Category: Cricket

Lord’s At The Start Of The Cricket Season, 6 April 2023

Actually I visited Lord’s twice in the short week before Easter and on both occasions played real tennis.

Given the weather and my other activities, I got more tennis than cricket during those visits.

On the Tuesday, before the start of the cricket season, I had a really good game of doubles, partnering Graham Findlay for the first time and taking on some strong opponents. On paper we should have received some handicap but we played level and still prevailed over 90 minutes. The best I can remember me playing for a long time; perhaps the best I have ever played. Sadly, the CCTV camera stopped running a couple of seconds into our slot, so all I can show of the historic event is this warm-up shot from the hazard end.

Meanwhile Charley “The Gent Malloy” and I had planned to spend the first day of the season at Lord’s together, a bit of a tradition and, with Middlesex playing Essex, a desirable fixture for us both too. But Chas had to withdraw from the planned meet, so I arranged to play tennis first thing with a view to seeing a bit of cricket afterwards, all being well.

Another really good game of doubles, with an opportunity to partner Nick Evans for the first time since goodness-knows-when. Also a chance to play with Bill Taylor again, who was back on court playing competitively after quite a long absence. Again, we played level against the odds for my pairing. This time we lost by a smidgeon. I’d rather not talk about the four set points that went begging, nor my duff call on the opponents’ set point. Again I played well, I felt, but not as well as I had played on the Tuesday.

When I emerged from the dressing room, I ran into Ed Griffiths, Harry Whiteley and Arfan Akram from the London Cricket Trust, who were having an impromptu meeting (chat) about our next stage of activities. They asked me to join them.

In the interludes between the cricket conversation, Ed waxed lyrical about the real tennis, as only he can, suggesting it was a geriatric game, while studiously ignoring the rather good quartet from Prested Hall who were playing by then.

Ed can wax lyrical indoors and outdoors

Arfan looking quizzical – both of the above pictures from the LCT launch in Southwark Park last autumn.

Then Ed collared young Nat, our apprentice professional, asking him why he wasn’t 60 years older than he looked and then asking Nat to provide a three word description of my real tennis.

Graceful, technically gifted…

…came Nat’s spontaneous reply, which I must say I thought was a fine contribution to the debate. I’m not sure what substances (or planet) Nat is on if he actually believes that, but it was a great answer for the context.

Graceful & technically gifted the day after the Petworth Match last week

The weather then started to smile and Ed wanted to go off to take custody of a ludicrously fast and expensive car for reasons that he did explain but they got a little lost in translation. It’s probably something to do with late-onset-mid-life-crisis.

Ed made a rather disparaging remark about my car, Dumbo, perhaps unaware that Dumbo tends to hang out with ludicrously fast and expensive cars these days:

Two Lamborghinis, Dumbo & a Ferrari: in Waitrose Bayswater Car Park

But I digress.

I got to see some cricket.

I sat for a while in the Writing Room, but then really wanted to get a feel for the outdoor nature of the game, so took up a position in the Warner Stand…

Then, around 3:15, I started to realise how cold I felt and how close the time was getting to the “afternoon showers” predicted by the weather app and increasingly feeling likely. So I went home.

Still, I had played a good game of tennis, had a useful chat about the LCT (between the bants) and seen a couple of hours of cricket. That’s a pretty good day in my book.

Book Club Evening At Lord’s: Being Geoffrey Boycott With Jon Hotten, 28 February 2023

Don’t talk to me about uncovered pitches. Pictures by Janie.

I met Geoffrey Boycott in the summer of 1969, when I had just turned seven:

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

I have subsequently re-met several of Geoffrey’s fellow team mates from that 1969 team, but not Geoffrey himself.

No matter. I was interested to hear what writer Jon Hotten had to say about writing this book with Geoffrey and was delighted to get the opportunity to do so at a book/supper club for MCC members, which allowed me also to bring Janie as a guest.

The event was held in the writing room (appropriately – also possibly my favourite room in the pavilion).

The Lord’s pitch looks astonishing at night. When Janie and I first looked, there was a fox meandering in that lit area, but it meandered away before Janie was able to photograph it:

Uncovered

The indifference of that refined fox (you get a better class of vulpine in St John’s Wood) has subsequently found its way to the King Cricket website:

A fox being conspicuously indifferent to Being Geoffrey Boycott

If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket website, you can find read that piece here.

Nice grub and good company before the book talk:

Jon Hotten and Geoffrey Boycott have previously done their book launch talks as a double act, but Geoffrey was not available for this one. In some ways, that made it more interesting, because Jon was able to talk to us about the process of working with Geoffrey, whom he hadn’t met before being “interviewed” for the role of co-author on this project. I suspect that we’d have heard little from Jon had Geoffrey been there.

Jon Hotten seems like a gentle individual, who warmed to his subject/co-author while recognising that Geoffrey Boycott is a complicated character, loved by some and loathed by others. Jon’s talk was fascinating. The question and answer session also very interesting.

Jon seemed amazed at how many people wanted to buy a copy of the book on the evening; I ended up procuring the very last book from that pile. Almost running out of books is not quite as bad as my act of omission at my first book signing, coincidentally in Yorkshire…

My First Ever Book Signing, Clean Business Cuisine (the book), Actors’ Workshop Halifax (the venue), Yet Something Was Missing, 5 July 2000

I thought about asking Jon to write a glib remark about “a stick of rhubarb” or “uncovered pitches”, but in the end decided against.

The long and short of it is – Janie and I had a very enjoyable evening. I am now looking forward to dipping into the book, Being Geoffrey Boycott.

Bat To The Future: A Match Report Written Three Months Before The First Lord’s Cricket Match Of 2023, by Ged & New Friend ChatGPT, 3 January 2023

Image bot DALL-E imagining ChatGPT writing a cricket match report with me

I thought it would be an interesting wheeze to collaborate with ChatGPT, the OpenAI chatbot on everyone’s lips, to see what would happen if I trained it to write a whimsical cricket match report for the King Cricket website. Just in case you don’t know, my nom de plume for such things is Ged Ladd.

I chose the first match of the 2023 cricket season at Lord’s, which will, as it happens, be a County Championship match between Middlesex & Essex.

I trained ChatGPT with three examples of my previously submitted King Cricket match reports, two of which were about similar visits to Lord’s with my friend Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett. (The third is as yet unpublished). For those who like to delve, here are links to the two Charley The Gent ones:

I then provided the following instruction set for a piece named “The First Day Of The Cricket Season”:

comedy, 300 words, on no account mention the cricket itself.

That last instruction is a King Cricket website rule – match reports for professional matches should not mention the cricket itself, whereas reports on our own amateur efforts are encouraged to go in to excruciating detail.

Predictably hilarious results followed. I allowed ChatGPT a few tries, the best of which King Cricket published:

A ChatGPT match report for day one of the 2023 County Championship

Click through and form your own view on the extent to which ChatGPT is ready to take over from human writers like me. Bert, a regular comment-provider on the King Cricket website was in no doubt:

“…Well, that’s that. Time to pack up and go home. We, as a species, are now redundant, completely replaceable with AI bots.

It was all there. Ged’s sense of the moment, his use of pathos, and of course his acute sense of humour. There is literally no reason for him to exist anymore. No reason. Literally…

I’d be genuinely interested to know what people think about this. But, just in case you were worrying/wondering, I’m not ready to “throw in the towel” and/or “hang up my keyboard” just yet.

London Cricket Trust 2022 Awards, Southwark Park, 4 October 2022

To Southwark Park – not to queue for a Royal view, but for the London Cricket Trust Awards 2022.

The event was held four weeks later than intended; not deferred for the Royal mourning, but because 6 September, the original date for the event, was a rare “cats and dogs rainy day” in the 2022 London summer.

We now have 62 live cricket facilities in London parks, with 15 more on the schedule to be ready for the start of the 2023 season.

We had a planning meeting in the Southwark Park Pavilion before the public event.

Ed Griffiths and his team had produced a glorious carrot cake for the awards event, emblazoned with 62 flags to represent the 62 sites already implemented.

Ian Moore of the ECB looks happy, but Arfan Akram of Essex looks concerned

I spotted Arfan’s concerned look and realise that the cake was oriented 45 degrees askew from the direction in which the symbolic Middlesex, Essex, Kent, Surrey flags were pointing.

I reoriented the cake, much to everyone’s relief.

We also discussed our plans for expanding the London Cricket Trust universe over the next couple of years, including a fairly major incursion into Crawley, Sussex (at Sussex and the ECB’s request I hasten to add).

Crawley is the 33rd London Borough – remember where you heard it first.

Then to the awards evening and some exhibition cricket on the Southwark Park pitch – a six-a-side match between Southwark Park Cricket Club and Southwark Park Cricket Club – the clever money was on Southwark Park to win.

This particular batsman was a “six or out” sort of character, who heaved a couple of big shots our way and then missed a deceptively straight ball and got cleaned up. The bowler was so surprised by his own achievement, he even looked to the umpire for “the finger” on a clean bowled

Then Ed Griffiths initiated the awards ceremony, in some ways apologising for the lack of “Grosvenor Hotel / Dorchester Hotel” glitz and glamour, while at the same time celebrating our more down to earth style and purpose.

Ed letting rip about our love of parks ahead of posh hotel ballrooms

Max Holden of Middlesex, one of the eight cricketer-ambassadors from the four LCT counties, attended but somehow managed to evade the cameras at the event.

I am delighted to report that the emblematic carrot cake was properly oriented in the refreshments tent by this stage of the evening.

Then the awards.

Chris Whitaker, the Kent Trustee, presented an activation award to Richard O’Sullivan of Teach Cricket, in particular for his work with Bexley Grammar School.

Then Sophie Kent (our Surrey Trustee…just to avoid confusion) presented a Local Authority activation award to the Royal Borough of Kingston-Upon Thames for activating five sites in 2022:

Cricketer-ambassador Bryony Smith picked up the award on Kingston’s behalf

Then Jawar Ali, our Essex Trustee, presented a site award to Grassroots Trust for their work at Seven Kings Park – a site that has gone from strength to strength since we had our first launch there, exactly four years ago:

Finally, it was down to me to award the Local Authority of the Year Award to Enfield, for the superb cluster of four sites implemented in the spring of 2022 in the Edmonton (south-eastern) corner of Enfield – Pymmes Park, Jubilee Park, Ponders End Park and Church Street Rec – neighbourhoods with many people but (until now) almost no public cricket facilities:

Tim Harrison collecting his award from your truly

Given the 14th century origins of Pymmes Park, I did consider bursting into 14th century song, but at the vital moment I felt a wave of pre-minstrel tension, thus sparing the ears of the audience.

Recycling should apply to comedy material as well as cricketing materials

The evening was a great opportunity to meet up with those we see regularly as part of our cricket charity work along with some of the (usually) unsung heroes whose hard work actually makes the stuff we plan happen.

62 sites is great news, but we aim at least to double that figure, which will mean lots more work, as well as more enjoyable events like this one, over the next few years.

A Couple Of Visits To Lord’s For The Hundred, 30 August and 3 September 2022

30 August 2022 Tennis, Lunch and Cricket

Actually the visit on 30 August started off as a real tennis match in the morning, in which “The Coley Kids” (which sounds like a 1960s Saturday morning pictures series) took apart me and my doubles partner Andrew Hinds.

Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.

Andrew and I consoled ourselves with a light lunch at The Ivy and then watched The Hundred women’s match together, before Andrew sloped off to Vicarage Road while I stayed on and watched most of the men’s match…

…before ambling home before the end.

Finals Day – 3 September 2022

Pretty much everything that Janie and I want to say about finals day has been said in our (Daisy and Ged’s) King Cricket match report:

The Hundred Finals 2022 match report

(If anything ever goes awry with the above links, click here instead).

We witnessed the whole of the women’s match and bailed out about 30 balls before the end of the men’s match, which turned out to be a closer finish than we anticipated. Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.

Three Cricket Watching Visits To Lord’s In A Week, 14 to 21 July 2022

These days I’m far more likely to visit Lord’s to play real tennis than I am to watch cricket; or at least to play real tennis AND watch cricket. But this rare week had me at Lord’s three times to watch cricket without playing tennis.

England v India ODI 14 July 2022

The first of the visits was for the one day international (ODI) between England and India. I don’t much go to ODIs these days (World Cup in England year excepted of course) but I had planned to take Ian Theodoreson to the test match in 2020 (until Covid scuppered such plans) and the most suitable date for a rescheduling was this particular ODI.

Ian has had a tendency to choose what turns out to be one of the hottest days of the year for his visits to Lord’s with me. He did so four years ago...

Two Sweltering Days At Lord’s, The First With Ian Theodoreson, The Second With Rohan Candappa – Part One: With Ian T, 23 July 2018

…and also four years before that…

Straight Outta the Upper Compton – a match report

…which might be connected with the choice of dates in mid to late July.

Anyway, this 2022 visit was Ian’s first in one of the wheelchair enclosures, a factor that at least allowed the opportunity for me to meet and host Sally Theodoreson for the first time, which was an absolute pleasure, plus an opportunity for the MCC to demonstrate one of the things it seems able to do very well indeed , which is to look after wheelchair visitors.

Actually, as it turned out, this day was far from the hottest day of the year – Janie and I had that “pleasure” to come at Lord’s a few days later, but still we were grateful to the stewards finding us some shade from which to view the match.

I made the substantive picnic – being smoked trout bagels, ham and cheese sandwiches, dry salads in cups plus plentiful fruits, not least some giant strawberries that were as big on flavour as they were in size. Sally and Ian brought the other items that make a picnic sing – savoury & sweet nibbles plus a very glug-able Shiraz wine.

England did rather well that day, against their run of surprisingly poor form in white ball cricket so far this season.

A very enjoyable day, albeit a very long one for Ian and Sally, motoring up from Somerset and back on the day.

The Hottest Day Ever, Middlesex v Sussex Day One, 19 July 2022

Daisy awaiting the start of play, on the sundeck, having bagsed a parasol – yey!

We had planned to meet up with Fran and Simon at Lord’s that day, after first visiting (ironically, give Fran’s now former profession) the dental hygienist first thing. In the end, Fran and Simon gracefully withdrew from the plans and we resolved to give the match a try, but we were very much aware that the forecast was for the hottest day since records began. We suspected that we’d only stay until lunch.

Actually it was pretty pleasant up on that deck during the first session, although everyone was wondering why Tim Murtagh had chosen to bowl on the hottest day ever, so some of the Middlesex regulars were getting a bit hot under the collar.

Don’t I look cool considering it was the hottest day EVER?

I wanted to show Janie the view from the top of the new Upper Compton, so we wandered around that way, bumping into one of my tennis pals, Russ, with whom we chatted for a while as the temperature rose.

We didn’t stay up top for long – the view was great and the shade welcome but the breeze was almost non-existent by 2:00 and it was getting seriously hot.

We went home to swelter in the discomfort of our own home for the rest of the day, still wondering what Middlesex had been playing at choosing to bowl.

Young Men At Lord’s, Middlesex v Sussex Day Three, 21 July 2022

There are just two places remaining on the planet where people address me as “young man”: Lord’s and Wigmore Hall – naturally I spend a fair amount of time at both places.

But in some company the phrase seems even more sarcastic than usual. For example, my third visit to Lord’s in a week, when I met up with young Jez Horne, who came to work as a summer intern at Z/Yen in the summer of 2005 and stayed for nearly 10 years…and Jez’s six-year-old son Nathaniel.

As it happens, I originally met Jez through Middlesex cricket. In fact, now I come to think of it, I conducted his internship recruitment interview while playing catch on the outfield at Southgate in the interval between innings of a Middlesex v Gloucestershire Sunday League match, 17 years ago.

Jez did a lot of serious numbers work with Z/Yen – scoring the charity cricket matches was the least of it

Returning to 2022, Jez and I agreed to meet up on this day while Jez was introducing six-year-old Nathaniel to the joys of Lord’s. It was a very enjoyable experience for me to witness a young child’s wide-eyed wonder at all the different viewing points and places we could show him there. Nathaniel had previously visited Radlett and Hove, which are both lovely grounds, but not, until that day, had he seen Lord’s.

Our circuit started in the Warner Stand, took in a photo-opportunity or two in the Grandstand, then we watched from the very top of the Compton Stand (from whence Nathaniel was sure the land below was flat and not a hill, as I kept asserting), then the lower Compton Stand (at which point Nathaniel changed sides and agreed wholeheartedly that the cricket field is indeed a slope) and then, before tea, the Upper Allen Stand.

We met plenty of people on our trek, including Barmy Kev, Russ (who was again wending his way home after tennis) and Fletch, who shared some thoughts on the “bowl first” decision with us.

Just before leaving home, I had found a small Virgin Active gimcrack beanie ball on a shelf, which I thought might come in handy…and it did.

Just before tea, as I started to wonder whether the little fella was ever going to run out of energy, we tried playing catch with him using that beanie ball. He struggled at first but within just a few short minutes he was getting the hang of it and catching far more than he was missing.

Come tea, Nathaniel wanted to see “Grandpa’s Garden”, as I tend to call the Harris Garden. (Well, Grandpa Harris WAS a gentleman of Marylebone, albeit not THE Lord Harris of Marylebone Cricket Club fame). In the garden, Nathaniel devised a game of catching and tag that might, to the untrained eye, seem to have the rule complexity of real tennis combined with the rule-adjustability of Mornington Crescent. The use of a hat to catch the ball would have met with particular disapproval had an MCC stickler for the laws of cricket witnessed the game.

Soon after tea, that energy lull finally occurred, so I said goodbye to the actual young men and reverted to being a “relatively young man” in the pavilion watching the remainder of the day’s play.

In there, somewhere

I had been due to play tennis early evening, but after messing up my right arm the day before on the modern tennis court, I had to gracefully withdraw, so spent a few minutes after stumps watching my would be fellow combatants play, before ambling home feeling very content.

Same Procedure As Last Year? Same Procedure As Every Year: England v New Zealand Test Match, Lord’s, 3 June & 5 June 2022

Chilly Ginger Beer On Day Four

Day Two: Friday 3 June 2022

Pretty much everything I want to say about Day Two of the Platty Joobs Test has latterly been published on the King Cricket website – click here or below.

A right royal stand off – a 2022 England v New Zealand match report

If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, you can read that piece here.

We had a very enjoyable day. It was bright and not all that cold.

Day Four: Sunday 5 June 2022

I had also bought Janie a guest ticket for Day Four – she likes to see the end of a test match and Day Four is often that. We could always pop back on the Monday if need be.

On this occasion, we knew there would be a result that day – the only question was precisely when would that be.

We got to the ground early to secure good seats although not many people turned up on a dank day to see a much shortened day of cricket.

Simon Doule looking a little glum

Jimmy looking surprisingly chirpy at the thought of batting. Always an outside chance

As it turned out, England batted with such purpose the match was completed within 25 overs.

Game Over

Janie thought the action was tremendous value for money…which it was…not least because the ECB deemed it to be a full refund day.

Here’s a link to the scorecard and all the CricInfo resources.

May Days At Lord’s, Not Least With Chas & Madz, May 2022

Middlesex v Nottinghamshire 12 & 13 May

Still high on the unexpected glory of my real tennis tournament win at Queen’s the night before…

Finally…Unprecedented Success At Tennis, The Queen’s Club, 11 May & 27 May 2022

…I met Mary O’Callaghan for lunch on Thursday 12th and then went on to Lord’s for a while in the afternoon…

…just to make sure all the arrangements were in place for my visit with Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett the next day.

I have written up the Charley the Gent day for King Cricket, who has published the piece – see here and below:

Straight Outta the New Upper Compton – a match report

If by any chance anything ever happens to that King Cricket piece, it is also scraped to here.

Everything that needs to be said about that day, and more, is covered in that piece.

Middlesex CCC AGM 17 May

I was there. I played real tennis at Lord’s beforehand and then hung around for a bit ahead of the AGM. It was a meeting with drinks afterwards.

Middlesex v Durham 19 & 20 May

I barely saw any cricket before and after playing tennis on 19th, but I did see a bit.

The plan had been to take Fran & Simon as guests on 20th, but the weather was decidedly iffy, so we delayed that visit until July. Instead, I got stuff done at the flat in the morning and sauntered over to Lord’s to watch a few hours play as the weather cleared in the afternoon.

Before setting off I got a message from Madz, who is now part-timing as a photographer for Durham CCC, wondering whether I planned to be at the game that afternoon.

We agreed to meet beneath Old Father Time, her favourite vantage point for the photos. Also the favourite vantage point for travelling Durham supporters, who were, by the time I got there, making serious headway with their preferred brews. I’m not certain that they were all drinking Newkie Brown, but it felt and sounded like that sort of crowd.

It was good to catch up with Madz.

At one point, the soon-to-be-new-England-wunderkind Matty Potts came on as 12th man for Durham (being rested ahead of the test match) and fielded for a few balls in front of our stand.

I caught this picture on my smart phone as he came our way:

Matty Potts A Few Days Before Stardom

I was pleased with that photo. Madz wondered whether she could have done better with her Nikon and infeasibly long lens.

Did you get one of those, pet?

…asked one of the Durham stalwarts, as a few of them took a passing interest in my snap.

I missed it, unfortunately,

said Madz.

You’re only here for one thing, pet,

said the stalwart, inducing much laughter from the Durham crowd and also from Madz, who clearly knows those fellas well enough and was able to enjoy the joke.

I sent the snap to King Cricket, who agreed that it was the best picture of Matty Potts he’d seen so far and wondered if he might use it, which of course I said he could and he did on 1 June (naturally crediting me…i.e. Ged Ladd) and also 2 June:

Matty Potts: first look in Test cricket

Must be in my blood, this photography lark.

A New Cricket Season At Lord’s, Middlesex v Derbyshire Day Two, 8 April 2022

As I get older, I realise that certain statements that older people make, such as, “the policemen look younger and younger” express how those older people feel, rather than an objective reality about the average age of policemen.

But when I say, “the county championship seems to start earlier and earlier” I believe that is pretty much true…although not by all that much.

The last time I froze this much, Daisy and I went to see the second day of the 2013 season in Nottingham, 11 April that year, reported on King Cricket at that time…

Nottinghamshire v Middlesex at Trent Bridge match report

…and Ogblogged to describe the round trip in the Midlands and North here:

Nottingham, Wormleighton and Yorkshire – a Short Break with Multi-media Relics 10 to 19 April 2013

But I digress.

I had arranged to play tennis at 14:00. I got to Lord’s in time to see most of the first session of play. I decided to sit in the relatively sheltered central part of the pavilion forecourt, where I watched, read and chatted a little with one or two other hardy folk. The stewards reckoned I wouldn’t last long out there but actually it wasn’t too bad in the morning and the new soft padding on the pavilion benches…

…standards are falling…

…made the whole experience less painful than expected.

Young Josh de Caires bowling

After a very close game of tennis, which my adversary won by dint of the odd point here and there, I took my time over my ablutions and then grabbed a soft drink followed by a light bite and coffee – initially in the pavilion bar but subsequently, as the sun was shining, I took my coffee in the new Compton Stand – a vantage point from which I took the headline picture (also replicated above).

But even in the sunshine, it was bitterly cold by that afternoon period, so I decided to return to the pavilion.

By the time I got to the pavilion, Josh de Caires had taken a wicket. This was to be my burden all afternoon; I didn’t actually get to see a single wicket – I was either changing or on the move every time Middlesex took a wicket. One of the friendly pavilion stewards even asked me to keep moving around, as my moves seemed to coincide with Middlesex’s success so comprensively.

Anyway…

…I decided to focus on 19-year-old Josh de Caires’s bowling.

I watched for a while from one of my favourite vantage points, the writing room. If you ever wondered what it looks like from behind the sight screen, wonder no more – the above picture gives you a pretty good impression of it…indeed much like an impressionistic art work.

I had brought plenty of warm clobber with me and I decided to don the lot of it. After all, as Alfred Wainwright famously said:

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”

Thus I braved the middle tier balcony, as evidenced by the following pictures…

…for about three overs, before I decided that jumper, thick jacket, scarf, hat and gloves were insufficient for me as the sun was going down on a seriously chilly April day.

I congratulated the handful of hardy folk who remained on the balcony, admitting to them that I was a wimp. One agreed. One consoled me by letting me know that I was far from the first to have tried and failed to brave the afternoon chill. One pointed out that I hadn’t lowered the ear-flaps on my hat, which might have made all the difference.

I watched the remainder of the day from the impressionistic comfort of the writing room. Naturally Middlesex took a wicket while I was ambling down one flight of stairs from balcony to room.

I had a very good day. I read, I chatted, I played tennis and best of all I watched some live cricket again.

The Day The Cricket Greats Died, Rod Marsh & Shane Warne, 4 March 2022

Shane Warne from Wikimedia – Tourism Victoria from Australia, CC BY 2.0

To lose one cricket great in a day may be regarded as misfortune…

…but this piece is not the place for that kind of joke.

Rod Marsh and Shane Warne were both great Australian cricketers – larger-than-life personalities. I was lucky enough to see both play live – in Shane Warne’s case many times.

Rod Marsh (1947-2022)

Rod Marsh was one of my “love-to-hate” heroes from my school days. Heroes from school days leave their mark in a different, perhaps more indelible way.

Peter Mason’s Guardian obituary is well writ with a super picture.

I only saw Rod Marsh play live once, although, on TV, as a kid, I saw lots of him. Latterly, as I got to see lots of cricket live, Rod Marsh’s was a face I’d quite often see around the grounds (in my case Lord’s and Edgbaston), especially during the Ashes.

Here is my report of the one time I saw Rod Marsh play live. Marsh was one of the Aussie players who walked around the ground to entertain and chat with the crowd on that relentlessly gloomy weather day.

My First Ever Day At A Test Match, With Graham Majin, England v Australia Day 3, Oval, 27 August 1977

I learnt that Rod Marsh had died early morning, before going to the gym and progressing with the rest of my day.

A Day Going Through Old Photos With Jilly, Oblivious To The Extent Of Cricketing Greats Loss

I spent a very pleasant day with Jilly Black, going through her photo archives, doing a bit of scanning and working out how we might scan a plethora of differently sized films etc.

Naturally a hearty lunch and general catch up chat formed the centrepiece of such a day, but below is one of the few dozen pictures we did actually scan.

Roberta & Jilly while at the notorious Kibbutz Afek, 1980

I had spent several days at the start of my summer job in 1980, stressed out of my tiny brain trying to sort out the sh*t-shower I inherited that was the (almost aptronymic) Afek Group.

Sorting Out A Problem Kibbutz, BBYO Hillel House, 21 to 24 July 1980

Jilly and I had such a laugh when we spotted that Jilly had written “Afek 1981” on the photo packet. After stating with certainty that the omnishambles had been in 1980, I suggested two possibilities for the 1981 mention:

  • that Jilly had labelled the pictures many years later and had misremembered the Afek year by one year;
  • despite everything that had gone wrong and all the pains I (and others) had gone through to try to relieve the suffering of the youngsters, that crazy bunch of teenagers had returned to Afek the following year for a further dose of draconian discipline and disease.

I concluded that the most likely answer was the second of the two, not least because Jilly is so good with numbers.

After Jilly left, I looked at the news headlines on my smart phone and learnt that Shane Warne had also died that day.

Shane Warne (1969-2022)

Shane_Warne_2011.jpg: Eva Rinaldiderivative work: Harrias, CC BY-SA 2.0

Matthew Engel’s obituary in The Guardian is especially good and thorough.

I saw Shane Warne play live many times between the late 1990s and the end of his playing career.

Although I saw him representing Australia far more often than I saw him play county cricket, my favourite memory of watching him play is from a county match.

I wrote it up at the time on the Middlesex Till We Die website. I’m sure the current editorial team will forgive me for extracting the most relevant three paragraphs here, but if you want to read the whole piece you can find it on the MTWD site here.

Watching Warne
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Thursday night I had time to come and see the end of play and sat behind Shane Warne's arm for over an hour. Friday morning, knowing the folks weren't due to arrive for another 30-40 minutes, I sat in the Pav and watched him from in front of his arm. It really is a wonderful thing to be able to sit in exactly the spot of your choice watching a player of that quality bowling live. I should add, by the way, that I think Ed Smith and Ed Joyce played Warne extremely well on Thursday and Friday. The man is a legend and was bowling really well. Forget the joke runs that Ed Smith made at the end of the innings - he deserved them really; his first 100 was worth 150 when you consider the quality of bowling he neeeded to see off to get there.


A Couple of Wickets and Joke Bowling
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As soon as I got paged by my mother and went towards the gate to meet the folks, a couple of wickets fell. Joyce and Styris. It was to be that sort of day. I took the parents into the Long Room and sat them down for the famous "Long Room view" of the cricket. The match was moving along pretty slowly. 3 or 4 minutes later, I see Warney coming our way. I explain hurriedly to my folks that this man is a living legend, but neither of them have heard of him! The grumpy gent sitting in the high chair behind us makes an audible disapproving snort noise. Mum asks if it would be appropriate to congratulate Warny, on his return, for the achievements I have just described to her. I suggest that he has probably had enough adulation and will be able to get by without hers.

I then explain to them why I thought he'd come off (agreement) and what was going to happen next (joke bowling), which seemed ridiculously complicated and silly to the parents (understandably). Soon Nic Pothas is bowling. I explain that he is the wicket keeper and doesn't normally bowl. I also explain that he is an eccentric who wears different coloured underpants depending on whether he is batting, keeping or training. I wonder whether he even has a bowling colour of underpants and whether he had the opportunity to change into them. Even Mr Snortnoise seems to approve of this joke.

I wrote up that 2006 day at Lord’s for Ogblog more recently – links to the MTWD piece are included in this link:

Dad’s Last Birthday, A Day At Lord’s, 11 August 2006

It was truly a bittersweet. nostalgia-laden day. A really agreeable catch up with Jilly, sadly tinged and sandwiched by the sad news from the cricketing world. Such is life.