Trying hard to think of something positive to write rather than concentrating on the rather wayward thinking of both the ECB and Yorkshire County cricket club, a further bombshell dropped this week with the announcement that the traditional opening game of the ENGLISH season, between MCC and the champion county, Essex, will next year take place in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
This is to recognise the fact that MCC's current president is the admirable Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara. We can only hope that the next president is not the man in the moon!
However enough of all that. I have been sorting through some old photo albums in my vast collection of cricket ground pictures and came across some pictures from July 1996. I had embarked on a journey across the West Midlands, and even into Wales, for a wonderful cricket tour which took in twenty different grounds over a ten day period.
Strange to say not one county championship game was on my itinerary, which covered Nat West Trophy, Minor Counties, County Second Elevens, many league cricket games, a couple of school games and a benefit match. Day one, en route to our hotel in Ross-on-Wye, we called in first at St Godwalds Park, Bromsgrove where Worcester seconds were playing Gloucester seconds in what was then the Bain Hogg one day trophy. Worcester knocked up a good score but the game was halted by rain later in the day. By which time we had ventured into Wales to see Glamorgan seconds playing Hampshire seconds at Monmouth School in the same competition.
An attractive ground, but the weather reduced the overs with Hampshire winning on faster scoring rate. Remember chatting to Tim Tremlett, then the Hampshire second eleven coach, who told me something about all his players. The following day, Saturday, we managed to fit in two league games and a school game. The league games were both on Herefordshire Minor Counties grounds at Eastnor and Colwall, under the wonderful Malvern Hills and then on into Malvern itself to see the college side taking on Free Foresters. All delightful places to watch cricket and definitely ones to return to in the future.
Sunday was spent watching Herefordshire play Devon at the Hereford Racecourse ground. A rather strange atmosphere with cricket in the middle of the course and seeming a long way from the spectators. However Worcestershire did play a first class match there some time previously. On this occasion Hereford did well to beat a very strong Devon side captained by Peter Roebuck formerly of Somerset. Roebuck turned himself into a bowler in Minor Counties cricket and took three wickets in each innings.
Then it was back into Wales for a Minor Counties game at Pontypridd (Ynysangharad Park to be precise) Wales v Shropshire for whom former Warwickshire man Asif Din scored a century. On the same day Glamorgan seconds were playing Leicester seconds at Usk (merely The Cricket Field). Here we saw a forgotten man, Vince Clarke, score 189 for Leicester. Despite playing for three counties during the 1990s he never became a regular county cricketer.
Before I get too carried away with this look at cricket in the past, I will call it a day for now and finish this journey in part two.
1 comment:
Some great pictures, thanks for sharing
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