Grace Ballinger column: The Blaze top at One-Day Cup halfway stage

After an agonisingly long winter and a chilly pre-season, the English cricketing summer has emerged once again.

Unlike those infinite winter months, the opening block of domestic cricket has raced by, and already, half of the women's One-Day Cup has been and gone.

Alongside this has been a competitive start to the men's County Championship.

And let me candidly say, both the men's and women's league tables are looking quite nice for Nottinghamshire supporters.

I won't say too much more about that just yet.

For myself and my Blaze team-mates, the opening block of the One-Day Cup has been a busy one, and we have already got many of the long away days out the way, following three consecutive weekends on the road.

It has been an aggressive start to the season, including four games in the space of 10 days, two of which being away.

Playing, training and travelling can take it out of you, especially for us seamers.

The past six weeks or so have been spent charging in off the long run in unforgiving April winds, and for the most part, on unforgiving first-class pitches.

I thought early-season pitches were meant to be bowler-friendly, but gone are those days (it's a batters' world, and we are just living in it).

I'm not feeling too sorry for myself though, especially after one of the male players at Nottinghamshire told me he'd bowled around 80 overs in the week at the start of the season.

Maybe 10 overs up the hill isn't so much of a slog after all.

As it's a nine-team league, sides have a bye fixture every so often, and ours was the opening round of fixtures.

A free weekend felt nice at the time, but I questioned my earlier positivity surrounding the opening bye fixture at 11pm on Wednesday on the bus back up from Exmouth, following three weekends of away trips on the bounce.

Those long bus journeys home feel a lot better when you are winning, and thankfully, The Blaze have got off to a positive start in the campaign.

After a disappointing loss in last year's semi-final to eventual champions Lancashire, we had some wrongs to put right, and the divine providence of the scheduling Gods conveniently put our opening fixture against them at Trent Bridge.

This was a convincing victory for us, and one that injected confidence into us. And at the halfway stage, we are top of the table, having won the past six games on the bounce.

In total, we have won seven out of eight, many of which with a bonus point, putting us nine points clear of second place.

Whilst on paper this is overwhelmingly positive, and we are certainly satisfied with how we have began, it has been far from plain sailing.

It is probably fair to say we haven't consistently played our best cricket, and have often claimed victory from the jaws of defeat with inspired lower-order batting and clinical bowling performances.

We have also battled through our fair share of niggles, keeping our physio busy.

It has been far from easy, but we have made it through the other side successfully.

Now I have been allowed some time to reflect, I think the gritty, at times unlikely, wins, have been more beneficial than the more comfortable victories.

Finding a way to win from a potentially losing position is surely what good teams do, finding a way to continue that winning streak without putting in a complete performance.

That being said, we have definitely grown into the season, and that 'perfect' performance probably isn't too far away.

But the beauty of the scheduling of the English cricket season means the One-Day Cup is broken up all throughout the season.

We will soon be transitioning to the T20 Blast, then back to the One-Day Cup, then into the County Cup competition, then back to the Blast, then into the Hundred, before coming back to the One-Day Cup, and then potentially back into the County Cup, before the One-Day Cup returns and concludes in September.

In simpler terms, it's a busy - sometimes chaotic - summer of cricket.

But this scheduling means we cannot continue to ride this wave of form, which will inevitably be broken as the formats change.

This is why I think the One-Day Cup rewards the teams that have played best throughout the entirety of the season, as you can't rely on momentum or specific players on a burst of form.

This is also the reason why I think it should be considered that whoever is top of the table should win the league (much like the County Championship) at the end of the season.

Currently, the top three qualify - second play third for a place in the final, against the team that finish top.

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