By Brian Sanderson,
Myself and Brian Workman had planned about six weeks ago to have a three day holiday watching cricket in three differenr grounds. I picked Brian up about 8.00 A.M on Sunday and arrived at Usk just as the players were going out. Usk is a small town in Monmouthshire, south -west Wales, situated 10 miles northeast of Newport.I had watched cricket at Cardiff and Colwyn Bay but most of the time it had been raining. Today the sun was shining and we had to watch the cricket in the shade.
As you can see from the sign on the new pavilion the club was established in 1857 and today,s match was between Wales Minor County Unicorn Championship X1 against Berkshire CCC. Wales won the toss and batted but soon losing two wickets.When we had pitched our chairs we found we were sitting next to the father of Kiran Carlson who was batting at number 4 in his first Championship match aged 16.He put on a 104 partnreship with Dion Holden before being run out for 47 on the last ball of the morning season.
After a walk into the town past the prison we settled down to watch the afternoon session. In the heat the bowler struggled but tried very hard with Robert Williams and Tom Nugent being the best bowlers. We were entertained by Aneurin Norman who hit 11 fours and 2 six,s for his 87.There was a left arm bowler for Berkshire called Gurveer Singh with a nicname of Monty. Brian had played for Berkshire in the 1970,s and was able to talk to a player who he played with.Next to were I was sitting was a spectator who watched Bradford League cricket so we had a chance to talk about different grounds we both and visited.
At tea time I had a word with Waqas Hussain who had bowled a few overs and looked very tired. His comment he was getting to old for rthis game and found out later he was only 21.On the television wa the Test match which was in the third day at Headingley. I made a comment to a local person to say the match could enter in a draw and he said no chance. We heard later that night twenty one wickets had fallen at Shifnal our next ground to visit tomorrow.
Outside the ground was a garden which is shown in the above photograph and is now winning the this season prize of the best garden next to a cricket ground. Berkshire were bowled out for 153. Wales batted again and scored 264 with Kiran scored 3.The Berkshire hung on to score 190 for 7 in 98.4 overs so a drawn match. A great day in sunshine and good company. Two days to go so see next blogs.
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