In the footsteps of Nico

Posted by John Winn
Back from a few days holiday either side of the English-Welsh border I am grateful to Brian for keeping the blog going. My wife and I did over seven hundred miles as we travelled to, from and round Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and mid-Wales.Reading his postings it seems as though Brian has done almost as much.

In 'Two Men and A Blog', Tony and Peter's account of their 2009 season,Tony introduced me to the delightful books of Nico Craven, since when I have read two of them. Craven died last year and his work and life were sufficiently admired for him to merit obituaries in the national press.Despite living in Cumbria and in his later years being in poor health, Craven's cricketing year centred on his visit to The Cheltenham Festival (cricket not racing), held each July. I last saw cricket in the college grounds in 1999 when Worcestershire were the visitors and it was not entirely by chance that when the fixtures showed that this year would provide the opportunity to see one of my 'listed matches' in such splendid surroundings, a day in Cheltenham was somehow included in our holiday plans.
Thus at precisely one minute to eleven last Wednesday morning I took my seat with probably a couple of thousand others, mostly with unfamiliar accents, to see Gloucestershire take on Surrey.Cheltenham has every right to call itself a 'festival'; eleven days cricket squeezed into twelve calendar days and with various marquees occupying about 150 degrees of the circle.In addition there were plenty of food outlets and even a military band playing in the lunch interval.The former England and Gloucestershire wicketkeeper, Jack Russell had many of his paintings for sale and there was an interesting tent in which an array of second hand cricket books was on offer. Alas,and this was the only disappointment of the day, no Nico Craven among them!
The match itself came to an exciting climax yesterday with Surrey winning by two wickets and lifting themselves into a challenging positon for promotion from the second division. Two other points of interest emerged from the game yesterday. Firstly a rare instance of a batsman being given out for 'obstructing the field' in this case Mark Ramprakash, who 'had a long conversation with the umpires before trudging off'. The second event is more disappointing, namely the announcement by Jon Lewis, who made his debut for Gloucestershire in 1995 and played in his only test match in 2006, that he will be joining Surrey for the 2012 season.
To keep banging the drum for the County Championship, this last week has seen cricket played on four 'out grounds' which has produced exciting finishes and spectacular collapses. Tuesday sees the start of six more matches. I shall be at The Riverside where Durham,leaders only by the narrowest of margins, take on Notts, and Yorkshire travel to The Rosebowl for a match the significance of which is only too apparent.