Friday 15th July 2011:

Comrades, there were a fine seven of us, straggling the farmer’s meadow, which is Paddington Rec’ pitch. Not a very useful pitch and not one we shall make a return to. All weather wicket is acceptable but the outfield was strewn with pot-holes, dog pooh and dare i say it, members of public. Despite the signs warning of men playing cricket, they failed to fear the ball! Silly buggers.

Anyway, we had a reduced turnout and nowhere near enough for a 20/20 but we did manage to get some bowling and defensive batting in. We adopted the following rules for your inspection. If you can think of an enhancement of these rules for defensive batting practice, please advise.

Yuri’s Defensive Batting Rules version 1

• Any strike of the ball by the batsman is a single run. Unless,
• It is a trike of the ball which passes a fielder or forces them to run into deeper ground in which case it is two runs.
• If your are bowled out you remain in bat if there are still balls to be bowled but your run score is reduced by four runs. Even if it should become negative.
• Wides, byes, leg byes rule still applied
• No boundary scores apply
• On end of pitch played only with no running
• Each player rotates through bat and faces all of the remaining players who each must bowl.

The idea behind these rules was to gain the highest score by playing the most defensively. A simple block will always score a single and will avoid the temptation to swing out and open your stumps. It should also encourage guarding your stumps more.

The results were, if my memory serves me well!

1. Charlie Richards – 39
   Philip Richardson – 39
2. Rob Dixon -37
3. Huds – 29
4. Oli – 25
5. Andrew – 8’ish

Also thanks to you Owen Sewell who came along to help it father!! Good fun and next time we shall have even more and have even more fun! Thanks Comrades!