Hi all,

Just a quick one, in fact a very quick one, to let you know about when I do an update; I have started a 'twitter' page, "iainobrien”, that will let you know when I add something here.

And thanks for the messages since we were knocked out of the World Twenty20. Appreciate them.

I head off to Liverpool tomorrow for my first match back with Leicestershire, it’s a Twenty20 match. I haven’t played for a while so am a little nervous about getting back into it properly. I’ve certainly done enough net work to feel good, but it’s always different when you get out in the middle. Either way, I’m looking forward to showing where my form is at and the things I learnt while training and watching so many great bowlers bowl during the competition.

On Thursday I got myself to Trent Bridge to watch our women’s team take on India in their semi-final. They made pretty easy work of it and I really enjoyed the afternoon. There are a few of the Wellington Blaze girls out there playing and it was great to see them in action on the big stage and perform so well.

I stuck around for the next match, just a small issue of Pakistan beating South Africa in a match which I thought would go the other way. That has been the nature of this tournament really - you just can’t pick a winner in any of these games. And for this fact I think it will always be a well-supported form of cricket.

Catch me back in a couple of days, and look me up on ‘twitter’ to get updates for here.

	All over, game over, we never took our chances didn’t do things as good as we can © Associated Press

Right then, where to start.....

Firstly, I know it’s been a while since my last post, again, so apologies for that. The timing of the games and travel has been hard work and with the extra training I’ve put in, it’s been hard to work in actually time off and then find some time to put in a good effort with this. I could have done some lazy posting, but that’s not what I’m trying to achieve. So, over the next couple of days I’ll get a couple more posts in covering off some of our performances.

Secondly I’m one very disappointed boy. We’re out of the biggest thing in cricket (the ICC World Twenty20) I’ve been a part of. It was an honour and a privilege to be a part of it but in the chance I got to play I got it wrong and then didn’t get a look in from there. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

I’m now currently on a train heading to Leicester to meet up with the ‘Foxes’ and sort a few things there for the rest of the time I will be with them this season. It’s a real (excuse me) shit feeling packing up, checking out of the hotel and not getting on the team bus to head off for the rest of the tournament. A real empty feeling that I know will linger for quite a while; sure I am heading back home, my ‘over here’ home, to my wife, to my bed, to my couch and that’s all great, but the chance to become a World Champion has eluded me, again. Again!? Yeah, again! I have three silver medals in a box in my brother’s attic back in New Zealand from three Indoor Cricket World Cups. I played in two of the three finals and we were only good enough for second all three times, losing to the Australian team each time. This was maybe my last real chance to finally be a World Champion, to call myself a World Champion, to make history, and do something amazing. It’s gone, all gone.

Continue reading "That elusive gold medal"

	Nope, didn't drop any this time! © Getty Images

I hate it when I don’t play. Really hate it. I didn’t want to miss any matches of this World Twenty20 through form or injury; both have worked against me and I missed last night’s match against South Africa at Lords. And that’s also the second time I’ve been 12th man at Lord's, my only appearance there was the warm-up match against India prior to this tournament and that doesn’t count on any stats as it wasn’t an official Twenty20.

My back hasn’t been the best over the last week; it’s got quite tight through the lower area and has been a little tough to handle. I played against Scotland when it wasn’t great, I was OK to play but it wasn’t 100%. Over the days since that match it’s been up and down in terms of how tight and painful it’s been.

We trained at Lords the day before the match and I hit the nets to work on some plans for the SA batters. My back felt OK today so I went hard and got through some good stuff. I probably bowled about five overs when I stopped and headed in to see the physio. My lower back had ‘locked’ up and was rather sore. Not perfect and not what I wanted the day out before a big match.

Continue reading "I hate being back-packed"

	Daniel Vettori struck twice in his first over to transform the warm-up game against India © Associated Press

What a start to the World Twenty20. The results so far have got the whole cricket world talking, the Dutch in particular; not that I can understand what they say, but they’re talking!

Since my last post we have now played three T20 matches; warm-up matches vs India and Australia and then our opening match vs Scotland on Saturday.

The match vs India was a great event. Just like at home the Indian supporters outnumbered the Kiwi support in the crowd and easily made the most noise, this made for a great atmosphere out in the middle at Lord’s. This was my first match at Lord’s, I had been the 12th man in the Test match there last summer which I was disappointed about, although if you have to be 12th man anywhere in the world, Lord’s is the place to be it; the food is outstanding and the training facilities are fantastic, so I ate loads of great food and trained as hard as I could.

This time I was playing, we batted first and scored 170 for 7. This is about the score we think will be very competitive in this competition and to get there with some great knocks throughout our batting line up was a great way to start our first full-on warm-up match.

Continue reading "Staunch Kiwi support made my skin tingle"

It's a lovely day here in London; the weather has been great this last week to be fair, and because of that we have been able to train, play and enjoy our time leading up to the ICC World Twenty20.

We arrived in London on Saturday, the day of the FA Cup final and guess what, a group of us managed to get our hands on a few tickets and go. What an event, what a stadium, what a treat. We sat in the Chelsea section - it didn’t really matter as none of us really had an allegiance to either them or Everton.

Got to the hotel, checked in and then was straight out, with the wife, to a show. We went and saw The Lion King. Amazing. Really loved it and that is one of the treats of being in London, the things you can just go, see and do.

But back to the cricket news.

The two day previous to getting to London we had two more warm up matches, one against the PCA (which included a couple of Irish, Netherlands, and the left-over New Zealand guys not in our XI. And Darren Gough). It was a one sided match where we won easily and there were some standout performances. Taylor 74, Gups 56 and Jesse 37. I managed three wickets and am really starting to feel like my Twenty20 bowling is getting better and better. I’m doing everything I can to keep it simple, using Dan at mid-off to bounce ideas off, and making sure my run up is smooth. It’s starting to feel good.

Then on Friday we played the Netherlands, again a one-sided match. We scored 194 off our 20 overs, Baz top scoring with 62 and some great cameos in there from Broom, Styris, and Oram. This match for me was another step forward. With no disrespect to the Dutch boys, the quality of the opposition wasn’t of that of India and Australia that we face today and tomorrow in two more warm up matches, but it was still good to bowl well with rhythm and control. The run up was my real concentration in this one and it seems the more I cruise in, the better position I get myself in at the crease and therefore give myself a better chance of getting where I want it. I know I can’t always have such a cruisey run up as when the wind blows you have to battle a bit more to get to the crease, but for now, it’s working really well.

This evening we head off to Lords for our 5th warm up match against the current T20 World Cup Champions, India. Our last series was against them at home and in the two T20 matches we had some good success; we won them both. The ODIs that followed weren’t so good for us though. It’ll be a good match tonight against a seriously destructive batting line up and a very experienced T20 bowling attack, a real insight to see where we really are in our preparation for this event.

The following evening we play Australia at the Oval in our final hit out before we start, for real, on the 6th against Scotland.

I’m really excited with this event. Sure the word “excited” is used a lot in interviews and chats with the media, but I really am. This is my first World event where all nations are attending. Just four months ago I wasn’t even in the Black Cap one-day team and now I am here at the T20 World Cup... I’m excited. But hopefully I’ve learnt enough lately to realise that my excitement levels can hinder my performance, so I have to keep it simple and keep those emotions under control.

This always happens: the team joins up for a tour and we are worked really hard up until a couple of days out from the first big game. And it’s been no different here. The amount of time we have been on our feet training in this last week has been more than, I would say, normal and the by-product is that there is a tired set of boys. The bowling coach wants his piece, the fielding and batting work need doing and our physical trainer wants his piece too. The schedule has been tough and it’s not about to get any easier over the next few days.

In the last two days we have played Bangladesh and Ireland in warm-up games. It was Bangladesh down here at Wormsley, where we’ve been training and then up to Derby to the County Ground to play Ireland. Both were good games for different reasons.

The Bangla game was a tight one. We let them get away to a pretty handy start with the bat through some not-so-good bowling, myself guilty of some very good and some very bad; which was also the problem in the Ireland game, but I’ll get to that soon. We pulled it back really nicely through the middle with Dan [Vettori], Nathan, [McCullum] Butts [Butler] and then didn’t do too bad at the death as well.

Continue reading "Warm-ups, aches, and a no-ball"