Monday morning 15th July, the morning after the night before. The moment after the Cricket World Cup final ended my son and very excited youngest grandson were on the phone checking up that I had actually seen it. Having not really been involved in the competition at all until that point, I confirmed that I had returned from Riverside just in time to watch the last eventful half hour.
Obviously I was glad to have seen such an exciting finale but like many people my sympathies were with the New Zealanders. They seemed to have been robbed of victory by a rule change, which in retrospect seems ridiculous. Why could not the previous rule of a tied match being decided in favour of the team losing less wickets apply, rather than on the number of boundaries scored? Even more sensible would have been a decision to share the trophy.
However what is done is done, but to a grumpy old man like me everything in the game is being changed and very little of it for the better. I try very hard to grow old gracefully but it is very difficult to do so with all these things going on around us. Another example came later that same morning.
Like John Winn, we had the choice of county championship cricket at Headingley, Riverside or even Chesterfield, but instead chose to go to our local ground to watch two county second eleven T20 matches.
Consternation all round from many people. Pictures of Brian Senior, traditionalist supreme, also in attendance at Weetwood watching T20 appeared on Twitter. Why was he not two miles down the road watching Yorkshire? I think Brian probably had thoughts similar to our own, in that being at a pleasant rural ground watching young cricketers was preferable to watching two South Africans doing all the bowling for Yorkshire County cricket club.
Not that I have anything against South Africans. Some of my best friends (and cousins) are South Africans. What I object to is Yorkshire of all counties, employing overseas players and players from other counties, instead of giving opportunities to their own youngsters to continue the tradition which produced the likes of Root, Bairstow and Rashid. I will say no more but just find it hard to understand.
So T20 it was and one of the first discoveries of the day was when a very young looking boy entered the field for Warwickshire second eleven. This turned out to be none other than Jacob Bethell, who at first we thought might be a member of the South Yorkshire cricketing family, except they have only one letter l at the end of their name. This boy had two. He was fielding on the boundary and I asked him if he was from Yorkshire, no he replied but from Barbados, although his father Graham Bethell had played league cricket for Sheffield Collegiate. He confirmed this was just his second appearance for Warwickshire at this level.
Our brief conversation ended and I asked one of his team mates how old Jacob was. Fifteen years old,
attended Rugby School and a member of the Warwickshire Academy. He is a left arm spinner and batsman. Later in the day I was able to do some more research and found a video on Facebook of Jacob scoring a century for Barbados under 15s at the age of 13. I also discovered that he was player of the tournament at last year's Bunbury Festival held at Millfield school, where he scored another century and took several wickets. He came on to bowl against none other than England Test player Tim Bresnan and kept a good length from the word go.
Yorkshire lost the first game by four wickets with three balls remaining. Guess who made the winning hit for Warwickshire? Of course a very composed Jacob Bethell. During the second match which Yorkshire won with overs to spare young Bethell took the wicket of Revis, who was on 49.
The batsman came down the wicket looking for his fifty, but the young man saw him coming and fired one wide down the offside to have him smartly stumped off a wide. That made my day.
No comments:
Post a Comment