Jim the cat among the pigeons

posted by John Winn

The new season of Jim the Cat meetings kicked off in fine form at Pudsey Lawrence CC on Friday. In welcoming twenty five or so enthusiasts to the October lunch organiser Peter Davies paid tribute to Mick Bourne whose funeral had been held on Wednesday and who had attended some of last winter's meetings. 

After a four course lunch Peter introduced the speaker, who to most in the room probably needed no introduction, for our guest was successful Bradford business man and friend to many of the great cricketers from the sub continent, Solly Adam.


Solly opened his remarks by describing the impact of betting on Indian cricket and its links to spot fixing and how this has caused him to fall out of love with test cricket. Punches were not pulled and words were not minced as Solly described how he has witnessed the sort of transactions that make millionaires out of cricketers and bookmakers and mugs out of punters. This disillusionment with test cricket has been the motivation behind Solly's sponsorship of several Yorkshire leagues and his support for 'real cricket'.

Moving the theme from test cricket to league cricket gave Solly the opportunity to describe his own philosophy which had made him successful as a captain. This revolved round the need for total commitment by players to the team ethic which left some of us wondering if it would be possible to instil that kind of discipline in an eleven in 2013 but at the same time thinking that a man as exceptional as our speaker might still be able to pull it off.

A grand start indeed to this winter's activities and we look forward to the  meeting on Friday November 15th when the speaker will be cricket historian, Andrew Smith.

ps while I wasn't looking the blog passed 50000 hits, thank you.