new.

New Zealand vs West Indies - 2nd Test - Napier - The Day Before

2008-12-18T14:57:00.001+13:00

Right, it’s blog time. The sun is shining, and wind is rustling the trees, the sea crashes on the beach across the road and I’m happy to be alive. Life is good, and no flying for a few days!

I’ll tell you also why life is good. Our training yesterday was in the afternoon, leaving the morning free for whatever you wanted. I had a late call from Dan the night before asking if I wanted to play golf. It was a 6.30am leave, but I knew where we were playing, and there was no way I was going to miss this round. 8am tee off at Cape Kidnappers Golf Club. That place is amazing. Look it up and check out the quality of the place. Unbelievable views, amazing scenery and a brilliant, yet really tough, course. It’s fair to say it cost me a bit, especially as Baz and I, who were partners playing against Dan and Jeets, lost the round and had to pay for the other two, including balls, carts, clubs, lunch and whatever else those two could add to the bill. But it was all worth it, I’d pay double to go back and play again; although it’s 2-minute noodles for tea for the next week as I can’t afford anything else!

Back to the hotel for about 1pm, a leave for training at 1.50 so a bit of time to sit down, relax and prepare. As you may remember I wrote that I wasn’t happy with my bowling in the last test and I needed to do some work. This training was the day, as it was the first time since Dunedin that we’ve had the weather to bowl. We always get real good training wickets up here in Napier; they are across the road on Nelson Park, a club ground with decks that most First Class grounds would be proud of.

I was scheduled in to bowl six overs today in a four and a two over spells. My first four overs I wasn’t happy with, the ball wasn’t coming out right. I was working through my checklist of the key points to my action that I practice. Things still were not happening. I could actually feel the ball ‘roll’ out of my bowling hand, rather than being ‘flicked’ out with energy and intensity. I could see by how the batters were playing me that it didn’t have the pace or bounce that I would usually generate. Something was missing. I thought back to the last spell that where I had good pace and bounce, a spell back at the Gabba was the one that came to me, I remembered that I discovered something about my action there; that I couldn’t just rely on my front arm to generate pace but also had to ‘muscle’ it from by bowling arms shoulder too. I know it sounds obvious but I hadn’t had to think about this in the past. The last couple of balls of my first spell I concentrated on pulling that arm through harder with the pec and front shoulder muscles and it worked, almost straight away. My spell finished and I then had a little wait for my bat and second spell.

I then knew, after bowling those last couple of balls, that I was ‘back’! That’s all it can take sometimes, one bad spell and the confidence goes, and then just a couple of balls where it all feels great and the turn around and quality difference is huge. My next two overs were handy, not great, but better. Something I took a lot of confidence from and was looking forward to getting back into the nets today for training.

So that was Wednesday, a lazy night for me after golf and a long hard training.

Thursday now, the day before, and I’ve done my training, back at the hotel and am getting this started early so that I can catch up with a mate tonight. Training today was really good, I had the ‘feel’ from ball one, hit the areas I wanted to and got the feedback from the batter that I wanted. Not a ask questions verbally feedback, but I can see how they are playing me type feedback. The areas were improved, the pace was quicker and the bounce was steeper. Those things combined make batters lives harder than and they respect it in a way that was different to yesterday. They know they’re in a battle and react accordingly. Good feeling!

So this afternoon will be pretty lazy, although the sun is out and the beach is just across the road I’ll be spending most of it inside, out of the heat saving energy for what is going to be a hard, tough Test match on what looks like an ‘Adelaide’ type wicket. I’ll drink plenty of water and get on board as much ‘good’ food as I can. I’ll have a massage this afternoon and then the Cap Presentation and Captains Meeting tonight and then, hopefully, catch up with a school mate tonight for a meal.

My job for this ‘tour’ is tickets. We all get given a job to do while away. Jobs like; looking after the flag before and after the match; same with the scorebook; organise the rental vans; head count to make sure everyone’s there; physio’s assistant; music box; fines and time keeper; autographs...

I am on the allocation of the complimentary tickets around the team. Dunedin was easy and there was quite a few left over after dishing out whatever guys wanted, this match in Napier is going to be different. As Napier is such a nice place for a weekend away and there are a few Central Districts boys in the team, everyone wants their share of the tickets and more. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to please everybody! We’ll see.....

And that’ll do it for today, it’s going to be a great Test match on a great deck; we’re going to have to work hard for five days to get this result.

NZ vs West Indies – University Oval, Dunedin – Day Five

2008-12-16T14:06:00.002+13:00

I love Wellington, but, on days like today, I really hate the place. You see, Wellington is known for its wind. And when travelling between cities we fly. Wind, flying and me don’t mix to well. Today is no exception. Leaving Dunedin with slightly overcast but still skies was nice; however, the descent in to Wellington was terrible. I get motion sickness and the bump, drop, bump, drop motion does nothing for me, well actually it does, and it makes me feel very, very bad! And here I sit in the lounge, writing this with an ice water sitting next to me and a motion sickness pill to take before we board our next flight to Napier. I should have had it before leaving Dunedin this morning!

Anyway, onto the cricket. Alas, nothing to report on for yesterday. We left the hotel for the ground at normal time. A small drift of drizzle was about but nothing of note. Not much had changed by the time we got to the ground apart from the cloud build up was a little greater. Ten minutes later and that had changed quite a bit. It was now proper drizzling; not quite raining, but more than just wisp of rain. Another 10 minutes after that it was raining.

We knew, as players, that with this rain, play today probably wouldn’t happen. The outfield still wasn’t great from the rain earlier in the match and it really didn’t need a top up of water. The thing was too, that with the amount of time we had already lost in the match a result was going to be a hard one to work. And losing more time today did nothing for that cause. So, in all honesty, going out to play once things had dried up was of no consequence to the result. And when play was called off, just after an early lunch at 1.30pm, it was actually the best weather there had been in Dunedin for the whole match. Irony!?

So, pack up time it was. I had spent the morning in and out of the changing rooms, including a real surprise visit by a dog. I have a couple of very good friends who work for the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind in Wellington. And through those friends I have had the honour of having a ‘Guide Dog’ puppy named after me. So there is an 11 month old black Labrador called Iain. Yup, a silly name for a dog, but I like it and he responds to it which was cool to see. And he turned up to the ground yesterday to see me, with its ‘walker’, of course. I’m not a massive animal fan, but this dog might just have changed me; just a great little dog with such a great temperament. They reckon he’ll be a great guide dog too. I had my photo taken with him and had a real enjoyable time talking to the ‘walker’, as they’re called, and hanging with Iain. That was the highlight of the day really.

I grabbed Daren Powell aside for a chat during the morning too. He had played some League cricket at a club that’s not far from where I live in England (when I’m there) so we knew some people in common. Spent about half an hour just chatting about ‘stuff’, good chat, funny guy! And that was about the extent the ‘cricket’ day. Cricket gear on the van, back to the hotel and straight to the gym for a weights session. A good full work out and the walk back to the hotel was a little wobbly, legs a touch rubbery and arms not wanting to work properly. Shower, pack, luggage down stairs ready to be trucked to Napier and down to the bar for a couple of quiets with the guys.

Here I sit, in wet and windy Wellington (I really DO love the place, just hate flying into it!) waiting for our connecting flight to Napier. Feeling a whole lot better too! And I’ll leave it here as Dan wants a chat, a bit of a debrief for the match just gone and to cover off some stuff for this next Test starting Friday.

NZ vs West Indies – University Oval, Dunedin – Day Four

2008-12-15T07:54:00.000+13:00

As I always say, it’s great to be off the park. Seeing that last wicket fall is one of the best feelings there is, only beat by actually taking that wicket yourself. Something that didn’t happen for me today, but it was Dan’s honour and by bowling Shiv Dan picked up his 6^th wicket for the innings and his 50^th wicket for the calendar year. An outstanding performance from just an outstanding bowler, player and guy!

Today just wasn’t my day. Things just didn’t work for me. I tried as hard as I could to bowl my maidens, to string together dots. For some unknown reason, I wasn’t up to it. I wasn’t trying too hard and getting tense; I wasn’t too relaxed and had no intensity. It just wasn’t my day. It’s easy to say that, but I have to sit down tonight and have a good think about the day, what happened and why. These are often the toughest nights; a bit of soul searching and every effort to turn it around for the next day. Although we don’t have to go out and bowl straight away, hopefully not for quite a while actually, I will hit the nets in the morning and work some things through.

I did have a look at the computer tonight that records the proceedings of the day to have a look at my action. There was one thing that wasn’t quite how it should be. My front arm wasn’t maybe doing the work it should have been. I’ll have a bowl tomorrow and work though it in preparation for the second Test.

So, a day in the park in windy and cold Dunedin. It wasn’t that bad actually, if you could keep the hands warm that is. It could have been a whole lot worse too. We could still be bowling for a start, Taylor (Jerome) could still be batting with Shiv and, I guess, it could have been colder. Taylor had one of those innings that I’m sure he had only dreamed about before today. Everything hit the middle of his bat. His previous high score was around 30 and today he pumped us around the park for 106 off 107 balls. A special innings, well played. Shiv, on the other hand, took his time. His 76 took 200 balls. Now that’s a weird technique, it obviously works, but when you’re standing at cover fielding and you can see the whole of the back of his bat, it just seems strange.

Millsy came out today with a couple of points to prove, and had a great day. Kyle did the job that I was trying to do, but couldn’t do today. He bowled in the areas the pitch asked for and kept it tight and was rewarded with three very good wickets; including a stunning catch at square leg by me. Ok, it lobed to me and was the easiest catch I’ve ever had in a match. I did have enough time to think about a pretty straight forward catch I dropped off Kyle here in Dunedin last summer against Bangladesh while it was travelling to me. The brain is a crazy organ! It plays so many silly games with you.

I hit the hot colds tonight after we got off, and then to the dining room for a meal once the days play was over. A quick chat reflecting on today’s efforts and a preview of tomorrow in the changing room and then straight back to the hotel and on here to get this done before my massage at 10pm. It’ll be straight to bed after that too.

NZ vs West Indies – University Oval, Dunedin – Day Three

2008-12-13T22:45:00.001+13:00

I’m still not sure about these ‘scheduled’ midday starts. I’m just back from the ground now, and it’s 8.45pm. That’s far from a perfect time to get back to the hotel. Sure, there was some overtime today and we played till 8pm, but I don’t know if they need to have us starting so late.

Arrived at the ground this morning to be greeted by a helicopter hovering above the outfield. Not the normal thing to be seeing and we knew ‘Stanford’ wasn’t in town, so it could only mean one thing, the outfield is still wet. Someone forked out some cash to quicken the drying process up. Nice job! It still couldn’t do the job to get the game started on time, although that may have taken 30+ deg and a good strong breeze to have done anymore. The grounds men think it speed up the drying time by about five hours, which means, if they hadn’t of used it, we wouldn’t have played at all today.

Start time delayed till 2.45pm after consultations and inspections all day. It’s a tough situation to be in, yes we want to play cricket, yes we could have played cricket a little earlier, but... The outfield was still damp and a little ‘splashy’ in parts too. This means at least two things, player safety and the state of the ball if it gets ‘wet.’ No one wants anyone slipping and pulling up injured and it isn’t fair if the ball gets wet either for the bowling team. We do everything we can to keep that thing as dry as possible so that it keeps its hardness and its ability to swing. One puddle and it takes a few overs to get those properties back.

So a 2.45pm start and 65 overs to get through in the day. My day didn’t really start till after tea. It was me up to bat. Mills had just been given out using the ‘referral’ system, something that is quickly going down like a lead balloon in our changing room. We’ve now had two against us and one turned down when we were fielding. I expect a few short ones, but not as many as I got today. Edwards was bowling from one end and Taylor from the other. First couple of balls from Edwards I dug out a couple of Yorkers. And that was about that for balls in my half. The next few either hit me or whizzed past my head. The first short one, the most important one as it will dictate how they bowl from there, I duck it and it doesn’t get up as much as I though, either that or I didn’t get down quick enough. It hit me hard on my left shoulder blade. A quick groan and I thought “damn it, I ain’t showing nothing” so I got straight back up and looked right back at him. Normally when you hit a tail ender you check to see if they’re ok; nothing of the sort out here today. That’s fine with me, it’s locked away. Next ball bouncer, I get under this one pretty well, pop straight back up and looked back at him. Edwards follow through was getting longer and longer. Getting closer and closer to me, and not to see what I was going to be doing for tea! Eventually I got a fullish one which I hit just about as well as I’ve ever hit a cricket ball, through wide mid on all the way to the fence. I can tell you, I’ve never felt better about getting off the mark before, it had been a while. And that really was the end of anything in my half. It was just bouncers now. At one point I pointed at the stumps and said, “Have a go at those.” Edwards replied, “I’m having too much fun to worry about them.” Ok, cool!

One short ball after another and I’m not the best with them. I eventually had one that I popped up back to Edwards trying to keep it off my nose. I had ducked and weaved most of the ones before and was very angry with myself for not getting under this one, instead I tried to fend it away. Not good enough, still got a lot of work to go there.

So we’re all out and Dizzy has a new high score. We’re out in the park with about an hour’s play, if the light holds. It wasn’t great while I was out there, and it certainly hadn’t got any worse in the changeover. It soon actually got better with the sun coming out for the first time in the day. I’m not saying it was warm, but it was nice to see some sun. Hopefully it will be out for a while tomorrow. In saying that we have worked out that, down here, when the sun is out the pitch plays quite flat, and with some cloud cover it does a little bit more off the deck. So, some sun and some cloud will be nice, as long as it’s warmer that it was today!

NZ vs West Indies – University Oval, Dunedin – Day Two

2008-12-12T20:52:00.001+13:00

I said yesterday we were greeted with blue skies; today, not so.

We got back to the hotel last night at about 7pm. As we had come off early because of bad light, there were clouds around. They opened up a little soon after we got back and stayed open for most of the night. We headed to the ground at 9.45, earlier than yesterday as play was due to start 30 mins earlier. Due out in the nets at 10.15am to start warm ups. This was going to be a 'batting' warm up. We already knew that play was going to be delayed a little because of the rain over night so there was no rush to get across to the nets. We milled around for a while and then I decided to get padded up and head over for a 'net.' It was fine when I went into the changing room to get changed, it was very persistent precipitation when I went to walk out; the shortest 'net' of all time. I turned around, got unchanged and went and made myself a coffee. This was going to be a long day! And it was!

These are tough days. We had a couple over in Bangladesh and I talked about the three types of changing room behaviours. The 'card school', the 'ball gamers', and the 'readers'. Today there was just the 'card school' guys that got themselves active. The rest of us sat around, drank coffee and, well, talked about nothing for quite some time.

I took some time out of my 'busy' day to have a chat to a couple of the guys about One Day Cricket. I have only played one ODI for NZ, against England last summer. I didn't go so well; six overs, one for 59, out of a total of 340 odd. Not the best, huh! The match was tied, so I guess we would have lost it if I had of gone for one more run (that's me looking on the bright side!). My domestic record isn't too bad, and when I got my chance at the next level I had a bad day. I really want another chance to play again, to prove that I can do it and be as successful as I have been in this last year with Test cricket. I had a chat to Millsy about plans, variations and the 'transfer' between Test match bowling and ODI bowling. Transfer meaning the similarities in skills from one form to the other. Then I went to Baz for a similar chat. Right then, now all I have to do is to convince the selectors that I deserve another shot. I'll leave that till tomorrow!

Looks like a sponsor has come through for some boots too. Happy days. I won't hold my breath, but just maybe my first pair of free boots. I'll let you know by Monday, so that I can give them some 'air' time on there as thanks!!

We had lunch at the ground at 1.30pm and at 2pm the umpires were having a look to see what time play could be possible. It was at this stage the blue sky peeped out from behind the clouds. All this did was make us stay at the ground for an extra hour. It didn't appear that we would be able to get out and play because the outfield was a touch damp. So the Umps' said they'd look again at 3pm. Not 10 minutes later it got dark again and the rains came back in. Thus ending the days chance of play. Load up, and back to the hotel and off to the gym for a cardio and a 'core' session. Thirty mins spread around the cardio equipment and then off to the mats to work the abs'.

And that's about the whole day. Did some washing this afternoon, wondered the streets to fill in some time and have just had some tea. I'll get this posted early so that I can have the rest of the night off. Not that there is much to do but sit on the bed and watch telly.

NZ vs West Indies – University Oval, Dunedin – Day One (fixed)

2008-12-11T22:32:00.002+13:00

With blue skies above us and a pitch that looked pretty good our plan, as we go into Day One, is to bat first. And bat first we did. Dan won the toss, again; just adding to his impressive tossing ability! We were pretty sure we were going to be batting no matter what. Early in the warm ups we noticed that their spinner, the 6ft 8 Benn, wasn't warming up as if he was playing. That can only mean one thing, they will play the extra seamer and will want to bowl first. Therefore, no matter what, we'll be batting.

The new opening partnership of How and McIntosh headed out to face the new ball. McIntosh has shown every ability to bat for long periods of time, often for not many runs. And this was the case early in the day. I think it took him about 36 balls to get off the mark. He showed no hurry, no worry about sitting on zero for such a long time and was off the mark with one that raced through the hands just above the head of the gully fielder.

When Howza was out and back in the viewing room he commented on Mac's state of mind, the side that we couldn't see. "This could be one long duck on debut." Mac speaking to Howza in between overs. It didn't happen and Mac looked good till he tried to take on Gayle and couldn't clear mid on. A disappointing way for him to get out after showing some pretty good guts and determination to the quicks, who bowled pretty quick.

This brought Flynny and Rossco together, one gutsy little accumulator and one of the classiest right hander's around. Two down and sitting reasonably pretty, a real chance to push on and grind the game away from them. I know it's only early in the match, but there was a chance to really take it away from the 'Windies. It wasn't to happen in this partnership. Rossco put together a nice start and then took on Gayle, up, up, a long way up and unfortunately dropping down to safe hands. Three for 120 odd and Jesse heads out to see Flynny.

That's two wickets fallen early in the second session. A goal of ours is to not lose more than two in a session. Jesse and Daniel now have some work to do to get us through to Tea. Oh, and they did an outstanding job. Both looked so comfortable and with a backward point fielder out on the fence they took advantage of this and rotated the strike nicely, ticking over the scoreboard, taking control.

Flynny got himself past 49 for the first time. Twice he'd been out on 49. He raised his bat today and kept batting beautifully until he became a part of history. Unfortunately not for the reasons he, or we, wanted. Flynny was adjudged LBW via the third umpire after Gayle referred a 'not out' decision from the umpire. This was the first time the system has been used in NZ and in the first referral an on field decision was overturned. Daniel was on 95 and looking comfortable. So the system takes its first victim. The decision took quite a long time to give; it was one of those ones that just didn't look right, therefore the batter getting the benefit of the doubt from the onfield umpire. When you then get the computers and slow mo's involved, and according to the 'laws' of the 'referral system', it had to be out, denying Flynny his maiden hundred.

Baz at six and the majority of the final session to go. Another target was to lose no more than 4 wickets in the day. This means that Jesse and Baz have to get us through to stumps. And they did. Albeit almost an hour early as the clouds rolled in and it became quite dark out there. With the days play starting at mid day means that the scheduled close of play is 7pm. No problems with finishing that late down here, if there's no cloud around that is. So we start 30 mins earlier tomorrow to try to make up the time. A mid day start is actually a little weird for a Test match, especially as just recently we've come from Bangladesh where we started at 9.30am. The late start means that breakfast is brunch and lunch is at afternoon tea time. It just doesn't feel normal, so as long as you don't look at your watch it's ok.

We head into Day Two in a pretty strong position, Jesse was looking strong and full of great timing and Baz showed great technique to see the day out and get us through with no more than four batters in the shed. And if all things go well, maybe a bowl late tomorrow afternoon.

NZ vs West Indies – University Oval, Dunedin – The day before

2008-12-10T22:22:00.001+13:00

Let's kick this thing off.....

Finally some sunshine. I'm not going to come out and jump for joy about how much, but it was enough for us to get outside and train. Training on grass is the best thing for us. And unfortunately we just have to train indoors sometimes, just one of those unavoidable. Indoor training is just so hard on the body. Generally it's artificial grass straight on top of concrete. Genuine surface for batting on, but it's to bouncy and quick in comparison to what we generally play on. Not to mention it's hard on the ankles, shins, knees etc. So, normally the bowlers won't 'run' in and bowl on these surfaces; it's just not worth the injury risk. Although yesterday, with the forecast in mind, most of the bowlers did some form of bowling indoors. There was a chance that it was going to be 'showery' today and that would mean that we would have to, again, train indoors. So we all got some bowling in to make sure that we had some under our belts.

So training today, outside, on some pretty good training decks. They played pretty well for being under cover for the last 3 days. All bodes well for the bit out in the middle of University Oval. Got four overs under my belt, one to warm up, two at full pace and then one to work on different things like bouncers and other lengths. This is normally what I would have done two and three days out from a match, not the day before. But you do whatever you can to get ready when the opportunity is there. Felt pretty good. Worked hard on part of my action that I have never been happy with and am always working on; I bring my bowling arm back behind my head and almost down to my left shoulder blade. This creates a lot of torque and can mean I miss the timing of other parts of my action if things aren't going well. So I'm always trying to have it 'load' up next to my head rather than half way down my back. Maybe, just maybe I'm onto something today after chatting to our bowling coach yesterday. I won't be worrying about it too much out in the middle tomorrow, as it's too new to really be 'grooved' in, but it's something to work on.

The last couple of nights I've been studying some video footage of the opposition batters via a computer we keep 'a lot' of matches on. All our games are logged on it, and then some other games from around the world are logged on it too. This gives us a great resource to check in with our own skills as well as others. The bowlers will get together tonight to discuss bowling plans to the individual batters from the West Indies and we'll formulate plans to, hopefully, stick to.

I go into this match with a pair of boots that has now lasted me four Test matches and a whole lot of bowling in between. They are in ok nick, but it's almost time for a new pair as they are starting to lose their support through the ankle, which is an area I have issues with. It's something that we need to keep on top of. Bowling boots that are not in good condition are injury hazards. They don't do the job they are supposed to and can do more harm than good. Hopefully a sponsor will read this and get in touch.

In saying that, Adidas sent me some new 'sunnies' the other day. I didn't wear sunglasses in the first innings at Adelaide cause the ones that I had been wearing had been broken by our manager, he dropped a bat on them, snap. That was a tough couple of days in the park squinting in the Adelaide sun. I borrowed some off Hoppy on the Sunday and life was so much better. Again, things like this can make a whole days play just that much easier.

I now head off to our bowlers meeting and then Cap Presentation. It's a different team to what I lined up with in Australia and I'm looking forward to what these guys will bring to this match.

Presentation done, tea (a curry) in my belly and I'm ready for bed. The forecast isn't looking that as good as it has been today, but we all hold faith that it will be just fine.

In this match the 'referral' system is being used for decisions. If, as a player, you disagree with an umpires decision you can send it to the 'Third' umpire for them to judge. This is a big change and is still in trial mode. It has been used before, Sri Lanka vs India. It will be interesting to see how many times it is used, if at all, and the effect of it on the match. I just had a good chat with Tony Hill, the Fourth Umpire for this match, about it. Trying to test the boundaries of the system is what it's all about, that is, without stepping outside the spirit of the game. I'm looking forward to seeing it in action, and do I agree with it or not. Well, I'm a little impartial to be honest. I've missed out on a few Test wickets but I've also 'got' a couple too. It's the swings and roundabouts, its cricket. I guess they're trying to get rid of the swings and roundabouts, and just get it right the first time. And, again, that's fine with me. I have a pretty good relationship with the umpires that I've played with and we all know we make mistakes, its fine... its cricket!

Not so news, news, news.

2008-12-09T20:49:00.000+13:00

Right then...

A quick update before we head into the Test match vs the West Indies, down here in Dunedin.

I know I said this was moving, but it’s not now. Things just didn’t work out. Maybe in the future it will happen, but for now you’ll have to put up with me, here. Not a ‘ghost writer’ or anything like that. You have to be ‘real’ famous to have your name put to articles that you didn’t write. And, I’m not that famous! And anyway, just who could replicate these dribbling...

So, since getting back from Adelaide things haven’t necessarily been easy. Gym has been hard work. When playing it is hard to stay strong. You actually lose weight and strength over the course of a Test match. So we need to get into the gym whenever we can. Two weights sessions and a cardio in three days, including a 7am start at the gym. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not at my strongest at 7am, that was a tough session.

Afternoons were spent watching the Wellington Firebirds, my team, take on Northern Districts. The boys had a great game, James Franklin and Mark Gillespie having very good games, and helping hugely towards winning it for us, and earning recalls to the NZ team. Well deserved boys!

I got out and played some ‘Club Cricket’ on Saturday. This was the first chance I had to bowl since getting back, and I needed to get some in before getting down here. And, as this week has turned out, it was the best thing I could have done. I always try to get out with the ‘Club’ lads as often as I can. Last summer I played just the two Saturdays for them, this season I’ve been out there twice with them already. I do enjoy it and I’m pretty sure the boys at Petone-Riverside don’t mind having me around. Bowled 7 overs and got a bat. Got some runs too and boy did I need them. Thirty six in a partnership of around 80, that’s a better ratio than zero from 50!

We’ve been in Dunedin for a couple of days now, it’s rained a lot and forecasted for a little more over the next couple of days so preparation has been tough. But I’ve cover this off tomorrow.

Till then, take care and stayed tuned (right here!).

News, news, news

2008-12-05T20:25:00.002+13:00

I come with good news.

After some consideration I have decided to take this blog to a 'cricket' specific website. I'll give you so more details in a couple of days, but this is exciting for me.

A chance to really push my skills as a 'blogger.' The chance to take this to a wider audience is something I can't say no to.

So, nothing will really change except for where you can find this, and I'll post all the details when I have the exact address. You might even get some photos out of me now; something a couple of you have been asking for.

I'd still appreciate your comments, you can still do that. That function will still be there. Your comments are useful as they help me write later pieces as you give me ideas on what to wirte about. So keep 'em coming!

Again, thanks for being a part of this, I'm enjoying it.

Regards

NZ vs Aust - Adelaide - Day Four

2008-12-03T14:48:00.002+13:00

So, here we are, Day Five and I'm sitting in the Qantas Lounge in Adelaide about to board a plane home. I'll tell you where I'd rather be right now. Not here. This tour was never going to be easy, by any stretch of the imagination. We've been pumped. And yesterday was the worst of it.

It was always going to be a tough ask batting for the majority of two days to save this Test. But it certainly was one that we could achieve, and should have done a lot better than we did. Bowled out 30 mins after tea on day four. Not good enough. And it could have been a lot worse and play finishing an hour earlier in the day if Brendon and I hadn't of put a partnership together. Not that I had much to do with the scoring in that partnership; infact, I had nothing to do with ticking the scoreboard over myself. My second 'pair' in Test cricket. Although, in doing so, I was out in the middle for 54 minutes, faced 38 balls and was part of a 50 run 8th wicket stand. Baz hit about 45 of them with couple of extras throwen in.

The day didn't start well, Redders out second ball of the day, and Five down at lunch. The writing was on the wall then. It really was just a matter of time. We just couldn't get partnerships together for any amount of time. And to bat time and save a match you have to bat with the guy at the other end for as long as you can. You be positive and you survive. Unfortunatily the boys game plans were not, in general, what they took with them out to the middle.

Baz and Fults were batting at lunch, I sat down in the changing room with them to listen to what their chat was, how things were going out there, any plans they had to bowlers and how THEY were going to save us. I made a comment to them that it was now 'personal,' put the team aside and bat and bat for themselves, go about their business and grind it out. You don't get the opportunity to bat on these surfaces very often.

Right, back home now. Couldn't get much done at the airport so decided to wait till I got back to finish this.

Now, back to my batting, cause that's what you want to hear about... I was a tad worried about my health and well being in this innings. I had served up a couple (and then a couple more) bouncers to Lee and Johnson during their knocks the previous day. It really was going to be payback. Baz decided to take as much of the strike as possible, I was fine with that. I did know though that the quicks would get their chance at me at some stage. My first ball was from the spinner, and I thought that I might just tuck into him and try to get off the mark as quick as possible. I had a dirty heave at the first ball, trying to hit it a long way. I succeeded in getting an inside edge onto my foot. That hurts. I got a bit of a telling off from Brendon and quite a lot of chat from the Aussies calling me 'weak' for not wanting to stick about. Oh, I wanted to hang about, just wanted to get off the mark quickly. So I pulled my head in and defended the next couple of balls in the over.

Baz did a great job of 'farming' the strike, he would leave me with the spinner and he'd take Lee. That was until Johnson came on, replacing Hauritz. Now I really had to face the music. I'd now get two balls an over as Baz would take the first four. Our goal was to get through to tea. This was about 25 mins away. First ball from Johnson, back of a length, I defend it down to short leg. That wasn't so bad. The pitch had slowed down over the course of the match. It's still the same pace out of the hand, but when it hits the deck it loses a lot of energy so slowing down on the way though. I was thankful for this.

We get through to tea, and Baz is going nuts. In our pre tea partnership of 49, I had, as I said, none. I turned down a single in the couple of balls of the last over before tea so that I wouldn't be on strike straight after tea. I'm really wanted this partnership to be worth as many as possible and for that, I still needed Baz to take as much strike as possible.

So, back in the shed for tea. We've put on 49 and we both get our share of pats on the backs. As a part of the things I was going to so in this game was to show courage out in the middle with bat and ball. When it's tough, to hang in there and back my skills. And batting today was taking all the courage I had to try not to show what I was really feeling.

Back out after tea and the spinner is back on, so I'm entrusted with him and Baz, Lee. This didn't go to plan one over, when Johnson came back on. Brendon couldn't get a single towards the end of the over, which left me with Lee. And he was really pumped after tea. Oh s**t. First ball, a bouncer, right at me, I sway back and avoid it pretty well and then get a good mouthful from him. "I'm going to get you, remember yesterday?" Oh, Brett, I won't be forgetting that, and I didn't really know what to say back so I, stupidly or bravely said, "whooooo, gees, that was quick, whooooo, fast man!" Kinda playing up cause I had to try to get him to smile, try to break the 'angry face' he had. And it did. I then turned to Katich, at short leg, smiled and said, "mate, I wish I could bowl as fast as that!" A little 'light' moment out in the heat of the battle. It can help!

I then got a quick Yorker that I played well and then an inside edge on one that I knew about and the umpire not. Out, LBW. Really disappointed not to have batted for longer, although still happy to have been a part of a partnership with Brendon, to watch him 'cream' the ball to all parts.

The match was over soon after and we sat in the changing room reflecting. As it was Braces's last Test match there were a few words from our manager and captain in thanks and reflection. Braces had his reply and from there we said our pledge which is saved for Test match wins. This one was for Braces. It was loud and heartfelt.

Beers open, music on, boys relaxing after a very tough series. A group of us went through to the Aussies room around 7, and stayed there till 10pm. I'm pretty shy when it comes to this kind of stuff so I really made myself do it. Pulled up a chair between Brett and Mitchell and had a great chat to them over a few beers. Ricky was already gone so I couldn't 'chat' some more to him!

And I leave you here as I prepare for the West Indies two Test series starting next week in Dunedin We're now ranked 8th in the world, them 7th. We have to beat them! Just have to!

NZ vs Aust - Adelaide - Day Three

2008-12-01T08:47:00.003+13:00

I said that yesterday was a learning (bad) day. Today was a lot better, but not till later on. It certainly took me some time to work myself out and get myself back into the mode that I have been in before this match.

Seven wickets to get today and we can get off the park, put our feet up and watch the batters bat on one of the best batting tracks I've ever seen. There is a quote that goes, "you are sure of three things in life, taxes, death and runs at Adelaide." Oh how true it is, except for me and my 'duck' that is! We knew that seven wickets was going to be hard work of the highest order. We knew that we had to pick up wickets early to have any chance of getting off the park, today. And we did. In the third over of the day, Tommy has one of those memorable moments. A double wicket over. Oh, happy days. That's Huss and Symonds out, as massive inroad especially as Haddin hasn't been in the best of form in this series and then after him are the bowlers; in saying that, they can all defiantly hold a bat. So that's five down and if we do this right we could be off soon after lunch. Nope. Not quite that easy. Never is! Haddin and Clarke put on a mammoth 181 for the sixth wicket. A couple of chances in there though, a caught behind that we thought we had, a catch in close, again, that we thought we had, and then a drop catch when Haddin was on 79. If any of those three had of gone our way things could have been oh so different. But they didn't and we hung in there.

I came back on about 20 mins before tea, about time for three, maybe four overs from my end. First ball, oh dear, wide, half volley and the partnership is broken. Clarke gets a thick edge to Jesse at gully and we're back. One of the worst balls I've bowled and I'm actually quite embarrassed that it got a wicket. We'll take it, but it wasn't a typical celebration. And speaking of celebrations, when I got Ponting out yesterday it was reported that I gave him a send off. Well, not quite true. I did say "you've missed out here" to him. He didn't quite hear me and asked me, not so politely what I said, so I told him again. He then broke out the 'four letter word box' to me and the rest of us that we now grouped together around Fulton. He then got a bit of a chorus from there. Just something from nothing, that in the context of the game, means nothing. A reporter want to make a big deal out of it, and it's news! That's how it works! So there you have it, happy!!??

Before I came back for the over I was just talking about I had been thinking about my bowling, what was I missing, what wasn't I doing that I would normally be doing. But the big thing that I hadn't done was the one thing that I should have been doing from mid first session in the park yesterday. I have a breathing routine when I bowling that I use when things are not going well. I hadn't remembered to use this. I got the ball back in my hand, was using my breathing and the words I say to myself on each breath, and I felt better. I felt back in control. First ball a wicket, sure, a very fortunate one, but still, a wicket. This is where I turned my day/innings around. I had intent and energy at the crease with a ball that had long lost its hardness. I had aggression and a plan. Lee was now in, and I was going to hit the deck real hard, make his life as tough as possible. I just wish I could bowl at 145kmph (90mph) all the time, or even some of the time. My 135kmph (84mph) just isn't enough to put the sh*ts up batters to often. But I thought I was going to do my best to Lee, as I had already got a couple from him and his pals. My turn. Wacked a couple in before tea, got him ducking a couple and we go to tea with Haddin and Lee still together.

I start up after tea, same plan. Dots to Haddin and attack Lee. I'm sure Lee was enjoying the competition. A couple more bouncers, a couple getting some flesh, one hitting him square in the middle of his back. He turned and looked at me, like I had been doing to them. He showed me nothing, I liked it, as I knew what he was thinking, as I was thinking it yesterday when he was bowling. Now this plan is either ballsy or dumb. I'm not sure yet, but probably both. It worked though, I got him to flash at one and Rossco, at first slip, takes a screamer. One handed, above his head, he was surprised to have got it too. Now that's one that turns a day around.

We still had some work to do though. Johnson can bat. His 23 of a 56 run partnership was very good. Redders bowled his leggies, he actually bowls better than maybe he gives himself credit for, he got Johnson to pop one up sky high, Baz, with the gloves on takes it comfortably. Redders then picks up two when Haddin tried to take on Fulton on the boundary. Not may people clear 'Two Meter Peter.' Dan then cleaned up Hauritz to add to his 'tail enders' tally.

Off the park, YES! It's a strange feeling, yes you're tired out on the park but you just keep going. Then when you get off, sit down and 'try' to take the boots off, it hits you and you feel knackered. My boots stayed on for a while tonight, I just couldn't be bothered to take them off. Although I had to, to do my hot colds and stretch. And by the time I had finished that we are 35 without lose off the nine overs we had to face. Seventeen of them came of the first over bowled by Lee.

Tonight I had to do the press. Firstly an on field chat to the 'radio' guys, then off to do the press conference. A table for one in front of the sponsors board, lights in your eyes, 15 odd microphones and recorders in front of me and about 15 media ready to ask their questions. It went pretty well, as intimidating as it is, I think I went ok. Even got to answer questions about yesterdays on field stuff with Ponting. It was also nice to know 'the media' had been reading my blog too. Hi all! Well, I already knew that after the big deal over nothing was made of the Gabba crowd comments.

That's me for now, be back tomorrow

NZ vs Aust - Adelaide - Day Two

2008-11-30T10:11:00.001+13:00

Today is one of those days that you learn from. Well, that's the official line. Today was a bad day. That's the honest line. Losing four wickets for eight runs certainly doesn't make for a tail wagging, which is what we really needed. Me nicking a ball I didn't need to play at all was weak. I had faced a three balls from both Johnson and Lee. All were rather quick and two of them would have hurt had I not got down fast enough. First ball from Johnson, bouncer... Not surprised, and felt quite good getting under it; a new feeling! Then a couple of fuller balls which I defended pretty well I thought. Next ball I face was from Lee, another bouncer. This one I didn't quite play as well. If it had of been a limbo competition I would have been disqualified for putting a hand on the ground. I swayed back and then had to get lower again, falling backwards a little, hence the hand on the deck. A quick yorker after that, and I actually saw that one ok. The next ball though I played poorly. Didn't need to be anywhere near it and I've played a bit of a defensive poke at it, and nicked it though. I had enough time to turn around and see Haddon dive to his right, full flight, and catch it. That ball seemed to take an age to get through to the keeper. Or maybe he was just standing a mile back!

Dismissed for 270 is not good enough, at all. We were going to have to bowl very, very well. And, well, we didn't. Apart from Dan (and Jesse) us three quicks went for well over three an over. I actually felt quite good out there, just didn't bowl as well I have been. Sure it's flat and runs are a little easier to come by, but I wasn't good enough. The one bright bit was the spell I bowled in the last session. First ball after Tea, to Ponting, and I just have this feeling that he wants to jump all over me, like he was earlier in the day. The shot he likes the the pull shot, and I make sure I'm not short as to gift him an early boundary. He still pulls hit, not quite high enough to hit it where he wants to and he picks out the tallest guy in our team, Fulton, and he comfortably takes the catch. Now, here is where things got a little interesting. Obviously very happy to get him out, and especially as he had been playing us all very well, he reacted to something small that I said and a little bit of 'chit chat' between him and our boys resulted. Nothing nasty, nothing that had to be dealt with by anyone, and it wasn't.

That pretty much wraps up today. Debrief after the close of play and the bowlers come under some heat for todays efforts, and so we should as it was the other way around last night. Some very good things come from it. I certainly will go into tomorrow with a slightly different plan of attack. Back to the hotel, massage and then out to get some food. There is a Mexican restaurant near by that does take away salads and burritos. I got one of each, eyes bigger than the tummy here! Brydon Coverdale from cricinfo introduced himself to me while I was waiting to be served. I was going to head back to my room and eat it, but then thought I might as well sit in, eat, and talk some cricket. Good guy, but I not sure that he did me any favors by writing a piece about me and bouncers.

Which brings me to something I was going to bring up yesterday. There is a lot of Kiwis over here in Oz. It's been really great when they come up and say hi and the traditional "c'mon Kiwi" as you pass in the hotel or out and about. Bumped into a guy in the lifts once yesterday morning, and then again at the end of the day, quick chat, a quick " 'on ya mate," and out again. Although there is a bad time to do it, and that's when we're eating, as a group, mid conversation, mid mouthful and they come up and want a chat. I sometimes get the feeling some people just aren't taught manners!

So, tomorrow we have some work to do. I felt a bit better today, although still a little down on energy that where I'd want to be, but it's one of those times that you just have to 'suck it up' and get on with it. Worry about it when the match is over. The blood test, from yesterday, came back with a couple of interesting things. But no real reasons. We'll solider on and see how I am in a week.

That's all for now....

Oh, and yes I do read the comments, thanks for all the positivity.

NZ vs Aust - Adelaide - Day One

2008-11-29T00:00:00.000+13:00

A day of opportunities lost, I think is the best way to sum today up. Dan won the toss, taking his test match toss success ratio to over 70%. Indeed, Dan is one helliva tosser! He choses to bat, as would all rational captains on this ground, and was rewarded early buy some very good batting from Howza and Redders. They left well, defended with intent, ducked and weaved when needed and set us up for a good day. Forty six was the score when Howza waved at a wider one from Johnson and gleefully caught by Hadden behind the stumps. It was a shot that wasn't in Jamie's game plan today, he had looked real good. He had his 'sexy block' going and was looking well in control. 'Sexy block,' you ask? Well, have a look at it, they way he blocks the ball is as sexy as a cricket shot can be. There just ain't no way past that.

Redders, at the other end, was looking more and more comfortable both at the crease and with himself. He went past his previous best today, but I know he's not happy with the end of his innings. Before lunch Redders had looked fantastic. At one point, when Haurtiz came on to bowl, he hit him for four, six, six of consecutive balls taking him from 37 to 53, all this while Jesse, who is known for his big hitting, sat at the other end watching on. Entertaining stuff.

Lunch, and we're sitting pretty handy. And then comes one of those sessions we just don't want. We lose three wickets in the session, on a deck that the nature of the dismissals is disappointing and by the end of the day, really only Flynn and Taylor being undone by good balls. Four guys gave up opportunities to score big on a very good deck. I'm sure they're hurting for themselves and the team.

Over the last couple of days I've been feeling quite tired in the afternoons. Really haven't been able to put it down to anything. As I said yesterday, I've been doing all the right things but still been lethargic. This afternoon was not great. By about 2pm I was literally sleepy. By 2.40pm I though it was time to maybe do something about it. I hunted down the doctor and had an examination from him, nothing stood out, things were normal. He suggested a blood test, and as tea was coming up, I thought I could slip away and get that done before the 20 mins was up. Nothing is ever that easy. Our Liaison was already at the clinic with one of the partners who hasn't been feeling well herself, so he had to come back to pick me up so I could get my 'bloods' done. We were four down at the time, this means that if we lose two wickets I need to start to get ready, start getting ready to bat. It's a five min drive to the clinic, I was guessing that it would take about 10 mins to get the sample done and then five min drive back. That's half an hour, anything can happen in half an hour! While I was in getting the blood taken, we lost a wicket. Our Liaison got a phone call checking on how much longer I'd be. No more wickets fell while I was away, so back in time with no worries regarding a small reshuffle of the order.

Still tonight I don't feel that flash. Salad for tea tonight, trying to get as many 'good things' into me as I can. Plenty of water and another early night is on order.

So, that's where I'll leave it, as it's now 9pm and I'm going to hit the sack after a quick chat to my wife. Thank God for Skype!!

NZ vs Aust - Adelaide Oval - The Day Before

2008-11-28T09:57:00.001+13:00

As always, the night before, I'll kick of my Test match blog.

Adelaide now, and this IS the prettiest ground I have ever been to. The Adelaide Oval has a wonderful feel to it. The grass embankment that surrounds one end (similar to McLean Park, Napier, NZ) and another grassy area at the other end give it a real honest cricket ground feel. The grandstands are not huge concrete structures that over shadow the impose themselves on the park, they are the size that we all wish they would be. That's not to say that we don't want to play in front of crowds in excess of 45,000 people, but grounds like this should be embraced and held as sanctuaries to the cricketing world. I am honored to be able to train here and, tomorrow, play here. This is a treat, a real thrill.

Yesterdays training was a tough one. One that the coaches wanted as close to Test Match intensity as possible. In one net batters got all barrels from the bowlers and in the other nets they worked on their personal drills with throw downs or net bowlers. The wickets for the nets are pretty good. They actually look similar to the one out in the middle. Yesterday they did 'a little,' not as much as the Gabba did on Day One or Two, but enough to keep them honest. And us bowlers, we ran in, and ran in hard. It's a big step for a batter to go into a Test match facing 'netties' and us bowlers when we are not necessarily having a session where we are going at 100%. The step up from nets to middle is just to big. So yesterday was an attempt to replicate it as much as possible. It was a good blow out for the bowlers too. We'd had a couple of days off since Brisbane and we needed a good run out. I had two spells, a four and a two over workout. Bowled ok. Nets are not the best places to be bowling, just as they are not the best places for batting in. Nothing can replicate the middle! You always feel a little confined, the bowlers always feel a little quicker, and the viewing for the batter isn't always the best either. The intensity was great yesterday. Yeah a couple of our batters wore a couple of nasty bouncers, but that was our job as bowlers, bowl like we would in a match. Bowl a couple of bouncers, bowl length balls, but most importantly, bowl to a plan; a plan to bowl dots and work on getting the guy out, how ever long it takes, patience is the key.

Todays training, on the other hand, was what ever you wanted to get out of it. A chat from the coach this morning emphasizing the importance of not over doing things before going into this Test, as there is a good chance that we will be spending more time in the field than we did in Brisbane. The track here is well renowned as one that favors bat over ball, hence preparing to do longer stints in the field. So I did a warm up, got my batting gear on and headed to the nets for a bat. I asked the net bowlers to 'bang it in' to me as I want to do as much training with short stuff as possible. They did a good job and earned themselves a couple of wickets against me. And as a guy who used to bowl to touring teams a bit, you just love getting these international guys out, no matter where they bat in the line up.

Tonights Cap Presentation was a 'very' special one. This will be our coaches' last match as coach. Braces has been with the team for almost 6 years I think the number was. He was the guy that played me in my first test, the guy who played me in my third test after a 2 1/2 year lay off, and the guy who leaves this team for a role back in the UK. Braces had the honor of handing out our caps tonight. More so though, the honor was all mine in being able to receive my cap from such a great player and a coach who just lives and breathes this wonderful game. A couple of lumps in throats as Crocker, our manager, introduced Braces, and a couple more while Braces was talking. This is going to be a special test for a lot of reasons, and as Braces last game involved with us, we'll be doing our utmost to win it for ourselves and him (not saying we don't normally, but this one has just that little bit more on it).

From the Cap Presentation a group of ten of us headed out for a curry. A real good crowd. Normally the Curry Club would have five or six guys, but tonight it swelled to ten. I can only take that as a compliment as on this trip I haven't failed in supplying the lads with good Curries!

It's now time to hit the sack and get in a good nights sleep. I've certainly done all I can to be in the best fitness, form and mental state for this game. There is nothing more I could do, or would want to do to be ready. In saying that, the last couple of days i have felt a little lethargic for some an unknown reason. I've been eating well, I've been sleeping good, drinking enough water, just not sure what it is. So hopefully I wake tomorrow with some real energy. I do know that when I get to the ground tomorrow the venue and the occasion will life me and set me right.

Till tomorrow......

NZ vs Aust - Gabba - Day Four

2008-11-24T21:30:00.000+13:00

"Hello mate,

No nerves, no pressure, just belief. Take each ball on its individual merit and knock them off. You have 2 days to do this in, it can be done.

Watch the ball onto the bat, cover your stumps and FFS get your feet moving and get forward. Run hard but run sensible.

Play it or wear it - fear nothing!

Ultimately, beat the f**kers - they're not the team they once were, go out there and prove it.

I'm staying up all night mate, i'll be hitting every ball with you boys."

An email I received from a mate early in the morning before heading down to the ground. I thought it was one of those messages that would share with you all. It's pretty much the chat we had the night before in the changing room and the one I was having with myself all night and the following morning. It sums things up really well.

A pity then that we didn't get close. Didn't even look like getting close on Day four. Needing 184 with 4 in hand was virtually a miracle task. And you don't to often get two of those in two days. With our Rugby League boys becoming World Champions, defeating the very, very heavily favored Australian team, the previous night, I guess it was just asking to much for two in 24 hours.

Loosing by 149 in a game that we took 20 Australian wickets for less that 480 runs feel really bad. I knew it was going to be a massive ask going into Day 4, but you always keep hope. It did really sink in though once I was out and had got back into the changing room. Like a truck it hit me, I felt angry again, I really wanted to throw my kit around (I'm not a gear thrower at all), I wanted to kick holes in walls (I'm really not like that at all), I wanted to punch holes in the shower doors (again, not me) and I really felt drained of energy and emotions. I spent some time, alone, wondering around the shower area, really trying to calm myself down, trying to not be so angry, getting myself back together to face the rest of my team, and then soon after, shake the hands of the Australians. a) I was angry to get out like that, I have been working really hard on my batting b) I really hate loosing c) This was a massive chance to win a test, create history and 'climb our personal Everest.' I guess, it'll have to happen in Adelaide.

We lost Dan in the 7th over of the day, and then Rossco in the next over from Johnson. That meant I was in. I had had a really good 'net' in the morning with our batting coach, he fed the bowling machine and helped me with (quite) a few things. All simple stuff that would help out in the middle. I asked for the bowling machine to be 'cranked' up, in order to try to get used to the pace that will be coming at me in the middle. Shit it was quick. To go with the not so good viewing in the indoor nets, it was quite hard work, and I was honestly worried for my health and well being. Not as worried as I was going to be out in the middle though. So, I'm in, Mitchell Johnson with the ball in hand. I lasted one quick ball from him in the first innings. First ball, quick, full, and I defend it. Next ball, bouncer, oh shit, I hate bouncers, I duck it, and get under it well. I stood straight back up and stared straight back at Johnson. I wasn't go to show him nothing. "Whatever pal, you can bowl quick, but I'm not taking a backward step." That was a thought of course, I wasn't going to start to get into verbals with them. Next ball, I just didn't pick it up till quite late, I start to get out of the way of it, it hits me, takes a little of the numerous pieces of protection I've got on, my chest guard, and takes quite a bit of chest. My left tit to be precise. That hurt, and not how I wanted to play it. But I turned around, stared at him again, I really wasn't going to show him anything. I was in this for the fight. Another one at the body, fuller this time, I should have got some bat on it down to fine leg, it hits my thigh pad and drops to the man in close. The full ball follows, I'm all over this one. Beats mid off and I'm running like the wind. I'm sure there's four there, and maybe four overthrows there too if we do it right!!?? I turn for the fourth, the throw is already in the air. Just can't risk it. That was the last ball of the over, I'm going to have to face Clark.

I leave the first one, maybe a little dangerous as he's claimed two wickets to leaves in this innings already. It sails past off stump. Next ball, fullish, and I'm through my shot, spoon it weakly out to point. How damn weak was that. I thought I got myself into a good position to hit it for at least one. It's not till I see the replays on the news later that I realise it was a slower ball. Maybe I need to get my eyes checked. I really didn't pick up on it, and I'm actually normally pretty good with picking up on them; sure hitting them is a slightly different story, but normally I pick up on the wrist or finger change at delivery. Not this time.

Tim hits a couple of 'homers' and the game is all over very soon after.

Shake hands with them, sit in the changing room contemplating this test loss. Lunch is served soon after, we all filter through to sit there and eat somberly. Soon after we head back to the hotel. It's only midday, what to do with the rest of the day? I organise with Howza, Rossco and our fitness trainer to get to the gym at 4.30. So some time on the bed watching Prison Break (series four) on the computer, a quick nap and then up to the gym for a strength session. It was a toughie too. I wanted to get it out of the way early so that I can have a couple of full days off to recover from the bowling loads in this match. Organise with Howza a curry for the evening, I send out a group txt and a group of nine went out for a quite curry and a couple of cheeky reds. Great curry, good company and our moods are coming around. I think the couple of wines we had before we left helped too!

And that's the end of this Test Match blog. Stay tuned for the next installment, live, from Adelaide.

Till then, that's all for now.... except I played golf today, at Sanctuary Cove. Look that one up, that's a special course. That was a little gloat, if you couldn't work it out.

NZ vs Aust - Gabba - Day Three

2008-11-23T01:33:00.001+13:00

... and we're in the shit.

As we head into Day 4 we need 184 runs with four wickets in hand. And of those four wickets there is Tom and I who average 2.5 and 4, respectively. From both of us, this isn't good enough. Yes, we are bowlers, but it is our job to score more runs that we currently do! So, fingers crossed, we do better tomorrow when our chance to 'shine' comes.

We've taken 20 Australian wickets for 482. If you had of offered me that at the start of the game, I would have agreed, very quickly. As a bowling unit we are as happy as we could be in the situation that we're in. It hurts to know that tomorrows task is a little tough, sure stranger things have happened in cricket, but not many.

I headed out to the field this morning with heavy legs. The problem with having been on the park for the majority of the previous two days. It didn't take me to long to find some rhythm or swing for that matter. With both we were in with a chance. It just didn't work out like that, alas. I dropped Katich early in the day, a return catch that would have been something special, but I still dropped it. Something we just couldn't afford to do. Had we have opened up Katich's end it could have been such a different day. He batted fantastically in this innings an to carry his bat through is very special. A gutsy and determined innings. I guess he had to after contributing to Clarke's run out!

It just wasn't my day. I beat the edge enough times to have got one nick, but didn't. It just didn't go to plan. My first spell felt pretty good, my second, by this stage I was feeling pretty tired, wasn't so good. I was really pushing for rhythm and pace, it just wasn't there, as happens when the body has been put though its paces. And this spell really didn't go to plan. I was to wide that they didn't play me, I was to straight and got clipped through the leg side. It just wasn't happening. And we needed it to! Oh, boy did we need it to!

I really am at a loss for words tonight, this is tough.

Our batting this afternoon was, well, not the best, but it was pretty good too. The boys got out in ways that were within their game plans. There was no 'bad' shots, just some really good bowling and some boys that were out there doing their best to knock off 327. Who knows, with a little more luck this afternoon, it could all be so different.

Our coach, Braces, had some good words at the end of the day; it doesn't change the scoreboard, it doesn't make me feel any better, I don't think they were supposed to, but they were honest and heartfelt and we will be better cricketers after a day like today.

NZ vs Aust - Gabba - Day Two

2008-11-22T00:36:00.000+13:00

What you've all been waiting for.

Day two, although at the end of it the games set up like we're heading into Day five.

Seven without loss overnight, and that becomes one down first ball of the day. The worst possible start. Redmond pokes at a ball that he could have left and gives Clark a wicket. Clark is the bowler that I would most love to bowl like in world cricket. He's is just so naggingly boring. I wish I could bowl his lines and lengths, all day long. I was on the massage table getting a good recovery rub after warm ups, which for us three quickies was pretty cruisey at the start of play. Warm ups, this morning, was a little bit of ladder work (those ladders you lie on the ground and you step into or out of the boxes to work on speed) and then into stretches. Everybody else hit the nets to service the batters and prepare them, Tom, Pest and I stayed out on the field stretching a while longer. Once I went back in I dried myself off, and cleaned the sand off and got on the table. Play started while I was there and with TV's in the changing room we can watch the action from inside. Some guys actually prefer to stay in the changing room to watch the days play, while others head up to the viewing room, where ever that may be on the ground, and watch from there. There is no issue in the team with either. Massage finished, skins back on and I'm out to the viewing area to watch the boys. Unfortunately it wasn't quite the day I was hoping for. I had been in to bat and out before Tea. Lasting 3 balls. Two from S Clark, got off the mark with the second one, and then nicking off to Johnson first ball from him. That one was quick. Almost yorker length, and with a man under the lid, my weight is back waiting for a length or short ball. Nah, a full one and it's raced to 3rd slip. I stuck around for the umpires finger as I wasn't really sure if I had hit it on the full, meaning it would then bounce to 3rd, or just after the bounce. Finger up, I'm off! Arse! Really not the day I was hoping for! Tom got through what was hat trick ball from Johnson and got off the mark in the over. Tea was taken early, leaving 45 overs to bowl. Yes, 45 overs. With just over a third of the days play left, we have to get through half of the days overs. Australia were slow, again, through their overs; didn't help that there were lots of wickets either, slowing them down.

We got through 40 overs before play was stopped for the day at 5.30. We've done well again with the ball getting them six down with 131 on the board. An overall lead of 189. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Obviously very disappointed to be back out there bowling so soon, but we just have to suck it up and get on with it. Forget about the sore and tired bodies, just get back out there and give us a chance to win the Test by knocking them over for as few as possible. But we didn't quite think that we would have them six down overnight. Tom struck first ball of the innings, a brute of a ball that pitched outside Hayden's leg stump, swung and seamed across him, taking an edge through to Baz. First ball, danger man gone. Whoop, whoop! Ponting and Katich then put on 40, looking pretty comfortable. Last time I bowled to Ponting, it's fair to say, he put me around the park. I bowled poorly to him back in 2005 in my first couple of Tests. This time, a little different, although I think he still thought we were back there, as second ball he pulled me from a pretty good length. Something he did a lot of almost 4 years ago. Not this time though, the ball went straight up and fell to the wobbling, twitching hand of Redders. Two down, another danger man gone. Then we had a little bit of luck, which we didn't really know how much till we got off the park. There was four balls left in the over, Hussey the new man and on strike. Plan was to just go across him, letting him leave it, maybe suckering him into hanging the bat out and nicking one. That's the plan anyway! I bowled one across him that just came back a little, left alone. A straighter one, played back to me. Back across him, again with just a hint of swing back into him, left alone. Fourth ball, and last of the over. A little straighter but still 'leaveable', he's left it late, there was a noise, Baz has gone up confident, I've followed with my appeal and he's out. That's Ponting and Hussey in the same over. I'll have that any day of the week! Hussey didn't look happy with the decision. At first I wasn't sure, Baz went up, so I did to. I had not gone up till then. Replays show that he's missed the ball, it's clipped his pad, that was the noise, and he's a bit unlucky. He's been given not out before, against us, when he has nicked one, so, as they say, it's swings and round abouts. And I've got two for two! Ha!

Katich is playing well. He's playing like Clarke did in the first innings, hitting bad balls, leaving a lot, and waiting for us to bowl to him. And now these two are together. But not for long. Redmond hits, with one stump to aim at, and Clarke is run out. Clarke should have made that run, caught cruising and then not stretching out at the end and he's out by about three inches. Again, ha!! That's four. Real good energy out in the field. One of those strange things happened here too. Just two balls before Redders ran Clarke out, he said to Dan to "put me anywhere, I'm feeling great." Backward square with one stump to hit! Brilliant Red, just brilliant!

The crowds here are pretty good, ruined by a few, actually quite a few, idiots who think a day out at the cricket is just to abuse the guys playing any way how. You get called anything and everything. Embarrassing for these guys really, as a lot of the others around them are cringing. I don't know how many times I've was called a 'fagot' this afternoon!

Tom came back on for one of those 'special' spells. He had real energy and great direction. Symonds with a bouncer and then trapping Watson in front. And that's six down. We're in as good a position as we could possibly be in. It's a pretty happy changing room and we sit down after doing our hot colds etc to discuss tomorrows task. We sign off on what we, personally, are going to do to win this Test. The track is only getting better and better to bat on, we can chase down 250-300, if we do it properly. And we have just done this, two Tests ago, on a tough track on day five. We're a hell of a bet!

Bed time for me, hopefully as good a sleep as last night, where I don't think I moved once my eyes shut. One more day bowling and I can have a couple of days off. Four more wickets, quickly, and we can win this Test. Climb our personal Everest!