This weeks nets were a great success and everyone involved put in a superb effort. The bowling (particularly in the fast lane) was easily the best I've seen this year at nets and the sound of stumps crashing echoed around the sports hall! My own personal experience was a real eye opener as that is the first time I have faced such consistent fast bowling in the nets and boy do I need the practice! Well over half of the deliveries faced were bang on the stumps and several went on to hit them! This is much closer the kind of bowling we will be facing this coming summer.

The bowlers conduct was impeccable and the short deliveries were all but gone apart from the odd unintentional slip and it made a huge difference. It gave me a chance to see what I need to work on to protect my wicket - I can dodge bouncers all day but line and length with pace makes you work a lot harder! It was a real pleasure to see some proper cricket being played and he schoolyard rubbish is already fading to a distant memory!

The club are happy to relax the stance on helmets providing this sensible approach continues. We would prefer players to use the helmet when facing fast bowling on this kind of surface but we understand that some of you 'hardnuts' don't want (or in some cases need) head protection so we will not make helmets mandatory at this stage. Senior players are urged to set an example and use the helmet when available to ensure that less experienced players feel comfortable to follow suit.

The conduct was perfect this week but all sanctions mentioned in the previous article will remain in place (apart from the previously discussed helmet issue) as safety is our ultimate priority.

The rule of thumb is that bowlers that bowl to hurt the batsman will be hit where it hurts - they will miss out on matches. It seems this is the only way to get people to sit up and listen!