Village grounds

A bit of grass roots sanity for a moment. The Torygraph has located what readers believe to be the best village cricket grounds in the UK. Here is the winner:

Bridgetown Cricket Club in Somerset

 

Village cricket administration from Yorkshire

Incredible that this could happen at all, even more so in the professional ranks, however reports are circulating that Yorkshire County Cricket Club is facing allegations that they fielded an ineligible player during the group stage of the Twenty20 Cup.

According to Sky Sports, Azeem Rafiq is alleged not to hold a British passport, and as such was not properly registered to play in the game against Nottinghamshire.

The Press Association is another source to read.

Bizarrely, this all came to the fore while a shed load of Geordies were waiting to watch the Durham v Yorkshire Twenty20 Cup quarter final at the Riverside this evening. Proper village.

 

Village Cup Final attracts thousands to Lords

A few years ago I had tickets to the Sunday of The Oval test between England and the West Indies. My mates came along to stay in London and we were excited by the prospect of a good day’s cricket in Kennington. Imagine how dissapointed we were to see the Windies rolled in less than three days, leaving us without any quality cricket to watch.

So instead we ploughed up to St Johns Wood to watch the final of the Village Cup for FREE. A decent club side from South Wales stuffed a village side from the West Midlands, and although there was controversy as to whether the Welsh side was actually a village (I recall that it was a village, but was too good to be considered to be in the true spirit of ‘village’) everyone had a great day out at Lords.

Yesterday, several thousand spectators saw Woodhouse Grange from somewhere near York (Yorkies love a freebie) beat southern side Findon to lift the Village Cup. Read all about it on Cricinfo. Shame it wasn’t televised and broadcast live mind. That would have been truely village!

 

Saaed Bin Slogging?

Not one usually to delve into local cricketing matters, and definitely not one to big up a club side I don’t play for, however TVC was struck by a remarkable batting performance by Saeed Bin Nasir, who scored 256 out of Pilsley’s 368 for 2 in 46 overs against Denby’s 2nd XI.

Saeed is, according to Cricinfo, “a middle-order batsman who has been knocking on the doors of national selection for a while, has played first-class cricket for the last six seasons. He has toured with the Pakistan A team as well, but has been in search of an outstanding season which would catapult him into the national team. He was included in the squad for the first two Tests against Bangladesh in 2003-04, but failed to break into the final XI.”

Now, even for a man with fine first class and list A credentials, that is still some going. Even if he had batted all 46 overs, he still needed to personally score at rate approaching six runs an over, and given that one of his teammates scored 90-odd as well, he must have spent a fair proportion of the time at the non-striker’s end. Also, be aware that although Pilsley is a village, this cricket is certainly not! It is only two divisions down from Derbyshire Premier League, and is a division which also features the likes of Rajesh Ramesh (Karachi and Pakistan A) for Ambergate, Iain O’Brien (Wellington and New Zealand) for South Wingfield and Nilantha Cooray (Moors Sports Club and Sri Lanka A) for Darley Dale.

Take a look at his stats as Pilsley’s pro, which at the time of writing have not been updated to include the 256. There can’t be many better signings as a pro in English club cricket this season.

 

A week of high class cricket

The tour has been and gone and the Keele Reefer Association were able to play some excellent cricket in some glorious summer weather in Devon. Two wins out of three were the reward for some positive cricket, with only Torquay proving too strong for the hungover Reefers in the final match. Ian Rabagliati was batsman of the tour, scoring 81* at Sidmouth and 48 at Torquay, and Tom Taylor the bowler of the tour - taking seven wickets at an average of 10.29. Below is a picture from the tribute match to Sir Beef…

 

The joys of work cricket

Jonny from accounts is steaming down the hill, despite almost tripping on the astro-matting, he delivers neither a wide or no-ball at a pace not exceeding 50mph. The ‘batsman’, the best player in the East Town Cabs Wednesday night XI almost swings himself off his feet to cuff the ball to point, where Derek (the smelliest programmer in the North West) drops the ball. Ho hum, at least you managed to get 11 players, even though three are wearing shorts!

Ahhh, the joys of work cricket. The evening class of village cricketers, 11-year-old sons, test match wannabes and the occasional decent player present to smash you all over the place. Squabbles over the batting order, retire at 25, “get on with it”, terrible running and even more terrible fielding. 16 eight-ball overs and finish in the dark.

You will play in the rain, probably nick off first up, and your team will lose yet another match in the Dave’s Pizza House Sponsored Evening Cricket League. Like roadcrash TV, you keep going back.

 

Seven weeks, no surprises

Congrats to the Canary Yellows who won the World Cup without even needing to break sweat. Big shame that the final wasn’t played in good weather over 100 overs, but getting to watch Gilchrist go mental was some compensation. Interestingly, the Sri Lankan bowlers, who had looked incredibly good against everyone else, looked ordinary when faced with the Gilchrist onslaught. I would suggest reading the Australian perspective on this, and also some analysis of his squash-ball innovation.

At least Glen McGrath can no longer darken our doors. The grump in (baggy) green has retired, disgracefully with 20+ wickets from this World Cup alone, and will go back into the bush. Batsmen around the world can breath a sigh of relief, the fans will get to see him sitting in a convertible being wheeled around the MCG when Cricket Australia celebrate their legends, and the rest of us can look forward to a more cheery replacement. See below for a picture of Glen looking grumpy.

Oh, and I have just watched the BBC’s Panaroma show looking into the murder of Bob Woolmer. 30 minutes of speculation rehashed from stories on the internet, with the major scoop being an interview with an illicit Indian bookmaker. Everything on the show had been revealed before. “Woolmer poisoned and then strangled…” we knew that weeks ago. Must be a cushy number working reworking online stories at the Beeb!

P.S. Made two not out at the weekend, batting at seven, we lost.

 

Bowler bops batsman (allegedly) in the South Yorkshire League

Great local newspaper story which made both the front and back pages of today’s Sheffield Star. Good quote too from the Chairman of Rotherham Pheonix after one of his club’s bowlers allegedly lamped the batsman!

“We do not condone any violence but our player was attacked and we see it as him just defending himself”

I wonder if the scene was anything like this…

 

Its a fine old time

The West Indies have been fined for a slow over-rate during their during their 113-run defeat against Sri Lanka. Match referee Jeff Crowe, who has previous in this tournament, imposed the fines after Brian Lara’s side was ruled two overs short of its target at the scheduled finish of the Sri Lanka innings. As such, Lara has been fined 20 percent of his match fee while his players have each received 10 percent fines.

Now, this got me thinking. On this summer’s Keele Reefer Association tour to Devon, players will be fined for certain misdemeanors (although a slow over rate will probably not be amongst them) and I think it wise to get some opinion on fineable offences and the going rate. For example:

• Dropped catch = £2
• Scoring less than 10 runs in an innings = £1
• A duck = £2
• Village behaviour (click here for possible offences) = £2

I am keen to get your thoughts on this. Please leave your comments in the usual place.

 

The arse of captaincy

With the season rapidly approaching, The Village Cricketer today seeks to share advice on how to lead your village team to top of the table supremacy. Given his own captaincy record (one full season at Barnes CC resulted in bottom of the table humiliation), TVC has sought advice from elsewhere: WikiHow, the how-to manual that anyone can write or edit. Visit the How to Captain a Village Cricket Team entry to obtain such pearls as:

• Make sure you have 11 players on the field
• Don’t let anyone but yourself move a fielder to another position
• Sweet talk the umpires, call them sir, find out what their hobbies are
• Arrive first and leave last at games
• Recall a batsman who’s been wrongly dismissed