Cricket's hidden agenda

Posted by Tony Hutton

Not surprisingly the current pandemic has already exaggerated that well known symptom of the professional cricket watcher - 'Cricket's hidden agenda'. Trawling the internet, often in vain, in search of obscure mid week cricket fixtures, of which there are plenty if you know where to look, can become almost a full time occupation.

The play-cricket sites of clubs and in particular county boards can often come up with the most surprising results. However, all too frequently intriguing matches are often listed without any sign of a venue. This is particularly relevant to county age group fixtures which can be anything between under 10s and over 70s. Enquiring e-mails often go unanswered and low and behold sometimes scorecards appear after the event just to show you what you have missed.

However word of mouth can often be far better than modern technology, as we discovered this week after visiting a league game at Harrogate cricket club on Saturday. A chance conversation revealed that there would be county cricket veterans games on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, with hints of Yorkshire's Womens team playing Scotland early in September. 

As it turned out Yorkshire over 60s played Lancashire over 60s on Tuesday and to our great surprise Yorkshire over 70s played Cheshire over 70s on Thursday. We have seen some very good cricket in recent seasons in both over fifties and over sixties cricket and there is usually excellent website coverage of the scores, particularly the over sixties. However since the abandonment of this season's county championships there has been little news of any of the many friendlies that have been arranged.

Tuesday's game produced a win for the visiting Lancastrians, who scored 155-3 in their 40 overs, thanks in the main to Mike Davies of Edgeworth with an excellent 85 not out. Yorkshire fell some twenty odd runs short. However, the game was marred somewhat by one of the umpires literally taking his bat, or at least his white coat home. After several complaints from the umpire to the two scorers regarding the figures on the electronic scoreboard, he came across the ground to harangue the unfortunate pair who were obviously not familiar with the equipment at the ground. He said that any more problems and he would go home and abandon the match.

Next over he was as good as his word and took himself off leaving the players on the field mystified. Fortunately a volunteer from the few spectators took his place and all proceeded quite amicably thereafter. Not quite the spirit of cricket at all.

Veterans enjoy cricket in the sun at Harrogate.

Thursday's game had no such problems and the senior citizens put on a good exhibition in the sunshine in front of their family members and a mere handful of curious spectators. Considerable banter between the players obviously good friends from previous encounters in their younger days. Scoring was relatively slow, with few boundaries on this large field. Although it did get going a bit with the advent of a runner when one batsman got hit on the leg by a throw and proceeded to hit out. Miles Rawlings, from the local Harrogate club, provided the backbone of the innings with a stubborn 20 and we unfortunately had to leave for another engagement with the score on 78-4 after 32 of the 40 overs.

No news or scores of either game on the internet so will have to wait until our next visit to Harrogate for the result. However a very enjoyable occasion with the fastest over rate seen so far this season and very few wides of which there has been an awful lot in recent weeks. 

Yorkshire veterans enjoying the action at Harrogate.

The hidden agenda was again in evidence on Thursday evening when the penultimate round of Headingley evening league matches took place. New Rover entertaining Horsforth Hall Park, who are title contenders along with Rawdon. Despite full scorecards for most games all season, this one was missing, but at least we saw the exciting finish with Hall Park getting a single off the very last ball to win by four wickets.

Last glimpse of evening sunshine at New Rover.

Yet another team all in black as the evenings draw in and things get darker towards the end. New Rover made 145-8 with two wickets falling from the last two balls of the innings, but by not being all out deprived Hall Park of the full six points. The Hall Park innings was soon up with the required rate with an eventful seventh over, which included the following sequence. Batsman well caught on the boundary off a no ball, the next ball a free hit clean bowled him so not out, the next one went for six and the next really did bowl him. After a flurry of sixes things slowed down and it was touch and go at the end with the field in and a scampered single brought Hall Park four points for an incomplete win.

Not too far away Rawdon managed a full six points by bowling out Cookridge in their last over after bravely declaring their innings on 172-2 in only the fifteenth over. So the standings are Rawdon 26 points, Hall Park 24 points and Adel third on 22. Last round next Thursday and guess what - Hall Park entertain Rawdon in what should be a very close contest for the league title.