The Heavy Rollers Do The Ashes Test At Edgbaston, 15 to 17 June 2023

Unfortunately Charley The Gent could not join us this year, so we added a late substitute to the group of five – Jonny “Twophones” Hurst, a friend of mine from NewsRevue. As part of his initiation into the Heavy Roller clan, Jonny & I spent some hours together during the Ireland test match a couple of weeks earlier.

The other four of us were me, Daisy, Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks and Harish “Harsha Ghoble” Gohil.

But before all of that, my now traditional stop off in Leamington for some medicinal tennis with the good doctors of that town.

Not just tennis, but a very pleasant lunch, after a very entertaining tennis match that was a close-fought affair. Five of us (four players plus Janie) sat down and the time flew by, such that I started to worry that we’d get no food and/or be late for dinner.

By the time Janie and I had done the picnic shopping, located our lovely digs in Moseley and unpacked, it was more or less time to meet Harish and Nigel for dinner. (Jonny chose to join us at the ground the next morning).

We went to our now traditional (since Nigel and I discovered the place in 2016), excellent Persian restaurant, Colbeh, on the Hagley Road.

Yum.

Friday 16 June 2023 – Day One

Early start for me as there was a picnic to pull together. Then a 25 minute stroll to the ground for me and Daisy. Bit of a queue, but not too bad at 10:15. We guessed that 5 or 10 minutes earlier the next day would be easier yet. We were right.

Daisy enjoyed photographing the pre match hullabaloo and our reaction to it.

Daisy also likes to photograph people behind the Eric Hollies Stand. Those people don’t seem to mind.

Who knew that Lord Farquaad and Princess Fiona were test cricket fans?

The weather was glorious and the cricket was captivating throughout our time at Edgbaston – indeed the whole match was a cracker.

We were all exhausted at the end of Day One, so went back to our respective diggings and regrouped the next morning.

Saturday 17 June 2023 – Day Two

Daisy took some more pictures during the lunch interval of Day Two.

She also persuaded our mystery lunchtime visitor to take a picture of us…

…then Ged took a picture of the mystery visitor with the Nigel, Daisy and Harish. All the while, Jonny Twophones was off on some mystery mission of his own.

Sam, who was said “mystery guest” wrote up his (apparently) terrifying experience on King Cricket, linked here and below:

In the matter of having a picture of all five of us rollers, Harish put matters right, photographically, with the following five-face selfie – very deft:

You can see all the photos on Flickr by clicking here or below.

The whole match really was a cracker, you can read all about it and see the scorecard here.

Of course it was not the same without Chas, but it was still a monumental Heavy Rollers occasion, with great company, good food and amazing cricket, lovely cricket.

The Day I Was Press-ganged Into Becoming A Live Cricket Commentator, Jagdalpur, 6 February 2011

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Strange things can happen when you travel in India but this event, from Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh, in the central plains of India, must qualify as one of the strangest things that has happened to me in my entire life.

I reported this story at length on the King Cricket website, under my nom de plume, Ged Ladd.  Janie and I have nicknamed each other Ged and Daisy for as long as anyone can remember.  Click here or below for the story and further links.

Interstate competition, Bhawaripatnam v Konta at Jagdalpur – match report

If by any chance something goes awry with King Cricket site, the piece is scraped to Ogblog here.

Frankly, some of the comments are better than my report – it is worth reading for them. King Cricket can be like that.

Below are the two newspaper articles that appeared at the time. First up, the front page of New India:

Front page news in New India

Ameya from the King Cricket site has kindly translated the substance of the above article as follows:

The New India headline says ‘Bastar weather is great for cricket’. The article mentions you saying that Bastar has conducive weather for cricket. I’m assuming you were simply commenting on the weather that day.

Article goes on to say that you and Jenny (they get your names right for the most part, except you are Iaan) are foreign tourists, that you are cricket fans, that you encouraged players, and that you did commentary on the game ‘in English’.

Next up, the back page of the Bastar Sun, which got a great many of the material facts about the event wrong. I recall us having quite a laugh with Jolly about that article at the time. I shouted out to the King Cricket community, “perhaps someone now would care to translate it for us in full”…

Back page news in The Bastar Sun

…and Ameya kindly obliged with the following:

The Bastar Sun is where things get more interesting. The bold black font headline says ‘London’s John Harik does commentary’. The smaller red blurb says ‘Foreign player does commentary’.

You are John Harik and your ‘associate’ is Revis Harik. No mention of marriage or professional commentary anywhere. [apologies – that was my inaccurate recollection]

The article says you (cricket lover from London) and your associate were enjoying the match when the organisers spotted you and requested you to do commentary. You proceeded to ‘enjoy the responsibility’ for about an hour, and also chatted with and encouraged some senior players.

As for the match itself, Konta Chhattisgarh won the toss and chose to bat. After making 172/8 in their 25 overs, their seam bowlers were taken to the cleaners by Bhavanipatanam Orissa’s openers. While the spinners did apply some brakes, the match was over within 22.2 overs. Rinku top scored with 77(71). The writer was puzzled as to why Konta chose to bat first, to which one of their officials said that they didn’t want the pressure of a chase and wanted to set a high score.

Many thanks to Ameya for the translations.

If you want to see the pictures from our several days in the Bastar region of Chhattiisgarh, including the events described in this story, click here. 

Tibet v England Impromptu Cricket Match in Yunnan Province, April 2010

In the high hills of Yunnan Province, in South-West China, on the lower reaches of the Tibetan plateau, you don’t expect much in the way of cricket experience, least of all playing the game, but when you travel, stuff happens.

I reported this extraordinary event on the King Cricket website, where I write occasional pieces under my nom de plume, Ged Ladd.   Janie and I have called each other Ged and Daisy since the mid 1990s.

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Click here to read the report.

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Tibet v England match report

Among my King Cricket pieces, this one comes second only to my impromptu live commentary experience in India, which can be found through this link.

But I digress.

If you would like to see photos from the few days we spent up in the high hills of Yunnan Province, including photos of this event, then click here.

England v Australia, 2nd Test, Lord’s, Day Five, 20 July 2009

For several years now I have written occasional pieces about cricket for the King Cricket website, under my nom de plume, Ged Ladd.   Janie and I have called each other Ged and Daisy since the mid 1990s.

The King Cricket website has very strict rules about match reports: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”

This particular day was a rather important one; this was the day that England defeated Australia at Lord’s for the first time for 75 years, but none of that is apparent in my King Cricket Match Report, click here.

England v Australia, day five at Lord’s, match report

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

England v Australia, day five at Lord’s, match report

For those of you who might actually want to know what happened in the match, for the Cricinfo scorecard and link to professional reports, click here.