When baby summer calls us once again

posted by John Winn

The title of this posting is a quotation from the poem 'Fascination' by Digby Jephson aka 'the lobster', who besides being a poet was also a cricketer who played for Surrey after gaining a blue at Cambridge. Jephson played regularly in the 1890s and captained Surrey from 1900 to 1902 after which his first class career rather petered out. He  acquired his nickname because at a time when underarm bowling was dying out he achieved great success with his slow right-arm lobs. His life is described in a biography by Anthony Meredith which he shares with' the demon' Charles Kortright, certainly the fastest bowler of that era and if such comparisons can be made, one of the fastest ever. Meredith's book 'The Demon and The Lobster' contains extracts from a number of 'the lobster's' poems.

Those of you who live further west and on higher ground than the Lower Ure Valley may well not have heard the call of 'baby summer' this last week as you battled with snowdrifts and sub zero temperatures and yet the first class season is just a week away. Last Friday's snow in West Yorkshire caused a postponement of the Pennine Cricket Conference and most of the friendlies that the first class counties had arranged for this last week were cancelled. There has been some play at Taunton since Wednesday in the match between Somerset and Middlesex and the home XI begin the final day with a lead of 124 and two second innings wickets left.

As I type this the sun is shining and the forecast is for the dry weather of the last few days to continue which may mean that six umpires may be able to call 'play' on time at 11:00 next Friday morning, The venues are Oxford, Cardiff, Hove, Headingley, Fenner's and The Riverside. My hope is to be at Headingley where Yorkshire take on Leeds Bradford MCCU even if I may need to wear an overcoat.

Closer to home Knaresborough Forest CC have scheduled a pre-season friendly for a two o'clock start on Saturday April 6th against Knottingley. KFCC (the second C is critical) will be anxious to get some practice, for the following Sunday, the 14th, they are due to meet Easingwold in a preliminary round National KO Cup match. A rather forlorn picture of Forest's Union Field ground partly under snow appeared on twitter on Wednesday but with no more snow forecast, things should improve by next weekend.

You will probably not need reminding that the championship begins on April 10th with Yorkshire at home to Sussex and Durham facing Somerset at The Riverside. Victor Kiam. the man who liked Remington razors so much he bought the company, described procrastination as 'the assassin of opportunity'. He might have added that it can also cause pcws, this one in particular, to miss the opening day of the county championship season, for having delayed booking a pre-season short break my wife and I could not get the dates we wanted and will not return from The Lake District until Thursday April 11th. Expect me about lunchtime.

I will close by completing the quotation from 'the demon'.

'When baby summer calls us once again
To close trimmed turf; we say will not go
      But yet we go,'

Of course we do, even if a day late.
' .