With my only chance of seeing anymore cricket this season hanging on the prospects for this weekend's two matches at Arthington it is an appropriate time to reflect on the last six months for it is that long since I, for the first time, saw cricket in March. The occasion was not an auspicious one, Loughborough University B v Notts II, an occasion notable not so much for the standard of the cricket but more for the plethora of coaches in attendance. But it was cricket on a new ground and in the afternoon the sun came out and watching was not an unpleasant experience and in a season where there have been relatively few highlights it just about qualifies for that status.
If we get the good bits out of the way first then my first test cricket at Lord's on a lovely day in July and the long journey to Swansea to a ground where I had not seen cricket before and where I was blessed with warm sunshine, good company and a splendid century from the evergreen Paul Collingwood, stand out.Those two aside there has not been that much to celebrate on the county scene and I think my whole outlook on the season has been tarnished by a sense of injustice about the harshness of the punishment meted out by the ECB a year ago to Durham. Relegation and a 48 point deduction still stokes fires of bitterness inside me, not helped by Hampshire escaping relegation on the last afternoon of the season by the skin of their teeth.
Watching Yorkshire's late season collapse has not helped matters and as Tony has said enough is probably enough in terms of comments on events since the win at Taunton in June, although I suspect inquests will go on over a pint with my regular travelling companions, two Johns and an Arthur, deep into the winter.
On the club cricket scene things are a little brighter for I have visited over 25 new grounds stretching from Lands in the north to Ackworth in the south and from Mytholmroyd in the west to Whitby in the east. The last of which completed the set of NYSD grounds. Other memorable days were spent at Booth where cricket, weather and scenery combined to paint a perfect picture and Almondbury Wesleyans where the tea lady had the presence of mind to serve hot soup on a cold April day. My local club Ouseburn were champions of the Nidderdale
League for the second successive year and giving almost equal pleasure,
they were able to turn out three teams on the third Saturday in September.
Looking ahead to next year the 153 club is back on the agenda, my pursuit of seeing every county play every other county in championship cricket, for Warwickshire's relegation means they will play Leicestershire and Gloucestershire, two of the four games needed to reach my target. Until the last few days of the season it looked like I might be able to complete the whole project for had Somerset finished in the bottom two then all four games would have been on offer, but such things are not within my behest to arrange and I will settle for what Warwickshire's poor form has given me. Of course it has been pointed out to me that under the present system there is no guarantee that second division teams play each other twice so I may only get one crack at it and even here the weather may intervene. I await the fixtures with interest.
Finally I promised in my last posting that I would throw some light on this photograph. It dates back to the 1920s and it was taken at the private ground of HM Martineau at Blind Lane, Holyport in Berkshire. Cricket was played here as far back as 1886 and in the 1920s the Australian, New Zealand and West Indian tourists played matches here, usually at a very early stage in their tour. The man looking into the heavens for the coin is thought to be the Australian captain HL Collins and their opponents on 28th and 29th April 1926 were Minor Counties. If correct then the opposing skipper is the famous Norfolk cricketer and Conservative MP, Michael Falcoln. Play was washed out on the first day and the match was drawn. In other years it was customary for the tourists to play against Hubert Martineau's XI. Looking at the card for the match against New Zealand in 1927 it is clear that Martineau was not frightened to put himself in the firing line for in a Kiwi total of 586 he has 1 for 125 off 22 overs. Not so much a case of whose bat is it but whose ground is it?
No comments:
Post a Comment