REJOICE!

Rejoice indeed, for not only is that whole, horrible series now over, there's a new kid in town. Scott Borthwick has done the impossible. He has grown up bowling leg-spin in England and despite this has actually managed to bowl it in a Test for England. That does not happen every day. Over the last few decades it has hardly happened at all. Monday 11th December 2000 can now be stricken from the record books as the last time a leg-break bowler turned his arm over in Test cricket for England, Ian Salisbury bowling 3 wicketless overs on the final day of that famous Karachi Test after enduring a pretty awful tour.

The English leg-spinner really has become the Himalayan Snow Leopard of Test cricket, rarely seen and seemingly extinct until a small colony is miraculously unearthed every now and then. An Englishman undoubtedly invented the leg-break, since it is pretty much as old as cricket itself, albeit that it started as an underarm delivery. An English underarm bowler - George Simpson-Hayward - should probably take the credit for having invented the flipper action, and of course it was Bernard Bosanquet who introduced the world to the Googly, still often named as the Bosey in Australia in his honour. There were no end of English leg-spinners in the inter-war years such as Titch Freeman, Doug Wright and Eric Hollies, the latter two continuing after the war, but since then the number of leg-spinners playing for England has dwindled dramatically. 

Forty days and forty nights

The blog's been quiet of late as last week we didn't have nets, and this weekend just gone I wasn't at nets because I was on a coaching  course (of which more later). Anyway, our fixtures are up on the website now, which can only mean the season is rapidly approaching.

To be exact, it's now exactly forty days to our first game of the season, a cup game at home against Leek & Moorlands 2nds, who are a pretty tough side. Adding it all up, assuming I were to be available (and get picked) every Saturday and Sunday, played both friendlies we have lined up and two of the three tour games, I could potentially play 40 games this year. I think it's unlikely I will, and in addition to one Saturday game I'll have to miss I'm pretty much decided to only be available (at most) for the away games on Sunday. Even so, that's quite a full season.