When Patrick Kidd of the Times’s Line and Length blog gives you a shout out you know you’ve arrived. April 15th 2009, a day to remember. I became a small, particle of dust small, footnote in cricket history. The history claim over eggs things a bit but who cares?
Also I hope nobody thinks I’m a tv producer (if you’ve read Patrick’s post; I bigged ma’self up a bit when we met) because that’s a credit and title you won’t find on IMDB. I did slave away for a few years developing documentaries- history and current affairs. It was for a time the best job in the world. I was paid to write up or come up with programme ideas that would never get made. Yes I was a modern day Sisyphus but unlike Sisyphus I enjoyed my gig- at times; e.g when I wasn’t being sacked twice in the same day by a ranting, screaming, ballistic boss who’s now at the top of TV’s greasy pole. He gave me the job back on the same day as well. Creatives hey!! ”You’re sacked, no you’re not. You’re sacked, get out, get out, no you’re not sacked.” Of course you get this on the ‘Apprentice’ now.
William Hill gave me some odds to get this ton for charity. They’ve got a special bet department - for punters who want to wager their son ‘ll play for England etc - and after a busy Grand National weekend for them, I went in for a chat.
Apology- I’ve used the expression blind XI several times in one or two posts and vlogs without meaning any insult to blind cricketers. I’ve seen blind cricket and it’s a fine, noble and difficult game. I won’t be using the saying again and grovel to any blind cricketers out there I may have hacked off; especially those with hundreds!
He said nothing of the sort but I thought I’d go tabloid for a headline. First the backstory. It had been a morgue of a week but there was some cheer today. I went to an early season jamboree; the Great Exhibition.
That’s the Ecb slogan for the ‘biggest summer of cricket ever’. No footer; World cup or Euros, no Olympics, no anything apart from 71 days of competitive cricket. The back pages this summer belong to the Game. First come the Windies, then 2020 world cup and lastly that test series that begins with an A that’ ll never be menitoned here. It’s not like it needs publicity.
Back to Strauss. I am not breaking my rule- writing about the professional game- but I did have 30 seconds with him after the BBC, Times, Mirror, Sky, mainstream media etc. I won’t tell you how many BBC outlets I thought I saw covering the day because you might go into a Daily Mail rage. Back to Strauss again.Watch the vlog below and you’ll hear a startling prediction; it’s about 2 mins 3o secs in- if you want to skip the waffle that comes before .
I stumbled on an academic paper last year called Batting and Memory by John Sutton. I didn’t understand much of it but the bits I did get resonated. One passage had me nodding, smiling and eventually laughing. “Many readers of this journal”, he wrote “will be intimately, agonizingly familiar with troublesome roles of thought in cricket batting. The intrusive rumination over my horrible shot last saturday; the bizarre, fluttering irrelevancies which seep through mind and body as the bowler runs up….. after one sweet cover drive, a temporary manic narcissism which perserveres skewing my.. response as the next ball arrives and draws me into another flash, a nick, the gut-wrenching lurch, the swamping disbelieving misery, the self-criticism, the rumination.. and so it goes.” You can hear John speak eloquently on his ideas in a broadcast below. It’s 2o mins long but worth the listen.
John told me a great sledge he got from a team after he’d scored a big hundred. ‘Back in 86 when I made a decent 154 and was walking off this guy in our side (always get the best sledges from your mates) says, “So that your top score John?”
A nameless loved one has convinced me to get this hundred for charity.
“How do I do that” I said.
“Get sponsors for your runs. Say 50p a run for you to get this thing. But you’d never raise anything because you’d actually have to get this hundred, not just write about it. Or I know,
“You do do you”
if you work out your average last season, maybe you could ask for 50p per run everytime you pass your average. No that wouldn’t work either, your average is a so low it’s a guarded secret.”
“I’m not begging for sponsorship. I’ve got a better idea. ”
“Let’s hear it.”
“You can read about it in my next blog. At least two of us, will have visited the site then.”
I’d heard that bookies offer odds on anything. So I called William Hill to see if I could back myself or get others to take a punt with a percentage of the bet going to charity. Open bets look unlikely though. Fears that I could mastermind a nobbling with a triad syndicate were too high. But to my suprise they said it might be possible to back myself but there had to be a few rules and limits. So I’m going to see them tomorow to hear their terms. If I can film it I’ll take the camera along.
Went to see cricket coach Steve Selwood. I’d tried a sports psychologist. What harm could a coach do? The plan was to strip my batting to its bare essentials. I wasn’t sure if I’d gone to see the right coach. Selwood was an aggressive left hand opener for Derbyshire who failed to reach a first class 100 by one run. What he would give to face that ball again on 99 again.
I’d settle for Selwood’s ability since I can’t have Lara’s or Gower’s. In one session Steve figured out why I veered between being excruciatingly crap and competent. I told him that my balance vanished between deliveries. I didn’t know why everything was fine one ball and a bloody mystery the next.
if you’ve read previous posts you’ll know I’ve written libraries on being balanced at the crease. It’s the most frustrating, unsolvable, unfathomable riddle. Sometimes I feel like a twisted lampost at the crease; disjointed, unable to keep my head still, in line, etc. But a few taps of the bat later, I’m dead eye, even keel, ready to take on the world.
We found the answer today. Selwood spotted the problem quickly. “When you pick the bat up, stay still for as long as possible.” It worked. Sounds obvious and I ‘ve been told this before but I’m certain I wasn’t listening.
After journeying hundreds of miles to some fine well tended grounds, I ended up on a park pitch in Pinner. You get what you deserve but no one deserves to bat at Pinner CC. The outfield and wicket are one and the same.
I looked on feeling depressed and superior; depressed by this blot of a ground and superior because I reckoned that I was too good bat on rubbish like this. If I didn’t smash every ball for six, I was worse than the dobbers on offer.
But filth on a meadow is good enough for anyone and too good for me. Pinner’s batsmen batted on this track like it was the Oval of old; making it all look very easy, batting carefully and echoing poet Jeff Cloves thoughts on park cricketers everywhere: ‘we are cricketers here and we care, we care’.
‘Young bloodaxe’ Mark Ramprakash learned his cricket here and he scored his 100th 100 this summer. Perhaps some of his luck would rub off. You’ve got to be a jammy so’n so to bang that many runs. I ran myself out. It was my fault. Sadly I was out of camera shot when I crossed the line. But you do see my pathetic amble on the first run and zigzag return.
I got off a to flyer, flyer for me- 26 of 10. I thought the track was even and hard; a mortuary for medium pacers but I got one that slowed of the deck and mistimed a drive into the bowler’s hands. Cricket, when I bat, is a bowler’s game. Did the bowler know that part of the deck would be two paced? Like heck he did.
Despite its excellent facilities, this can be a charmless place. It used to be a crummy sorry gaff but rocketed up cricket leagues and the social world when they sold their lease to a leisure club entrepreneur who bankrolled a top ground and pavilion. In return Acton cricket club got the Park Club. 2 to 3000 well heeled Chiswick and Shepherds Bush types who pony up £1500-3000 a year for tennis, swimming, gyms, spas etc.
The place reeks of ‘people like us’. If you’re not a member you can’t use the car park. When we arrived a Ukranian sentry barked at us ‘ outside, outside, you cannot enter, parking is member only.’ You also have to sign in a zillion times before they let you in. It’s a CRB thing because the club buzzes with happy kids at play and the fear is that visiting cricket teams are chock full of paedophiles.
I raised this with Acton’s captain. He was a bit upset when I asked what the fuss was about. ‘We’re in Acton. This is hardly White’s or Hurlingham and they let Osama Bin Laden in without any hassle at all,’ I said.
‘Acton is an affluent area’, he said.
‘Ah yes so it is, my mistake,’
I didn’t want to get into an argument about how posh Acton was. I’d lived in neighbouring ‘sexual’ (Ealing) for twenty years. I clearly didn’t know what I was talking about.
I played against the Incogs for a second time two weeks later and was out for a 4 ball duck; caught behind by a Grandpa keeper who had a bit too drink- before start of play at 11.30.
( 2 matches v Incogs at different grounds in August in this film. Datchett starts 1mins 5secs in.)
There was a massive appeal which I met with an angelic smile, a shake of the head at the bowler and a walk away to face the next ball. Oscar worthy. The umpire didn’t buy it. The ball hit something; could have been my outside edge. I wasn’t sure. Honest ! See what you think. I thought I played inside it.