As it is a nine-team league, sides have a bye fixture once in a while, and ours was the opening spherical of fixtures.
A free weekend felt good on the time, however I questioned my earlier positivity surrounding the opening bye fixture at 11pm on Wednesday on the bus again up from Exmouth, following three weekends of away journeys on the bounce.
These lengthy bus journeys dwelling really feel quite a bit higher if you end up profitable, and fortunately, The Blaze have gotten off to a optimistic begin within the marketing campaign.
After a disappointing loss in final 12 months’s semi-final to eventual champions Lancashire, we had some wrongs to place proper, and the divine windfall of the scheduling Gods conveniently put our opening fixture towards them at Trent Bridge.
This was a convincing victory for us, and one which injected confidence into us. And on the midway stage, we’re high of the desk, having gained the previous six video games on the bounce.
In complete, we’ve got gained seven out of eight, a lot of which with a bonus level, placing us 9 factors away from second place.
While on paper that is overwhelmingly optimistic, and we’re definitely glad with how we’ve got started, it has been removed from plain crusing.
It’s in all probability truthful to say we have not constantly performed our greatest cricket, and have usually claimed victory from the jaws of defeat with impressed lower-order batting and medical bowling performances.
We have now additionally battled by our fair proportion of niggles, maintaining our physio busy.
It has been removed from simple, however we’ve got made it by the opposite aspect efficiently.
Now I’ve been allowed a while to replicate, I feel the gritty, at occasions unlikely, wins, have been extra helpful than the extra comfy victories.
Discovering a technique to win from a probably dropping place is unquestionably what good groups do, discovering a technique to proceed that profitable streak with out placing in a whole efficiency.
That being stated, we’ve got positively grown into the season, and that ‘excellent’ efficiency in all probability is not too far-off.
However the fantastic thing about the scheduling of the English cricket season means the One-Day Cup is damaged up all all through the season.
We are going to quickly be transitioning to the T20 Blast, then again to the One-Day Cup, then into the County Cup competitors, then again to the Blast, then into the Hundred, earlier than coming again to the One-Day Cup, after which probably again into the County Cup, earlier than the One-Day Cup returns and concludes in September.
In easier phrases, it is a busy – generally chaotic – summer time of cricket.
However this scheduling means we can not proceed to experience this wave of type, which can inevitably be damaged because the codecs change.
That is why I feel the One-Day Cup rewards the groups which have performed finest all through the whole thing of the season, as you’ll be able to’t depend on momentum or particular gamers on a burst of type.
That is additionally the explanation why I feel it needs to be thought of that whoever is high of the desk ought to win the league (very like the County Championship) on the finish of the season.
At present, the highest three qualify – second play third for a spot within the ultimate, towards the group that end high.
