The Chances were Slender, the Beauties may not be Brief

Leicestershire (381) v Derbyshire (251-8 dec.), Grace Road, County Championship, 27-30 April 2018

Match drawn

There were times, watching this game, when I was forced to contemplate the possibility that I may now be supporting a competitive side, and even that I might have to upgrade that to ‘a successful one’. As a supporter, I am naturally pleased, but as a blogger I am confronted by the problem of what tone to adopt when describing success, if my default setting of low comedy is no longer available. ‘Happiness writes white’ they say, and so, perhaps, does success. If it obvious that we no longer have any interest in a game, my mind is free to wander, sometimes in more scenic directions : if we are still in the chase, I seem to spend most of my time doing mental arithmetic.

The first two and a half days of the match were lost to rain, or – to put it more positively – one and a half days were reclaimed from the rain, with the heroic ingenuity of seventeenth century Dutch engineers reclaiming land from the sea. As late as the third morning, the chances of play seemed slender, and the forecast for the fourth would have caused Noah some anxiety. When it was announced that play would begin at 1.45, I cannot say that my heart sang, but, I reasoned, if they were making the effort, then so should I (I was not quite alone in following this line of thought).

I was impressed by the generally single-minded way in which Leicestershire attempted to make the most of what seemed likely to be a single afternoon’s play to scrape as many bonus points as possible, implying, as it did, that they hope to be in a position at the end of the season where an extra bonus point or two might matter. I’d say there have been times in recent seasons when they would have been more likely to give it up as a bad job and go to the pub.

Football managers of a certain vintage used to be given to questioning how much the big time Charlies and fancy Dans would fancy it on a wet Tuesday night in Stoke, and one might ask the same of Derbyshire’s imported pace bowlers in relation to a cold Sunday afternoon at Grace Road. Neither Rampaul (who cuts a portly figure these days), Viljoen nor Olivier bowled with much real intent, or to any great effect; most of the wickets fell to the euphonious medium pacer Luis Reece, and Will Davis, the only one of their Staffordshire-raised young seamers to survive the Winter cull.

With their minds fixed firmly on the target of 400 in 110 overs to secure a full bag of batting points, Horton, Ackermann and Eckersley all made half-centuries, with Carberry, Dexter and Raine only a few runs short. The last-named should have made 50, had he not succumbed to the only old school pratfall of the match, when he and Dieter Klein found themselves at the same end, and Klein declined to do the decent thing by surrendering his wicket. As Raine is much the better batsman, this allowed the elusive last point to escape Leicestershire’s grasp, finishing on 381.

To everyone’s surprise, but possibly no-one’s unmixed delight, a full day’s play was possible on the Monday. Once Leicestershire’s innings had finished, Raine had the opportunity to exorcise his frustrations by taking two early wickets. With no possibility of losing, I would have expected Derbyshire to set their sights on 300, but perhaps discouraged by their early losses, and hampered by some more dry bowling (particularly from Griffiths), they lowered their sights and crept past the 250 mark before declaring, to deny Leicestershire a final bowling point (a rather spiteful act, and, arguably, contrary to the playing regulations).

For those interested in the progress of young English qualified players, neither Harvey Hosein (a wicket-keeper and batsman of promise) nor Hamidullah Qadri were playing for Derbyshire, but I was impressed by Matthew Critchley, whose leg-breaks were merely economical, but who did much to shore up an innings that was in danger of collapse. He also frustrated Raine enough to induce the bowler to hurl the ball at him, on the pretext of running him out (I do wish Raine (and others) would stop doing this).

In between the two home games came the debacle in Durham, where Leicestershire forced their opponents to follow on, bowled them out twice, but failed to chase a target of 148. I was not there, but strong men who were seemed barely able to relate what they had witnessed, like the remnants of Napoleon’s Grande Armée who had survived the retreat from Moscow.

Leicestershire (191 & 237) v Glamorgan (178 and 247), Grace Road, County Championship, 11-13 May 2018

Leicestershire won (!) by 3 runs

If you would like to see some excellent photographs of this game (much better than anything I could do), kindly provided by Charlie Dryden, please follow this link – https://chasdryden.myportfolio.com/specsavers-cc-lccc-vs-glamorgan-may-11-2018

And so to the Glamorgan game, which Leicestershire won. It may be that having so rarely witnessed a Leicestershire victory in recent years means that doing so has had the same giddying effect on me as a bottle of vintage Champagne on a lifelong teetotaler, but I feel that this is no time for critical detachment. It was one of the best games I have ever seen (and, although I might have felt differently about it, it would have been so even if Leicestershire had lost). Almost every member of the Leicestershire side contributed significantly to the win, and some performances were positively heroic.

It had not begun well. Having chosen to bat, Leicestershire were soon reduced to 9-3, which before too long had become 67-6. Ateeq Javid had at least hung around for over an hour for his 13 and Callum Parkinson had some success with his tail-ender’s aggression (a foretaste of things to come), but it was only a calm and collected 87 from Neil Dexter, who has looked a new man (or his old self) this season, that dispelled the fear that Durham might have broken their spirits. By the close of play, Glamorgan had reached 82-0 in reply to our 191, and expectations were low.

The damage had been done by Glamorgan’s own trio of nationality-fluid seamers, Hogan, van Gugten and de Lange (Lukas Carey, the 19-year old from Pontardullais who had impressed me last year had joined Hosein and Hamidullah in being left on the sidelines). On the evidence of this game they look likely to be Glamorgan’s only real strength this season.

As the second day began, the majority view (based on long experience) was that Glamorgan would knock up at least 400, declare with an hour to go, then take a couple of cheap wickets to leave us facing defeat by Sunday tea-time. In the event, seven wickets had fallen before lunchtime, thanks to some fast, straight bowling by Varun Aaron and Gavin Griffiths, and some characteristic terrier work by Ben Raine. The majority fear, again based on precedent, was that we would allow the tail to wag, but it was swiftly removed, with only some slogging by van der Gugten a cloud on the horizon, no bigger than a man’s hand.

Leicestershire’s first innings lead of 13 was extended by a solid half-century opening partnership (I am so pleased to have the opportunity to type that sentence that I’m tempted to repeat it) and they finished the day on 119-2, with the in-form Ackermann and the reassuring figure of Cosgrove in occupation.

The vagaries of public transport meant that I arrived at Grace Road late on the Sunday and, as so often, I had to do a double take when I saw the scoreboard, which stood at 142-6 (the culprit being Michael Hogan, the vulpine veteran from New South Wales). Another dramatic reversal in fortune, the assumption at Grace Road being always that the last reversal would be in our opponents’ favour. Talk turned to ‘how much will be enough’ For any other club a target of 200 would do, but for us 250 seemed safer, and a long way away.

At the fall of the sixth wicket Ben Raine strode to the wicket (and he really does stride), beard jutting and bat swinging, like Desperate Dan setting out to rescue his Aunt Aggie from some troublesome varmints. Taking his cue from van der Gugten, he swung and swung again, and, with Parkinson as his sidekick, he dragged the score by the scruff of its neck to 250, having contributed 65. 251 to win (surely, surely …).

When Glamorgan batted again, we experienced the disorientating sensation of watching another side’s batting collapse, instead of our own. The opener Murphy and Chris Cooke offered a little resistance, but Raine, who seemed determined to win the match or die in the attempt, removed both. When a batsman is proving obdurate, Raine sometimes gives the impression that he won’t bother to release the ball, but is simply going to keep running and physically manhandle him off the pitch and he came uncomfortably close to doing so literally with Cooke.

139-8, 111 to win and the tail-enders de Lange and van der Gugten at the crease (career averages of 13 and 10 respectively). The only rational question seemed to be whether we could finish the game off that evening or whether it would be worthwhile returning for an hour the next morning to witness a Leicestershire victory (but still that little voice at the back of the mind – Surely? Surely not? Surely this time? Not again?).

The last hour (though it seemed somehow to be both longer and shorter) would have made an excellent case study for a sports psychologist studying the effects of a team not having won for a long time, and having a record of throwing games away from promising positions. De Lange and van der Gugten are big, strong men with good eyes and, crucially, nothing to lose, but a team who are used to winning would have allowed them to have a little fun and hit a boundary or two, but found a way to nip them in the bud before they came too close to the target.

Instead, Leicestershire appeared to freeze. In all, de Lange hit 90 from 45 balls, including 5 fours and 8 sixes. At least two of the sixes went out of the ground, and one ball was lost completely in the car park. A four ricocheted off the base of the sightscreen and smashed a hole in the window of the Umpire’s room. There were two dropped catches and a missed run out, when wicket-keeper Hill somehow failed to connect ball and stumps, with de Lange well out of his ground. It is amazing how quickly you can get from 139 to 251, if you are counting in multiples of six.

At the beginning of the 53rd over, with 75 still required, Carberry threw the ball to Parkinson, the young slow left-armer, who must have wished that he could throw it back again. His first ball to de Lange went for four, the fourth and fifth (a no-ball) for six. Off the last, however, he trapped van der Gugten LBW, which brought Michael Hogan to the crease. Hogan not only looks and bowls like Glen McGrath, but bats like him too. The obvious course would have been to try to keep him on strike and de Lange as far from it as possible, but so frozen did Carberry appear that this did not seem to occur to him, in spite of receiving plenty of advice to that effect from the crowd, and the frantic semaphore signals from his coach on the balcony.

The next over, from Varun Aaron, brought another six from de Lange, a squirted four from Hogan and a scrambled single to bring de Lange on strike for the start of Parkinson’s next over. The first ball went for six, as did the second (a gentle full toss). This brought calls of ‘take him off’ from the crowd, perhaps orchestrated by Parkinson himself. A single followed, then Hogan prodded out the rest of the over. Gavin Griffiths, so potent earlier, but now caught in the collective nightmare, was hit for two fours and a six.

With nine required to win in what looked certain to be the last over, the indomitable Raine seized the ball (perhaps the only man on the field who would have volunteered for the task). Another single from Hogan brought de Lange on strike for the third ball, which went for four. Four to win. The fourth was a low full toss (deliberate, no doubt), which de Lange, for once in the innings, did not quite strike cleanly. It flew high out of my field of vision behind the sightscreen, followed, after an agonising split-second, by Parkinson, who had taken the catch on the boundary, shooting into view towards his team-mates, screaming like a scalded cat.

As it was a day for superlatives, I don’t think that I have ever seen a side as affected by a result as Leicestershire were by this one. Carberry looked in a terrible state, and some of the younger players seemed on the verge of tears. We supporters were elated, of course, but at least most of us have been around for long enough to have experienced a Leicestershire victory before, which is not true of all of the players.

So, having at last removed this weighty and malodorous monkey from their backs, where do Leicestershire go from here? Well, for the moment, nowhere in particular in the County Championship, in this disjointed season (our next 4-day game begins on 9th June). We shall have to hope that they can carry the same spirit forward into the 50 over competition, which begins today : perhaps for that reason, much the same side that has played in the Championship has been chosen for the first game, with, unexpectedly, no place for white ball lovers such as Pettini, Wells or Aadil Ali. I have every confidence in them, almost.

Incidentally, Leicestershire were docked two of their hard-earned points for a slow over rate, and Glamorgan one. Even leaving aside the amount of time that had been lost retrieving the ball from neighbouring side-streets and removing shards of broken glass from it, the last thing any of the spectators would have had on their minds would have been the over rate, and I am fairly confident that no-one would have been asking for their money back. Sometimes the playing regulations really are a ass.

 

 

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Not Entirely Pointless

Leicestershire v Glamorgan, LVCC, Grace Road, 21-24 April 2017

A while ago, writing about match-fixing, I wrote the following :
“Any sport consists of an elaborate system of rules that constructs an artificial world within which it is possible to have an authentic experience. As anyone who has watched a lot of County cricket, or lower league football, will attest, that experience is rarely obviously thrilling, or even interesting (it is not spectacular), but, even if it not “real” in the sense that bull-fighting is real, it is and must be known to be authentic. When something genuinely marvellous happens (such as Botham in 1981) it reassures us that miracles can occasionally happen in real life, and not only in fiction.”
I suppose this match was a good example of what I had in mind. Only two of the passages of play (the morning session on the first day and the afternoon and evening sessions on the fourth) were particularly compelling in themselves. In between there were a few interesting moments, some worthy performances and touches of humour, but the main interest was in trying to anticipate the denouement, which, in the event, was never revealed.

Although there were several points when one side seemed to have the advantage, by the end of each day equilibrium had reasserted itself (Leicester ended the first day on 275-5, Glamorgan were 281-4 by the end of the second ; Leicester were 200-3 at the end of the third, Glamorgan 144-4 at the close). (This state of equilibrium may have been the result of the game – as a man in front of me put it – being a case of a resistible force meeting a moveable object.)

A journeyman scriptwriter would have repeated the ending to last season’s match between the two sides, when, in the last game of the season, McKay and Shreck had taken Glamorgan’s last five wickets for ten runs when they required only 36 more to win (not quite Botham in ’81, but a satisfying conclusion). Instead we had a sort of nouveau roman policier, in which, having established numerous suspects, the detective concludes that he cannot work out who the murderer is and simply gives up and goes home for dinner.

The match was unusual, in that the most significant delivery of the four days was one that no-one in the crowd could see, it being the ball in the nets that had (apparently) bruised Zak Chappell’s shoulder and rendered him incapable of bowling in Glamorgan’s first innings. This is not because I would expect him to run through them like a dose of salts (those days may come, but not yet, and probably not, I’m afraid, for Leicestershire), but because it meant that we were left with only three front line bowlers, McKay, Raine and Shreck, who, in benign conditions for batting, were compelled to bowl 27, 30.5 and 29 overs respectively. As a result, I imagine, neither McKay (back) nor Raine (sidestrain) were able to bowl more than a few overs on the last afternoon, though Chappell was able to bowl, alongside the apparently indefatigable Shreck.

The first session of the first day was, as I say, compelling to watch, as the Lancastrian duo of Horton and Dearden opened together for the fourth time this season. Horton was in fragile form at the end of last season and has a highest score this of 20, with four single figure scores. Dearden was averaging 11 and their highest opening partnership against a County had been 10. It might not be true that they were anxious for their places, as, with Robson having absconded, there is no obvious alternative opener, but Horton (at 34) might have been worrying that he is facing something worse than a temporary dip in form and Dearden (19) that he is out of his depth.

Friday was a bitterly cold and overcast morning, and it was something of a test of character simply to stay out on the pitch for the opening session, when there was the option of a warm dressing room to retreat to, but the pair dug in (the phrase implies some of the dogged physical effort that seemed to be involved) and were still together at lunch. The pitch seemed generally true, but with the nasty quirk that balls just short of a length sometimes reared up alarmingly, and Horton was hit painfully more than once. Glamorgan, too, seemed a bowler short (there was no van der Gugten, nor cricket’s answer to Robbie Savage, Graham Wagg), and their opening pair Michael Hogan (a “rangy” Australian who looks somehow under-dressed without a Drizabone) and Lukas Carey (a 19-year old from the same Swansea school as Aneurin Donald) were only intermittently threatening, but the sense of relief when the beleaguered pair returned to the pavilion, with the score on 81-0 was almost tangible.

At lunch, to illustrate my point about anticipating possible futures, a century opening partnership, and an individual century for at least one of the openers seemed on the cards. By about 2.00, with Horton out for 41 (he returned to a standing ovation from the home balcony, indicating that spirit within the team is good, whatever their alleged relationship with the coach), followed swiftly by Dexter first ball and Captain for the day Eckersley for 1, thoughts (my thoughts anyway) had turned to a card-house collapse and how Chappell might be hard to play in the fading light of the final session. (I must, incidentally, get out of the habit of taking pictures of batsman as they return to the pavilion, which makes me feel too much like a tricoteux cackling at the foot of the tumbril.)

In the event, equilibrium was restored by Dearden (who fell 13 frustrating runs short of a maiden century) and Mark Pettini, who has been the least convincing of the “experienced” imports, but who made important runs in both innings here ; the balanced then tipped in favour of Leicestershire as the last five wickets, in what has become something of a pattern, more than doubled the score to finish on 420.

The last 61 of those runs came from a last wicket stand on the second morning between those knights of the long handle McKay and Shreck ; they were clearly enjoying themselves enormously at the time

but might have been less pleased if they had known quite how many overs they would have to bowl over the course of the next two sunny days, on a pitch which had mellowed so much that it might as well have fired up a joint and stuck some James Taylor on the stereo.

Spirits first sank at the sight of Tom Wells taking the field. Not that there is anything wrong with Wells per se, but because it soon dawned that he was fielding as a substitute for Chappell, leaving, as support for the three main bowlers, Dearden (who had not, I think, previously bowled with a red ball even for the 2nd XI), Dexter (whose medium pace surprisingly often breaks partnerships, but is not suited to long spells) and Delport (supposedly on a one day contract, but drafted in here (any Delport in a storm) to purvey his big maximums and little wobblers).

The bulk of Glamorgan’s reply came from young opener Selman (117) and the mature Kolpak Ingram (137). I can remember little of their stand of 161, except being torn between wanting it to stop and being secretly relieved that the game would, at least, outlast the weekend. Once that stand was broken, wickets fell at regular, but widely spaced, intervals and Glamorgan finally crept six runs in front (equilibrium restored again).  Another responsible, as well as stylish, innings by Pettini (a century this time) and a similar effort from Eckersley ensured that defeat was out of the question, but the timing of the declaration, which left Glamorgan 355 to make off a possible 57 overs, meant that something extraordinary would be required for a home victory.

What we saw (the thirty or so who were left by the end) was, in a way, extraordinary, but not in the way required to win. To set the scene, by mid-afternoon the sky was, at its most colourful, battleship grey, and the only things that seemed to be preventing it snowing were the intense cold and the biting wind. If it weren’t for the floodlights we would all have been home by lunchtime.

McKay bowled his first over like a man who is a martyr to lumbago, and it must have been clear to Glamorgan that last year’s bogeyman would not be troubling them again (he only managed one more over).  Raine, a player who would, as the saying goes, run through brick walls for the club (and probably does so for fun on his days off) was forced to leave the field after, heroically, bowling seven overs and taking two wickets.  Which (without a recognised, or recognisable, spinner in the side) left Shreck and Chappell. Shreck, a man closer in age to me than he is to Chappell, managed another 13 overs to go with the 29 he had bowled in the first innings (perhaps his enforced rest period had done him good) but posed no real threat to batsmen who were looking only to survive.

Chappell, though, in light that seemed pretty dim even with the floodlights on, bowled fast enough to endanger the physical safety of the batsmen, even if he did not often enough threaten their wickets (Cooke looked thoroughly uncomfortable, particularly when he was hit somewhere in the region of his solar plexus).  He also posed some threat to his wicket-keeper and slip cordon, and even a St. John Ambulance lady who was sheltering from the wind behind the sightscreen (a bouncer had flown as far over Lewis Hill’s head as a lecture on Hegel and trampolined over the screen off a hoarding angled at 45 degrees).  In fact, for once, the only person he did not look likely to injure was himself.

The more sensible element in the crowd had called it a day when there was a brief interruption for bad light,

but I hung on to the end, in the faint hope that the extraordinary thing, the thing you don’t see every day, might happen, which, in a way, it did.  A ball from Chappell to Rudolph, slightly short of a length, instead of veering harmlessly off towards the slips, cut back viciously and skinned his glove on its way through to Hill.  A whole possible future glimpsed in a single ball.

To maintain the equilibrium, both Leicestershire and Glamorgan have now earned 20 points this season though, after deductions, we only have four left.  So, not entirely pointless, at least.

 

 

 

 

Happy Days and End Games

 

On my first visit of the season, I complained that the inscription on the sundial in the Garden of Remembrance at the County Ground, Northampton had become illegible. I don’t know whether close to six months at Wantage Road has somehow cleansed my doors of perception, or whether they have shelled out to have it cleaned, but on my last visit I found I could read it clearly. It seems to read:

Make time, save time, while time lasts. All time is no time, when time is past.

This sounds like the sort of riddle contestants on 3-2-1 once had to solve to win a microwave oven, but, in fact, appears to have been borrowed from the 17th century monumental sculptor, Nicholas Stone. If the specifics are a little gnomic, the gist is clear : (depending on how you like your eggs) carpe diem, enjoy yourself – it’s later than you think … YOLO.

As September falls, a sense of an ending concentrates the minds of players, coaches and spectators alike, though unalike, according to their roles. Months of settling for high scoring draws (ensuring that the season will not be the kind of disaster that leads to the coach losing his job) give way to a desperate dash for results. In the previous five months of 4-day cricket at Grace and Wantage Roads I saw two results, in the last five weeks, I have seen five (two defeats and a win for Leicestershire, two wins for Northamptonshire).

For a few players, the end of the season will see their last game, some for their current club, for others anywhere or ever. The same goes for some of the crowd : we all hope to winter well, to see you next year, to have all the time in the world, but, as I was saying in the Spring, it does not do to take time for granted. And hovering at the back of our minds, at this season’s ending in particular, there skulks the baleful figure of the Angel of Death, in the shape of Colin Graves, and his plans for city-based cricket.  All time is no time, when time is past …

Leicestershire v Sussex, Grace Road, County Championship, 6-7 September 2016

Should any of us have required a reminder of our mortality, the first day of this game had been designated as “Heart Attack Awareness Day” : praiseworthy, of course, though I found the sight of children simulating heart attacks in the outfield during the lunch interval did little to alleviate the sense of unease generated by another poor Leicestershire performance. They had gambled by preparing a green wicket against a side whose main strength looked to be its seam bowling, and who would have first use of that wicket. Not unpredictably, they were bowled out for 135 and 119 and, having allowed Sussex to recover from 156-7 to 313 (an inability to dock the tail has been a persistent problem), lost by an innings within two days. As if that were not punishment enough, the Umpires added to the insult by reporting the pitch to the ECB.

Little has gone right for Leicestershire recently ; what, precisely, has gone wrong is peculiarly hard to say, though the steep swan-dive in form has, at least, coincided with the confirmation that coach Andrew McDonald would be returning to Australia and the sudden departure of wicket-keeper and chief opposition-irritant Niall O’Brien. What goes on inside a professional cricket club is as mysterious to outsiders as what goes on inside a marriage : commentary is, at best, speculation, at worst gossip. It does appear to the outside observer, though, that the core of this side, mostly thirty-somethings of Australian or South African origin, are a rather introverted, self-sufficient group whose loyalty is (not unnaturally) to each other, rather than to Leicestershire per se, and who, without being actively unfriendly, see little need to build a rapport with outsiders.

There are also hints of a hierarchical split between the first-teamers (eight of whom have played in almost every four-day match this season) and the younger, local-ish players, reduced to the 2s and fetching and carrying (and who are gradually being shed from the staff). Zak Chappell, potentially the most talented, has been unable to bowl more than a few exploratory overs since he broke down in April, but returned against Sussex. Inevitably, given the long lay-off, his length and direction were awry (though he was quick enough to induce some balletics from Eckersley, who is nothing if not an elegant wicket-keeper). When he did finally find his range to finish the innings by clean bowling Jofra Archer, there seemed to be a marked lack of the usual back-slapping and high-fiving from his senior colleagues, and he was left out for the next game in favour of the ready-made Richard Jones. It would be a shame if he had to go elsewhere to find nurture.

Derbyshire 2^nd XI v Glamorgan 2^nd XI, Belper Meadows, 8^th September 2016

The premature ending at Grace Road gave me a last chance to re-visit what is probably my favourite ground on the circuit, at Belper. I have tried to capture its charm in words before, but, as its appeal is largely aesthetic, it is probably best conveyed in pictures. I wondered why anyone would want to watch city-based cricket when they have the option of its De Chiroco shadows and distant prospects of the East Mill and the Derwent Valley.

(On the subject of intimations of mortality, during this match a Derbyshire batsman, completing his second run to reach 200, was struck on the head by a shy at the wicket. He lay motionless on the ground, and there was initially some concern that he was dead. Happily, it transpired that he was just having a larf (#topbantz!), but I wonder, if he had been killed instantly while out of his ground, but his momentum had carried his lifelless body over the crease, would the run have stood? Is it enough for the batsman’s body to complete the run, or does he need to be present in spirit? A question for Ask the Umpire, perhaps, or possibly a theologian.)

Leicestershire Over 50s v Essex Over 50s, Kibworth, 11^h September 2016

The final of the Over 50s 50/50 Cup (I don’t think the Over 60s play 60 overs) saw the first of this season’s happy endings. Leicestershire (the underdogs) were struggling (as the shadows lengthened) at 108-9, in reply to Essex’s 167, when the last man arrived at the crease. He made the bulk of the runs to take us to victory, and, as darkness fell, he was sprayed with Champagne by his team-mates, and presented with the Man of the Match Award by the increasingly Tudor Mike Gatting. This is what is usually described as a “fairytale ending”, or “like something out of a Boy’s Own Comic” ; we instinctively mistrust them as too neat, too satisfying, as, in fiction, they would be. Which is why it matters that it actually happened, and that we can believe our eyes.

Derbyshire v Leicestershire, AAA Arena Derby, 12^th September 2016

Of all the counties I know well, I’d say Derbyshire has the most attractive grounds – apart from Belper, there is Chesterfield, Buxton, Duffield and, no doubt, many more I have yet to visit. Which makes it all the more frustrating that the County choose to play all but one of their home games at the AAA Arena, which is rapidly transforming itself into one of the ugliest. It has long suffered from being surrounded by a system of ringroads that makes it perilous to approach and which keeps up a whooshing, grumbling, drone in the background, and is famously windswept. It used to have redeeming features, though, such as a well-stocked secondhand bookshop, decent ice-cream, and deckchairs rather than fixed seating around much of the boundary. Unfortunately, this section was cordoned off in connection with the building of a new media centre, which seems designed to complete the transformation from a cricket ground to a collection of multi-use industrial units (with a Travelodge looming over it all). I am not unaware of the commercial imperatives that lie behind this (and that something of the sort threatens at Grace Road), but the thought does occur that, if this is the future for the smaller counties, then a threatened alternative future of playing minor counties at, for instance, Belper, might well be preferable.

It didn’t help that the weather was dull, the crowd glum (as well they might, not having won a match all season), and it cost £18.00 to get in. On the field, it was another frustrating day for Leicestershire, who having ground Derbyshire down to 177-6, as usual allowed 19-year old wicket-keeper Harvey Hosein (83*) to drag the innings out to 307. Both sides looked weary, as though they felt that the season had gone on for too long, and as the gloaming descended in the late afternoon, I began to feel the same way. The most interesting feature of the day was that one of the home supporters had brought along a pet tortoise in a cardboard box, which was allowed to graze just outside the boundary fence ; on the whole I found watching that more entertaining than what was going on inside it.

Northamptonshire v Gloucestershire, County Ground, 12-15 September 2016

Moving from Derby to Northampton was to move from gloom into bright light (once the early mist had burned off). Since their T20 victory, Northamptonshire have been sealed in a golden bubble of happiness, on a winning streak where every gamble they take pays off, where they only have to hope for something to make it happen, much as it must seem to their talisman Duckett (who, while Leicester and Derby had been toiling, had knocked off 208 in a victory over Kent). In this match he could only manage a 70, mostly backhand-smashed off Gloucestershire’s quartet of season-weary back-of-a-length merchants, though he was presented with the Supporters’ Club Player of the Year Award (not to mention being called up by England).

On the final day, Gloucestershire had been set 441 to win. At 286-5 with time shortening, logic suggested a draw, but dream logic demanded that Northants should bowl them out, and that Ben Sanderson (a plucked-from-obscurity fairy story in himself), should take eight wickets to do it. After that it was beers on the balcony, and precious, sweaty, kit flung over it to the faithful, who lingered as long at the ground as they decently could. Make time, save time, while time lasts …

Northamptonshire’s Members too, seem to be locked in a golden bubble of happiness, to the extent that they have allowed themselves to be persuaded to surrender control of the club to a “group of investors” (I voted against this). The current investors appear to be amiable and well-intentioned, and, in the short-term, the future may well appear bright. In the longer term, though, when those investors grow old, or need some cash, the ex-Members may discover that it is harder to regain control of a club than to surrender it, at least until it goes bust (as the supporters of more than local football club will testify).

On the other hand, the long term is too far ahead to look for some of the older Members. As I heard one say “Oh, well. There’ll be cricket here next year … and maybe the year after”. Carpe diem … and let the future look after itself.

Leicestershire v Glamorgan, Grace Road, 20-22 September 2016

And so to the end, and a bitter end it looked to be, when Leicestershire were bowled out for 96 on the first morning (on what Andrew McDonald described as one of the worst days of first-class cricket he had ever seen). I won’t bore you with what led them to this position, but Gloucestershire found themselves, at lunch on the third day, needing 35 to win with 6 wickets in hand. There followed a fairytale ending, of the kind in which the big bad wolves (in the shape of Clint McKay and Charlie Shreck) gobble up the little piggies, as they lost those six wickets for ten runs, to give Leicestershire their first home win since 2012. It somehow happened too quickly to quite take in, and, after a brief explosion of disbelief and relief, I was left with the realisation that, after close to six months, and God knows how many thousands of words, it was all over, finished, gone, and I could think of nothing to say about it at all.

All time is no time, when time is past …

 

Mildly Surprised by Joy

Northamptonshire v Glamorgan, County Ground Northampton, County Championship, 31st August-3rd September 2016

“I don’t want to say I told you so …” is not a phrase that is often sincerely meant.  Where cricket is concerned, though, it has an ambiguous force.  On the one hand, it is only human to take pleasure in being able, retrospectively, to prove one’s perspicacity : on the other, predictability is a notorious kill-joy.

It depends a little, of course, on the nature of the prediction.  If I had predicted, for instance, at the beginning of the 2013 season, that Leicestershire would not win another Championship game until 2015, it would have been cold comfort to have been proved right. Though there are some (particularly at Northampton) who, perversely, seem to take the opposite view, we generally prefer our optimistic prophecies to come true, and our more gloomy prognostications to be refuted.

I would, for instance, have expected this to be a predictable game, but I am delighted to say that I would have been quite wrong.  I predicted early in the season that Northamptonshire would continue to produce dead, flat wickets and that most of their home games would be high-scoring draws, and I have been proved correct : all but one have been drawn.  I also predicted that, if they wanted to win games, their best hope would be to return to their strategy of the 1950s, prepare turning pitches, and play at least two of their four spinners (this more a pious hope than a prediction).

Until the last ball before lunch, the match proceeded predictably enough.  Northants were on 140-0, with Ben Duckett on 80 (and it is a sign of what an extraordinary player Duckett has become that I can describe making close to a century before lunch as predictable).  He then tried to sweep a very full ball from a debutant, part-time off-spinner called Carlson off middle-and-leg, missed, and was bowled.  This seemed likely to be only a temporary, if disappointing, interruption to their expected progress to a large total. In the afternoon, however, Carlson, who looked to be flighting the ball quite nicely, took 5 (mostly lower order) wickets for 25, and Owen Morgan, another inexperienced spinner, chipped in with 2-37, to dismiss Northants for 269.

This low total was dismissed as a predictable consequence of a hangover from the T20 victory and a depleted batting line-up, and Carlson’s figures as an amusing novelty. By lunch on the second day, however, Rob Keogh, generally seen as a batsman who bowls a bit, had taken 9-52 (the best bowling figures by a living Northamptonshire bowler) and Glamorgan were all out for 124.  So hapless had the batsmen appeared that anxiety grew about a visit from the Pitch Inspector, so, at lunch time, most of the crowd wandered out to inspect it for themselves.

What they found was a pitch that was bare of grass, rutted where batsmen had scratched their marks, scuffed a little by bowlers’ footmarks (particularly the left-armer Wagg), but hard and solid looking (I didn’t dare poke it), and devoid of cracks. It was precisely the kind of wicket that you would hope to see in August, when spinners traditionally came into their own, but far too seldom do now. Still, however, the shadow of the Pitch Inspector and a points deduction hung over the ground, as Duckett and Newton walked out to bat.

Within an over or two, the shadow dispersed, along with the field, which soon came to resemble the closing overs of a Gillette Cup match in the days before fielding restrictions. It helped that Carlson (whose best day may already be behind him) bowled two full tosses to Duckett in his first over, both of which ended up in the groundsman’s hut (D’Oliveira had successfully employed the same tactic to dismiss him earlier in the season, but I don’t think Carlson was doing it deliberately). Duckett went on to make 50 off 30 balls and, in the course of a rare, golden afternoon, 185 off 159 balls, before a tired shot saw him return to a standing ovation and a pair of green wellingtons (whose meaning was obscure) balanced on the dressing room balcony.

On the third day Glamorgan, chasing a fanciful 451, again disintegrated (unlike the pitch), to Keogh (who took 4-73) and the precise, dandified left armers of Graeme White (6-44), both bowling with the rare luxury of a packed close field.

Glamorgan only slightly exceeded their first innings total, making 132, and were beaten by 318 runs, shortly before tea. In the course of the match Glamorgan had made 256 runs, Duckett 265. 31 of the 37 wickets to fall had fallen to spin, including all 20 of Glamorgan’s. Keogh finished with 13 wickets, and White 7.

To repeat myself, there was nothing freakishly venomous about this pitch, it was simply one that offered the spinners the help that they would once have taken as their due at this stage of this season (and in April at Northampton, if dear old Claude Woolley was on good form). If proper pitches like this became commonplace again, then only proper batsmen (or batsmen who play spin properly), like Duckett, would be able to make runs, and the flat track, “big” bat bullies would have to learn to adapt, to become better-rounded players.

Players like Keogh would have the incentive to become spinners who bat a bit, rather than vice-versa. Specialists like White might find themselves with a regular red ball gig, and a chance to express their full range of talents, rather than being reduced to mere, miserly, dot ball merchants in the T20. Young bowlers, whose careers are currently deformed (like that of Briggs), or at risk of being snuffed out altogether (like Riley’s), would stand a chance of reaching their potential peaks. England would, when preparing a squad to tour India, know who could play spin, and who was best capable of bowling it. They might even feel the need to employ a specialist wicket-keeper (such as David Murphy, whose swift and sure glovework played a significant part in White and Keogh’s success).

If all, or any, of that comes to pass, I shall be very pleasantly surprised. I shall also, unashamedly, take great pleasure in saying “I told you so”.

I’m sure Claude Woolley never drove one of these

 

Welcome to the Muppet Show #newera

Leicestershire v Glamorgan, LVCC, Grace Road, 12-15th April 2015

So, has it started yet?

(Charlie Fox et al. sing)

It’s time to play the music!
It’s time to light the lights!
It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight!

It’s time to put on makeup!
It’s time to dress up right!
It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight!

The Members (in the voices of Statler and Waldorf)

Why do we always come here?
I guess we’ll never know
It’s like a kind of torture
To have to watch the show

Wazim Khan, Andrew McDonald et al. (in unison)

And now let’s get things started!

Members (in unison)

Why don’t you get things started? Why can’t you get it right?

Charlie Fox, Wasim Khan, Andrew McDonald etc. (with gusto)

It’s time to get things started
On the most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational
This is what we call the Muppet Show!

Well, OK. I am forced to admit, curmudgeon as I am, that I was impressed.  I cannot really fault the concept or the execution of the Open Day, which marked the opening day of the season at Grace Road last Sunday.  As you may have read elsewhere, invitations had been sent out to local residents and a crowd of over 1,500 (mostly families with young children) were there to take advantage of the bouncy castle, pirate ship, free lollies and arts and crafts (not really of a kind that William Morris would have recognised).  Wasim Khan was, as advertised, on the gate and round and about to meet and greet and the positive impression he is reported to have made on the staff seems, on the basis of a few guarded conversations, to be a genuine one.

A few unformed minds should, at least, have come away with positive associations for a day at the cricket, though it may also have created some unrealistic expectations about what the average day of Championship cricket is likely to entail.  If a few of them are encouraged to pester their parents to take them to the cricket again, and a few of them in turn to become hooked on the game itself, the exercise will have been well worthwhile.

There were those of us there, of course, whose minds are far from unformed and by the close on Sunday evening, with Glamorgan having progressed to 294-2, a fair few of those were already resigned to what a rather splendid man with a West Country accent repeatedly announced would be “another long, hard, Zummer“.  The same man also insisted that he was never coming back again to Grace Road, but by Tuesday, when, inevitably – such is the nature of addiction – he was back in his familiar seat, things were looking up and Leicestershire responded to Glamorgan’s 513-9 dec. with a respectable 435 (Eckersley 147, Robson 83).

On the last day Leicestershire were set a tantalising but improbable 305 in an afternoon to win, finding themselves in a situation reminiscent of several games last season where, having maintained parity for most of the match, they collapsed painfully and pitifully, like a drunk on to a camp bed, on the last afternoon.  At 1-2, I imagine our friend from the West must have been going through his Cassandra routine again, but Captain Cosgrove saved the day with an innings of all the solidity his record and physique suggest to shepherd his nervous flock through to a comfortable draw.

Though I think Citizen Khan’s stated aim (for us to become “the best non-international side in the world“) is, frankly, crazy talk, there is no reason why we cannot win games and have a reasonably successful season.  I should be astonished if we were promoted, but surprised if we finished last again. We have three proven run-scorers in Robson, Eckersley and Cosgrove and some promising strokemakers in Redfern, Pinner and Aadil Ali.  Niall O’Brien still seems up for a scrap.  Freckingham and Atif Sheikh will take wickets, if used in short bursts, though they will concede runs too.  Shreck may adapt well to the role of a stock bowler and Raine, Taylor and Wells are all useful medium-fast all rounders (though perhaps too similar to be played together).  Naik can hold up an end and take wickets if offered a responsive surface.

In short, we have one good side and a few spares, if not the depth to survive any serious absences through injury or loss of form.  What we will struggle to do (and this is true of most of Division 2) is bowl sides out twice on docile surfaces.  One bowler of real quality would make a dramatic difference (think of Ajmal last year, Copeland the year before, or even Hogan at Glamorgan) and we must hope that Clint McKay turns out to be that man.  He is currently absent on honeymoon and we must hope, too, that he is conserving some of his Vital Energies for cricket.

I am not, incidentally, going to fall into the trap of saying that there is a buzz around Grace Road at the start of the season (I fell into that one too early last year and look what happened).  Except for the terminally curmudegeonly, there is always a buzz at the start of the season; it is only when there is still one at the end of it that it is worth making a song and dance about it.