Everyone that has ever played cricket will have come across a village cricketer, a player of a certain standard that can be easily identified as different from his snooty betters at the posh club down the road. The Village Cricketer today invites you help paint a picture of the typical village cricketer by asking the simple question - what is village?
Some starters below, please leave your comments and please keep it clean!
- Playing in black trainers
- Wearing a replica England shirt as part of your whites
- The village cricketer will have a village nickname, like ‘The Walrus’
- Smoking a cigarette while doing square leg umpiring duties
- Shouting ‘in’ at the end of every run
March 23, 2007 at 10:46 am
Wearing Batting pads to keep wicket.
March 23, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Out going batsman handing his bat to the new batsman because only 2 people have bats
March 23, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Playing in grey tracksuit trousers - or any tracksuit trousers for that matter
March 23, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Bats held together with Black insulating tape
March 23, 2007 at 8:16 pm
These are classic. Some others off the top of my head:
Wears chinos, becuase that’s the closest thing he has to whites. Sometimes wears black leather shoes on the field, too.
Takes guard for a left-hander, then, just as the bowler is running in, pulls away to square leg, and says, ‘I’m actually right handed’. Boom, boom. And the field has to change.
When umpiring, and the bowler asks, ‘Howzat?’, he raises his finger, then scratches his nose.
Misses the ball after an almighty cow heave, then walks off to square leg, rehearsing the most overstated of forward defensives, or an unlikely masterful whip over mid wicket for six.
Thinks he can change the course of a game by coming on fifth change. Tries for the Mankat run out at the non-striker’s. Bowls a mix of medium pace pie and spin. Appeals when he bowls a wide. Cap on backwards.
Will run out a youngster at the end of an innings, just to maintain his batting average of three.
Dies of a heart attack at the crease, because of over-eating, ruining everyone else’s weekend.
March 23, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Advises youngsters to bathe their bats overnight in a basin of linseed oil. Believes the lathe machine hole on the toe of the bat is for ’soaking up oil’.
Is someone you would love to drop, but can’t, because of a shortage of players, and he typically has a car to get to away fixtures.
Tries his hand at wicket keeping at some point, when no one else can do the job. Let’s 50 byes past, catches nothing, and scores a duck on the day.
March 23, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Never buys you a pint in the pub afterwards. Always scrounges off someone else, and borrows money from the juniors.
Brings the worst sandwiches for tea (Somerfield ham when you’re playing The Pakistan Association) and hordes all the Cadbury’s chocolate logs.
Imparts advice when clearly he has none of merit to give.
Draws ducks in the scorebook when you get one - sometimes with ‘quack quack’ beside, or on a first-baller, a farmer with a gun.
March 23, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Drops everything off other bowlers, walks in the field, cos he can’t run. Then throws himself about like a lunatic off his own bowling.
Comes on as a runner for your batting partner, and runs you out on a technicality.
Is the first man in history to give away six overthrows.
March 23, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Wears whites when out clubbing on tour.
Argues with the scorer thirty minutes after losing the game that a leg-bye in the 40th over was in fact his run, hence his score should be adjusted to four.
Maintains, till blue in the face, that a batsman cannot be out lbw in any circumstances if the ball pitched outside off stump and he is playing a shot. Yet gives every f*&£ing appeal out anyway.
Thinks his ploy of bowling every over right-arm round is cunning.
Swears he once umpired in a game where the batsman was clean bowled, and everyone saw, but no one appealed, so the batsman and fielders played on.
Argues, till blue in the face again, that as long as a ball is caught inside the circle, a fielder can backpeddle over the ropes and it will still be out.
Has the smelliest jock strap in the club.
March 24, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Couple of examples just from last season…
Pouring sawdust on to the whole pitch to dry it our after the covers failed to stop a downpour…
Cow stopped play…
Ice-cream van stopped play…
A player walking out to bat on a Sunday and clearly shouting back to his mates he will need a change of gloves shortly as his were still wet from his massive innings yesterday’. Needless to say he took a first baller…
March 25, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Apart from all the above descriptions actually sounding like me at some point in my career….
1) Owning a bat that cost £20, bought from Sports division or JJB and thinking that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
2) Being physically incapable of playing a forward defensive shot.
3) (one for the Keele boys) Only wearing one pad, on your front leg - because it’s easier to run and thats how you learned as a kid.
4) Playing in a Fred Perry polo shirt
5) Being the worst batsman on the team, but owning a Woodworm bat - because KP & Freddie use them.
6) Getting so drunk that you fall off a pedallo…oh hang on
March 25, 2007 at 5:22 pm
[...] play Bangladesh, and I personally think that any team with a 20-stone plus spin bowler is village). View the entries and add your own. [...]
March 25, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Great stuff. Thanks for your contributions, keep em coming. Any spin bowler (or any cricketer for that matter) weighing in excess of 20 stones is very village. Go on big Dwayne old son! http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/23742.html
March 26, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Tells everyone in the club you knock in the sides and foot of a bat, which pushes up the fibres and makes a bat more likely to break.
Sticks religiously to his method of padding up, believing that the order in which he does it will bring him luck. To change it, will spell doom. Yet, in twenty-five years, he has a high score of nine.
Copied Graham Gooch’s ridiculously high back lift when he was on the scene. Tapped a bail into the crease to mark his guard a la Graeme Thorpe. Appealed like Dominic Cork in village games. Twirled his bat like Alec Stewart. None of these tricks ever brought him success.
Appeals for lbw from square leg.
When he once captained, he tried to be inventive and put a man at back stop. The oppostition racked up over 300 in 40 overs.
Twice a season he chips the ball pathetically to a close in mid on for the easiest catch in the world. Mid on spills it. But both batsmen are at the same end and he is run out.
March 26, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Coming out to bat and being ready to face without asking for a guard. A clear sign of what’s to come…
March 26, 2007 at 8:45 pm
He wore one of those nose plasters that Robbie Fowler sported in the field.
March 27, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Chris Gayle bowling in his cap for W.I today,village!
March 28, 2007 at 8:02 am
Interesting one that. Surely if Mr Cool Chris Gayle can bowl in his cap, then that is not village. I am open to being swayed on this one, opinions please?
March 29, 2007 at 1:55 pm
We’re in trouble - our best batsman, well at least he thinks he is, is called
‘Run Out’.
April 5, 2007 at 9:31 am
Maintaining that all Wordworm bats must be hand-made because they’ve been to the workshop.
Sizing-up the age and quality of the oppostion before deciding whether to play as a batsman or a bowler in a particular game (”to give the others a chance “).
May 26, 2007 at 10:51 am
i haven’t read all the suggestions so forgive me if this one has already been submitted; taking guard one-handed with the arm fully extended so the elbow is locked, only to be told by the umpire to ‘hold your bat up straight’!
June 28, 2007 at 7:39 am
After last night’s game, we have:
Taking a catch as square leg umpire…
[An out-standing instinctive catch, one handed]
February 5, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] fust TwintyTwinty mitch today. Sideshow Bob carved through the Kiwi batting, which included proper village cricketer turned international ‘athlete’ Jesse Ryder. Ryder is only 23, but has already been [...]
February 6, 2008 at 12:20 pm
[...] The categories for nomination are as follows (click here for a guide on what constitutes village behaviour): [...]
February 6, 2008 at 12:33 pm
My nomination for the award has to be Ishant Sharma who debuted for India within the year.
He’s from Delhi, my home, and bowls for the team I follow.
The gangly young fellow went in to bat in the just concluded test series in Australia with two left gloves!
And he’s got the village cricketer looks too…notice the goofy smile of his. There are characters like that on every cricket ground around the world. So he’s my nominee - Ishant Sharma, Delhi and India.
February 6, 2008 at 12:34 pm
By the way, he didn’t notice the two left gloves which many noticed on camera. That’s another point in favour.