Back in the 2nds. How? Don’t score a run or take a wicket. It always works.
League match. Batted on a thin red line deck for a long time, for very little. Some batsman get their kicks from sticking around, toughing it out; me I’d rather join the BNP which might be possible very soon if they cave in to the Equality and Human rights Commission order that they accept ethnic minorities or face prosecution. Three cheers for political correctness gone mad. Christmas has come and don’t get a dog for christmas; join the BNP.
This was the second of 2 one day games against RAF. Stupidly, I didn’t film the day before when the real action took place. Their ex Durham speedster ran in and bowled an easy 85 mph. The deck had some early juice in it; overnight rain, overcast day…. and all that rot people talk about pitches and conditions. RAF’s Cessford bowled the quickest spell I’ve ever seen an amateur bowl. I wore a helmet for the first time (proper in my life, e.g when I was scared of a fast bowler whereas I’d donned one briefly as a fashion item in the mid 90s; thing you did to show you were a modern player) and I got hit on the chest.
I’ll never wear one again. How the hell do people see through them? I’ve faced a few first class speedsters with no lid before; some have got very pissed off and gone bouncer crazy. Share this not as some act of macho posturing but to ask if todays moron fast bowlers not realise there was a pre helmet era when ordinary and shit players played quick stuff by watching the ball. Why don’t they bowl bouncers at players with helmets?
If anyone has an old school lid, with a grill that comes off, side ear pieces ( health and bleeding safety laws I’m told mean detachable visors are no longer an option) I ‘ll pay a small fortune for it. Email by leaving a comment.
In at 9. 100 short today. Captain- Tom Redfern- stuck me there. We only needed 160 of 20 overs. Chance missed.
September, writing about July. Why? Two reasons. I got lost in summer; hoping it would never end. Second reason. Down in Holby, a pal’s dad swore I got a hundred v Holby School’s 20 years ago. ‘My son was at the other end. I remember it well.’
Rubbish, rot, toilet. I’d flipping know if I’d got one. But Sandy Meuricoffre was adamant. Got back to London and searched through old care unit magazines for the lost ton.
Days later, girlfriend came home to find boxes overturned and papers strewn. Didn’t ask what I was doing. Not the slightest interest. But it did come. The question what are you doing came via dramatic or forgotten delay. It came two or so hours later. I’d rehearsed my answer in good time for it.
‘Looking for my life, I’m looking for my life’, I said.
The care unit mags. Many key years were missing. Girlfriend’s fault.
“Where are they? where’ve you put ma stuff ?”
I didn’t find the ‘89 annual. It had to be that year and Meuricoffre had be to wrong. There were innings of 97 and 99 that year; the 99 I write about in the blog intro but there was no 100. Meuricoffre had ruined the next couple of weeks. Could I have wiped a hundred from memory? Flaming son of Aswad no. Eccentric mad Professor type parent of an old pal was wrong.
Down to Reigate Priory. Not a get a ton game . RP side didn’t meet the criteria: Cricketers who rate themselves. They were hungover students, colts and 3rd, 4th teamers. But I did want game time practice for a money shot that I think will be essential for a 50 ball ton; the straight hit where no one can can catch you. I saw Afridi practise it for 20 mins- one shot for 20 minutes- during the 2020 World cup. Does Afridi presume bowlers will bowl straight? ergo he can go boom boom straight.
If you’ve not seen the field where AEJ Collins got 628 not out, the highest recorded score in all cricket, watch the vid. To fill time as 12thers, I took the camera down to Collins’ piece. The filming is stunning for its crumminess but you get a sense of how tiny the ground is. Collins is adjacent to the Close, where the previous world record of 4o4 had been set by Edward Tylecote in 1868.
The 1899 ground was a practice field for young boys. “It was very short (only 60 yards (55 m) long), with a wall only 70 yards (60 m) away forming the boundary on one side, while the other side was a gentle slope falling away towards the school sanatorium in the distance. The pitch occupied the central 22 yards (20 m) of the narrow field, with the boundary only 17 yards (16 m) behind each set of stumps. Hits to the long boundary, down the slope, had to be all-run, but the three short boundaries only counted for two runs.”
Tom Redfern, this blog’s pseudonym was the last man out in Collins’ innings. And if you’ve got time to kill in the office, sleepy derivatives markets etc, you might want to read a very, very, very long post about Collins and Tylecotefrom two years ago.
At the start of the season, an old well wisher who’d found this blog quipped “you have made yourself the hero of your own story”. No ‘the attention of my own centre’, I replied. And glory beckoned for my well massaged centre today; a ton ‘gainst Gloucestershire in a 2020 game on the Close was within reach. My care unit alumni team were playing the ‘Shire’ in a Chris Taylor benefit match. I agonised all night and morning on the dance floors of Holby city’s best clubs. Should I face Steve ‘bonecrusher’ Kirby without a helmet ? Should I hook him or smash him straight to Holby Zoo.
The ground later that day. Spied the teamsheet. Eyes scrolled down 11 names. Found mine at 12. PeterbloodyHitchens!!! Ex Shire captain and match manager told me, “I couldn’t take the risk of not having 11 so I asked 12″. Brilliant idea. Damn. Deceived by a vain hope again!
But I did have time to chat with Chris Taylorabout his feat: the only cricketer to score a ton on his first class debut at Lords.
Two posts by The Old batsman, another blogger and a finer writer left me a little dazed in July; The first was about an equally deluded ‘quester’ called Pete;a club cricketer who spent his life trying to smash a six of the first ball of his innings. The second post was about Getahundred’s target: the fifty ball ton. In the Id of Vikram Solanki, dont do Freud but ‘OB’ opens with this awakening quote: ‘recalling that innings now is like a dream. Somehow I managed to sustain for a complete day the sort of form that usually materialises only in short, glorious moments’. This was ghost written for Bad Baz Richards innings of 325 in a day for South Australia in Perth in 1970. That day, Bad Baz faced Lillee , Mackenzie and Lock .
OB added “I thought of those words when I was watching Vikram Solanki make 100 from 47 balls for Worcestershire against Glamorgan in the T20 Cup the other night. Richards made those runs way before an expression like ‘in the zone’ was foisted upon us, but that was where he was, more or less. He’d entered a rarified place where his natural ability was unobstructed by his own mind. It never happened to him again.”
Restrain your sniggering if you can because I think I’ve been been to this Shangri La; not at the level of Bad Baz or Vikram but if only briefly, I’ve been there and know that it’s not a place of bat swinging abandon; not a place of masterly control either but a space, a fragment in time where there is you and only the ball. It never happened to Richards again; so there’s feck all chance of it happening again to me or at even at all.
There was no fifty ball wonderland v the Gypsies. I batted 9. The captain- ma’self -stuck me there but later in the bar of a hotel, there was a little recompense. Kevin Emery, ex Hants and Glos Gypsy, after a little pestering held court and recounted bowling with Malcolm Marshall but I wanted only to know how fast Sylvester Clarke , another bowler of that era was.
Men telling stories about other men in a pub- what fun hey- but I’ll suffer anything to pick up a cherished anecdote about the great Sylvester. The photo caption from his Times Obit: ‘Probably the meanest fast bowler ever’ ( might have been ‘possibly the meanest fast bowler that ever lived’) was I think the only thing I read as an undergrad. If it wasn’t, it was certainly the best. Has there been a finer epitaph for a bowler, for a man?
Btw: In future all typos and spelling errors are to be left for posterity since spellcheck is evil and editing your own work marmite. Production values on vids are still low but the audio is not as scratchy as it was. Watch with sound off. I recommend it.
Watch the film to hear a new narrator, to hear a more positive, more upbeat , less pithy, less bleak fellow than one you’re used to. I was thrilled by the lbw given by Teddington’s septuagenarian bespectacled scorer turned umpire. I danced inside as he raised his finger to a ball that pitched outside leg , struck my hip and cannoned into my tummy. (not too clear on film but you can make out a blur strike my back leg hip. Sorry I don’t have Hawkeye yet) I was even happier with the score when I got in: 155 for 5 of 39 0vers. The top order were going guns beforehand, attacking their spinners, turning good balls ordinary by using their feet etc and not leaving it all to the middle order to scramble a total in the last ten. Ah sod it! enough moaning and buck passing. This struggle goes on.
Spent 3 days before fighting stomach/swine flu. But with a game, decent lunch and a hundred still to get, I found the best natural vaccine to quell a killer pandemic.
“Just don’t shine the ball with your spit,” the skipper said.
“What about my sweat, can I shine the ball with that or does sweat harbour the deadly virus.”
“Best you go and field at fine leg, end to end, all day mate.”
Ah back in league cricket after my fortnight attempting to bully schoolboys and proper umps for the match. Panel men for a home game at the Walker; sunny day, the skipper won the toss and a placid looking pitch; great day to score a ton. “Can you do 8 for me and start the scoring and er do the first 10 overs yeah” the captain said.
Er have I slept with your wife or roasted your children over a spit I thought. So I sat in the scorebox and watched our regular no 11 batsman open the batting. Skipper was experimenting. Still I love scoring, really love it, like I love reading Melanie Phillips. Into bat at 90 for 6 after 29 overs. (100 overs games. No side can bat more than 57, declare at 50 and you get 4 points for the draw etc.) Get your hundred from here hey. In the June drought the wicket had been watered all week. Slow, soft on top, but hard underneath it was impossible to bat on. The team collapsed. Went in and batted like all top order league batsmen do- for them bloody selves. Bad ball parasites and single nudgers the lot of them. It’s what you do to get your 30/40, the par score, so you don’t get dropped. Enjoy ma demise today. It’s what happens when you bat sensibly. We were all out for 140. They were 40 for 3 before the monsoon.
Another go at bullying schoolboys. I was succesful this time. Though once again I saw little of the strike. I’ve just worked out that right handers are always facing because bowlers are used to bowling to them. They bowl better lines to ‘rh’ but with lefties, they stray and you can always pick off an easy run off your thigh; the flick square or to fine leg. I ran out of tape- a first this season- so there’s very little of my innings except when I’m standing at the non strikers end! I didn’t really bully these boys. The score was a 120 odd for 7 when I came in at 7, so I had to bat responsibly; real toothache stuff.