Last ball finish on Boxing Day

Posted by Tony Hutton

The 69th Annual Boxing Day cricket match took place, as ever, at North Leeds cricket club, Roundhay yesterday. The home side avenged their defeat at the hands of the Northern Cricket Society twelve months ago with a last ball victory in a high scoring and competitive encounter.

Before play started the players of both sides lined up in the middle for a minute's silence in memory of Jenny Bowes, a member of the well known Bardsey cricketing family. Jenny scored for Bardsey cricket club, for whom her husband Tim and sons Andy and Steve have all played, for many years.
Tim was in attendance and Andy guested for the North Leeds side.

The weather was fine and dry, and not too cold, and the game was played on a matting wicket with a shortish boundary on one side, encouraging the hitting of sixes of which there were quite a few.
The Northern Cricket Society batted first but lost veteran Steve Lawrence early on without troubling the scorers. Steve is of course son of the famous Johnny Lawrence, county cricketer with Somerset, who supported this game for many years.

The early wicket did not seem to trouble the other batsmen who laid about them in good style and the runs came quickly. The game was played as proper cricket, with no messing about, and the only difference in the rules was that batsmen had to retire at the end of the over in which they reached 29.
They were then allowed to bat again if needed, which helped out both teams towards the end of their innings.

Another big hit has Northern captain, Andy Stoddart, hopping on one leg.

After the first two retirements, wickets fell at regular intervals but the runs kept coming and eventually the Northern Cricket Society were all out for 172 in the final 25th over of the innings.
During the morning the crowd built up nicely and the bar was doing an excellent trade, with club stalwart Steve Wales helping out serving coffee and teas as well as hot dogs and mince pies which all went down a treat.

Good to renew friendships with a lot of individuals that you normally only meet during the cricket season and we lost count of all the people we met. Reg Parker and Harold Todd were both notable players in this fixture many years ago, with Reg in his early nineties now possibly the oldest present.
One spectator who travels every year from Lancaster, Ian Cockerill, had probably travelled the furthest and was there early in pole position so that he could watch from his parked car.

Straight drive down the ground, with Ian Cockerill watching from the white car.

The North Leeds innings also got off to a good start, with the Northern Cricket Society's bowlers not really matching the performance of their batsmen. However from a position where a home victory looked to be coming very quickly, wickets began to fall and eight runs an over were required from the last three to be bowled. Skipper Andy Stoddart made a breakthrough with a wicket with the last ball of the penultimate over. With eight wickets down North Leeds were able to recall top order batsmen who had retired earlier and they were able to level the scores with one ball remaining. A drive through mid on brought an easy two runs and North Leeds were the victors by two wickets.

The not out batsmen return to the pavilion, whereas the fielders search for an unidentified drone.

The losing captain doing his Captain Mainwaring impersonation.

This was a good start for new North Leeds captain Dom Cowley who proudly took the trophy whereas his opposite number, who had predicted a crushing victory for the Northern Cricket Society, left the field looking non too pleased. No doubt he would calm down as the after match festivities continued and certainly the spectators, especially those clutching raffle prizes, will have felt it was yet another most enjoyable occasion.

Dramatic news from Wetherby via York.

posted by John Winn

I have over the years posted several times about the travails of the Wetherby league and in particular the loss of a number of its member clubs to other leagues. In September 2014 for example I described the exodus of clubs like Spofforth, Great Preston, Whixley and Old Mods and Wetherby to outfields new which at the time left the league with 31 members, 26 of which had LS postcodes. This steady trickle is to become a flood however for in its most recent newsletter the York League reports that 12 of the current membership have successfully applied to join that league from 2020. They are
Barwick, Bilton (second team)*  Church Fenton, Green Hammerton, Hillam and Monk Fryston, Kirk Hammerton, Long Marston, Rufforth, Saxton, Sicklinghall, South Milford and Wetherby(second team)*. In addition  Garforth PC are going to the Pontefract League and will have  teams in Div3 and Div 7. They already know who they will be playing and when for the fixtures were published in November.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this is that there is no mention of it on Wetherby's own website. All remaining clubs have LS postcodes and no doubt in time the league will announce how it plans to deal with the loss of near enough half of its members. In the meantime I would like to wish all our readers Season's Greetings and hope that like me they can draw comfort from the fact that the shortest day is now behind us and by mid January, in the evenings at least, we will begin to notice a difference in the length of days.


* Bilton and Wetherby already have first elevens in the York League. The movement of these clubs will increase the York league by 21 teams. Deputy CEO Steve Berry'is busy compiling the 2019 fixtures and they will be released shortly'.

2019 fixtures slowly appearing

Posted by Tony Hutton

For professional cricket watchers it is the time of year when the fixtures for next season gradually appear. For those of us who watch all conceivable forms of the game it is a difficult period. Yes we have the county championship fixtures, but there is far more too it than that. It always rather baffles me why it takes so long, without wishing to criticise the excellent work done by many league officials and volunteers who give their time without charge.

York cricket club will host county championship cricket for the first time in June.

The benchmark seems to be set by the Derbyshire County League, which is able to produce full league fixtures for fifteen or so divisions every year before the end of October. Wonderful, but not really challenged anywhere else. However the last few days have brought riches indeed with the appearance of Yorkshire's second eleven fixtures (yet again first in their field), the national under 17s county fixtures and the national over 50's county fixtures on their respective play-cricket sites.

More locally the Aire-Wharfe League and the Bradford League have both gone to press recently. One major problem relates to the Minor Counties or Unicorns as they now prefer to be called. Their fixtures emerge as if from a slow dripping tap with about five counties details appearing over the past month or so. The latest yesterday was Suffolk on Twitter which revealed the welcome news that they will play a three day championship game at Sedbergh School (which missed out last season) against Cumberland from 18-20 August.

                                Sedbergh School.

Good news indeed you might think, but get round to checking the county championship fixtures and you find that not only are Yorkshire at Scarborough, but Lancashire are playing Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay. So two fixtures which a lot of Cumberland followers from both sides of the Pennines will want to attend. In addition Durham are playing at Riverside, so all in all the delights of Sedbergh may only be shared by a relative few, of which I hope to be one, at least for two days.

The Yorkshire second eleven fixtures also throw up the usual anomalies with the seconds at home at the same time as the first team on a few occasions, but we are used to that and can manage an alternative day system. More good news is the return of a three day championship game at Stamford Bridge, a club which always makes spectators welcome as well as offering a plethora of prizes on their remarkable tombola stall. Here's hoping for good weather for that (15-17 July). Sadly no sign of Todmorden returning to the second eleven fold, we can only hope that Lancashire might play a game there.

Full second eleven fixtures did not appear until the third week of January last year, by which time we hope that the Yorkshire League North fixtures, which feature not only the Yorkshire Academy but important local clubs like Harrogate and York as well, will arrive. Sadly I feel they are delayed due to the administration and website being shared with the York and District Senior League. This is another competition with endless divisions, enlarged in the coming season with the advent of many new teams from the Wetherby League.

However patience is the name of the game and although we bemoan the fact that first class county cricket as we know it may well be on the way out in future years, there is still an awful lot of cricket to be played at all levels which should satisfy the most insatiable addicts for a long time to come.

Four cricket speakers in a week

Posted by Tony Hutton

Cricket speakers seems to be the theme this week with Paul Nixon of Leicestershire at the Northern Cricket Society lunch last week. Then three in a row with Yorkshire county cricket club's Supporters Association AGM at Headingley on Sunday, followed by an excellent talk from Guy Williams, a sporting journalist who contributes regularly to the Cricket Paper.

On Monday evening we had Moeen Ali, freshly returned from Sri Lanka, talking at an Ilkley Literature Festival event, held at the Grammar School at Leeds and on Tuesday evening back to Headingley for a Northern Cricket Society meeting. This was addressed by John Sadler, assistant coach at Leicestershire, standing in for Alan Fordham of the ECB who was apparently double booked.

So a varied collection one might say, but all full of interest nevertheless, with a good turnout of cricket enthusiasts on each occasion, the biggest attendance quite naturally for current Test star Moeen Ali.

                                Paul Nixon (picture by Mike Sewell)


Paul Nixon is still as enthusiastic as ever in his newish role of Chief Coach at Leicestershire. He took us through his up and down career from being a young lad from the Lake District, being born in Langwathby, Cumbria and first playing cricket at Edenhall cricket club, not far from Penrith. He joined Leicestershire in 1989 and shared in considerable success with two county championship wins under the captaincy of James Whittaker, who he was going to see after the lunch.

He left Leicester briefly for two seasons with Kent from 2000 enjoying his time there playing together with people like Rahul Dravid, the Indian Test player, who he rates as probably the best batsman he has ever seen, who even used to practice in the nets on his days off. However following his return to Leicester in 2003 his career really took off with the advent of T20 which the county won twice and then very much the highlight when he was eventually selected for England at the rather advanced age of 36 to play in one day internationals in Australia.

Sunday afternoon with Guy Williams, someone new to me, proved very interesting with his thoughts on Yorkshire cricket, pulling no punches on the loss of Jack Brooks and wondering how Yorkshire were going to replace him. He shared the view of many in the audience about the signing of unproven players from other counties on three year contracts. However the most interesting parts of his speech were about his time as a journalist with Yorkshire TV.

He had tried to get Don Bradman to come to England many years ago to help with a programme on the history of Headingley Test cricket in which the 'Don' had played a major part during the 1930s and 1940s. Sadly he was unable to attend but wrote Guy Williams a wonderful letter which he has framed and passed around the audience. However he did manage to put together a programme with Bill Bowes and Harold Larwood, together with Dickie Bird which went down well, even after an over enthusiastic doorman at YTV told Harold Larwood on arrival that he thought he was dead!

Mr Williams also did an article for the sadly missed retro cricket magazine, Backspin, picking the best ever Yorkshire XI with Brian Close and Raymond Illingworth. There was some controversy at the omission of Geoff Boycott, but how could he get in with Hutton and Sutcliffe to open. Close of course picked himself, but the greatest omission seemed to be that of Wilfred Rhodes, surely the greatest Yorkshireman of them all. However the two Yorkshire veterans thought Hedley Verity the better choice. Some comment from the audience on the selection of Philip Sharpe at number three, but apparently his slip catching ability was the deciding factor.

Monday night was cold and frosty and it must have been a shock for Moeen Ali, just back from the heat and humidity of Sri Lanka. He was promoting the sale of his new book, which appears rather more interesting than most cricketing autobiographies, charting as it does his rise from playing street cricket in the Birmingham suburbs, to county and Test cricket.

                                 

                           Moeen Ali at the Grammar School at Leeds (picture - Daily Telegraph)

Moeen has obviously come a long way in recent seasons both as a player and as a person, who explained how he questioned the Muslim faith in his teenage years but became reconciled after asking many questions of people he met. He spoke very frankly of the England team set up and feels that in the recent series Joe Root has finally established himself as a captain and leader. Obviously he was very pleased with the success of the spinning trio of himself, Adil Rashid and Jack Leech and explained how he was the 'captain' of this team within a team.

Interestingly he spoke very highly of Stokes as a person who has been greatly misunderstood and, despite his misdemeanours, is probably Moeen's best friend in the squad, along with Adil Rashid.
He also thought highly of Johnny Bairstow as a sympathetic individual who should continue as number three and feels that the squad are on the verge of great things if they can solve the opening batsmen problem.

Finally on Tuesday evening we had John Sadler at the Northern Cricket Society. A Yorkshireman born and bred, he worked his way through the Yorkshire schools set up to Yorkshire second eleven level, but shortly after winning his second XI cap he was sacked, with no apparent explanation. However he bounced back to find a first class career with Leicestershire and Derbyshire as a batsman.

                                                                 John Sadler

He then entered the rather complex world of cricket coaching and spoke very openly and honestly about the ups and down of his journey so far. He outlined his philosophy of man management which is basically looking people in the eye and telling them the truth. Obviously the hardest part of any coach's job is having to tell players they are surplus to requirements and his own experiences have helped him in this.

He is currently studying for a Master's degree in Sports Management, something Mark Chilton of Lancashire has already achieved. He put us in the picture of the politics of county cricket and explained how coaches are often put under pressure by boards of directors or senior management who are often not true cricket people.

Now he is part of the coaching team at Leicester working together with Paul Nixon, our first speaker of the week. One feels that they will do well with Nixon's enthusiasm being complemented by Sadler's common sense and straightforward approach. Good luck to them both.