With the T20 season almost upon us a chance last weekend to see action from two county championship games, which will not reappear until much later in the season, i.e. mostly in September. Saturday 13th July saw day one of the game between Yorkshire and Somerset at Headingley. The main attraction in some ways was the fact that spectators could sit in the brand new double sided Emerald Stand which caters for both cricket and rugby league supporters. In fact it's main purpose in life is catering as the huge banqueting suite is expected to generate by far the most income in the future.
First impressions were favourable, certainly the new padded seats with straight backs are far better than anything else available on the cricket circuit, where back sufferers can rarely find the right support for a whole day's sitting. We did not venture as far as the upper storey with it's steep angle, which might bring on vertigo for some of us, but those who did spoke favourably of the view from the top.
As far as the actual cricket was concerned it was somewhat slow going with Lyth and Fraine putting on a valuable open stand of 80 before Jack Brooks (who got a good welcome on his return) had Fraine caught by Bess (who will soon return on loan from Somerset to play for Yorkshire in the T20). It's hard to keep up with all this I know. Lyth soon followed for 45 and the new pairing of Ballance and Kohler-Cadmore got off to what could only be described as a turgid start. However they built the foundations of a total over 500 which proved to be a winning score of course.
As Ballance eventually approached his fifth century of the season my thoughts went back to a game I saw on this ground almost exactly ten years ago. It was a Yorkshire League Cup semi-final between the Yorkshire Academy and Sheffield Collegiate. The Academy's opening pair were two young teenagers Gary Ballance and Joe Root. Playing for Sheffield Collegiate were Joe Root's father Matt and younger brother Billy. The two precocious youngsters put on no less than 296 for the Academy's first wicket, with Ballance very much the dominant partner scoring 236 not out whereas Root made only 85!
Back to the present and during Saturday afternoon's play I absented myself for a while to take league cricket legend Reg Parker to watch his first cricket of the season at Adel. Reg has been very ill and spent five weeks in hospital, but is now well on the road to recovery and enjoyed his visit, and meeting several old friends, very much.
Sunday saw us off to Durham for day two of the the game with Worcestershire. As ever a much more pleasurable experience to visit Riverside than Headingley. No bag searches, no pass outs required, you can sit anywhere you want in the ground, everything just seems so much more relaxed. The two former Leicestershire men, Ben Raine and Ned Eckersley, whose signing John Winn expressed great pleasure about recently, did the job yet again. They rescued Durham from the depths of despair at 47-6 and put on a partnership of 115 to put the home side back in the game with a vengeance.
As we gave come to expect several times this season, Chris Rushworth took a wicket in his first over.
A confident lbw appeal from the first ball of the innings was turned down by umpire Middlebrook, but the second ball to veteran Mitchell had him lbw without any doubt at all. After Harte clean bowled the stubborn Wessels early in his brief spell, wickets began to fall quite quickly and Worcester were bowled out for just 151 in reply to Durham's 212. Two days later it gave us great pleasure to see the video of Rushworth removing Morris's middle stump in style to bring Durham another victory.
No comments:
Post a Comment