Millwall star 2nd XI wagon wheels

 First the main headline...

*Note - I reckon I've got the names, batting order and faces mixed up. If I have can you contact me on Twitter or FB and let me know the correct faces, names and batting orders, Ta.

This was a Friendly game played at Holy Cross cricket ground. It was also a team that we'd never played before so had no idea of who was involved, but it kind of looked ominous on the Play cricket website. I've looked at it again and it looks like this is recently established team and there's not a great deal of data for the players. But the thing they had on their side as opposed to our team make up is they're all adults and all in the 20 - 35 age range - see the image. Whereas we're mostly old duffers and small boys, albeit some pretty good small boys, Barath for instance who they had only praise for saying that he was an exceptional batsman with a good future with the bat ahead of him. That means he'll be moved up to the 3rd XI now as always!

*Note, I've had to a basic version of these wagon wheels as I started to get the bowlers mixed up. additionally because they've done their scoring on a tablet there's no way I can make sense of the bowling and come up with any detailed analysis which is a shame.

Viyjendra Kumar No.1_________________________________________

Kumar didn't hang around and made good use of the poor bowling at the start of the game and pretty much set the standard for those to come, hitting a quick 36 off of 28 balls. Then I came on and caused him problems and trapped him LBW. 

Allan D'Souza No.2_________________________________________

Bowled Jesse Melius. Not a lot of info. I didn't get to bowl at him at all, but I'd have deployed the same field set-up as in the little diagram.

Hamdan Khan No.4 _____________________________________________

Pankaj Kansodariya No.5 ___________________________________________

*Note, I've struggled with the names and the order a bit so if I've got these wrong contact me via twitter and let me know and I'll make the corrections. 

Our captain for the game was Al McIver. We lost the toss and with the wicket looking pretty decent the opposition decided they'd have a bat. The upside of that meant at least I'd get a bowl. Al at the start said I'd bowl the full 8 overs, but somehow that didn't pan out, but I wasn't too fussed. 

Having suffered an awful May for weather, at last that had come good and both the wicket and the outfield looked pretty good.

A general over-view of the game was that they were a good bunch of lads, but they weren't holding back and let us have it, right from the outset they smelt a victory and went for it all guns blazing making good use of a pretty good batting surface. Being a friendly, Al opted to give everyone a bowl. By the end of their innings they'd accumulated 320 with a Maiden century for one of their players... Gokul Najarajan. Batting at No.6.

I don't generally take control of setting my own field, but the captain McIver who was standing in for the usual captain Tim Edmonds was telling everyone to set their own field. So knowing what I wanted to do and having some variations up my sleeve I set this field below.

With an increasing amount of data to look at the analysis I've been able to make is that (1). If I bowl short, I get hit leg-side between deep mid-wicket and deep long-on.

(2). If the balls leg-side I'll be nudged down to deep fine leg generally . But bowling Flippers the ball generally doesn't get up high enough to be pulled. So I can afford not to have a square leg and that might entice the batters to try and pull me and increases the chances of an LBW. 

(3). My main variation; the extremely rare off-spinning Flipper tends to hit the inside of the bat and if it doesn't hit the stumps goes down to Fine Leg. So as long as I bowl my stock ball and keep it in the corridor of uncertainty I need a well loaded off-side field as per this diagram. 

All of the blokes I bowled at in this game seemed to struggle against my bowling and they all commended me personally at the end of the game which was nice.