Big win but frustrating test match

Result since last update: £1651.38

First of all apologies for the lack of updates recently. Apart from being very busy with normal work I've been trading the first test between England and the West Indies and with hindsight should have done some daily updates outlining my position and thoughts rather than waiting till the end of the match. Think I'll switch to the more frequent updates idea when the 2nd test from Headingley starts on Friday.

As for my result on the match? Well, it ended in a draw and it's my biggest individual win since I started the blog. So I'm chuffed to bits. :-) It's a lot of money! That said, and I'll know it'll sound churlish, but I really feel I should have made more. I always had it in the back of my mind that with my new money management rules for cricket, and the fact that we finally had a 5 day game to get stuck into, there was a possibility the profit could be a record for an individual event since I started the blog.

For a long time though I had a large red against the draw with some enormous greens elsewhere but the weather and game didn't really pan out my way and I eventually realised I was going to have to switch my position to get the draw onside. Don't get me wrong. Now the match is over and the dust is settling I'm delighted with the profit. Sure, it may be a lower than I'd hoped for at one stage during the match. But as ever, a green is better than a red, and the reality is it pays for upgrades to business class when we jet off on honeymoon! And that's got to be good!! :-)

As for the match itself, well, it was a mixed bag. Four centurys for England is the first innings was astonishing. And the first time England have managed the feat since 1938. Hoggard getting injured, Harmison losing his radar and the bad light / rain was not so good. In fact it was simply frustrating for a long time. Ideally I wanted England to win the toss and use the conditions and rip into the West Indies on Day 1. But the toss went against me, as many factors seemed to, like the plum Collingwood LBW given not out before he made a century, and you just got the feeling the Windies' bowlers weren't quite match ready and didn't use the best of what was on offer.

In tests, especially in relation to the draw, I think very much in terms of how far a match has progressed. Once England's bowlers failed to have the impact I'd envisaged, I basically decided I couldn't hold my various draw lay, result back positions much longer and slowly started to turn things around when the opportunities arose. That's one of the great things about test cricket. It requires thought but there's plenty of time to mull over the decisions and try to get them right. Thankfully I did and, although the final result could have been better with a little more luck, at the end of the match I've made over £1.6k. Offer me that at the start of the game and I rip your hand off. So a great result all things considered.

Looking forward, I might have a quick go at the last day of the 1st test between Bangladesh and India tomorrow. That is looking like a draw. And tomorrow also marks the first day / night game of the new domestic season with Sussex playing Surrey in the Friends Provident. Cant wait! Then from Friday we're into the second test. Here's hoping for a cracking game of cricket but one suspects we might all be spending as much time studying the weather charts again as admiring the stroke play. Test cricket - don't you just love it?!