Coach’s Corner – Farby’s Blog – 1 June

I will start with a quick apology for this not being done for Tuesday as per normal, but with the long days I haven’t had the time to do it this week. Relfy and I have been leaving home at 6.45am each day for our drive to T Wells, and then getting back to the Canterbury area by about 8pm. Although I know a lot of people have that as a normal day. It did give us chance to chat cricket on our journey, and so much so on the first day we found ourselves on the edge of Sevenoaks, I had been distracted by our chat and gone the wrong way.

Happily I am sat in front of the TV watching the first T20 match of the campaign and typing at the same time. Even happier that we have won today and played some very good cricket over the last four days. I thought we played some very good cricket against Derbyshire in the last match at Canterbury. We batted much better in the first innings against Derby and then our bowlers bowled a lot better. It was a shame that Derby decided not to have a game on the last day. I know I am not in a great position to be critical of others, but I could not understand why they didn’t try to win the game at Canterbury. We had nothing to lose in the game and would have had a crack at any decent declaration. In the second division you have to be prepared to lose games to win them, and also it is the only way to help our young players learn how to play the game properly.

The good thing about our Derby game was also the way we batted in the first innings, I thought we showed patience and there was signs of us starting to click as a unit. Keysy looked in very good touch and is on the verge of some very big scores. Jarre has really shown signs of the high quality player he is and those two are the corner stones of our batting. It was also very pleasing to see Ashley take five wickets on his debut, and show that he can bowl at this level.

Having moved onto T Wells for this last game, and as much as I like going to the Neville ground, the thought of some peace and quiet and to be able to get away from the drilling, banging and dust was very appealing!!

It was almost the perfect win, and I say almost, because the late flurry of wickets this afternoon would have been nice to avoid. I was really pleased for the top three, they all played very well and showed their qualities on the first day. Joe played very nicely and has worked hard for those runs. Sam played a very confident innings and I thought Keysy has been threatening a big score for a while now, he looks in good touch and looks very balanced at the crease.

Bowling wise both Tred and Colesy did a great job for the side, and whilst it was good to see Matt getting reward for his efforts, Tred showed why he is so highly regarded on the county circuit. Matt showed good control and bowled some pretty quick deliveries, he just needs to learn to be more consistent with all that he does!! In the second innings Robbie had a interesting time with the ball, and whilst he has worked hard to get back to fitness he will be the first to admit there is still more to come. We had planned to play him in the second team this week, but with lack of bowling we had to play him in the first team. He needs overs and will only improve on this performance.

I did feel slightly guilty sat in the members forum on the second day, and when asked about the possibility of signing an overseas bowler, we did say that it was not out of the question, but we hadn’t signed anybody. Well technically at that stage we hadn’t, and we didn’t want to jump the gun with saying yes and then not get the visa and clearance from both the ECB and the SA cricket board. The signing of Charl has moved very quickly, and even up till yesterday morning there was still a lot to do. I think he will prove to be a good signing and his record in T20 cricket around the world is very good indeed. He will not only improve our bowling unit for the tournament but will also be able to teach our young bowlers some new tricks and help with their cricketing education.

The T20 competition is under way and we are all looking forward to two games at the Neville and two excellent crowds. The players love playing in front of good crowds and I really hope we can put on two excellent performances and get off to a great start.

Best wishes,

Farby.