Janie and I (or should I say Ged and Daisy) went to the Saturday of the Lord’s Ashes test in 2015.
My King Cricket match report linked here, describing our day, was published on King Cricket nine months after the event. That fact is in no way a criticism of King Cricket. My “deal” with him is that I write these quirky pieces when and if I darn well feel like it; he publishes them when and if he darn well feels like it.
This was the first of mine published on King Cricket for some time, as I am reliably informed that some big piece of cricket news has reliably turned up in the past few months whenever King Cricket has been about to reach for my pile of unpublished articles. As it turned out, a few minutes after King Cricket published this piece on 18 April 2016, a big story indeed broke. Rob Key (one of King Cricket’s favourite players) retired. Having just published mine, that at least enabled King Cricket (aka Alex Bowden) to concentrate on writing a wonderful tribute to Rob Key, published on Cricinfo – click link here.
But back to my report on Day 3 of the Ashes test at Lord’s – click here if you didn’t click to see the report above. This piece is, in a way, the third part of a trilogy. It builds on a couple of earlier pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:
- the one linked here – Anyone For Real Tennis describes the Sunday of the New Zealand Test (24 May 2015) is the direct prequel to the Day 3 Ashes report;
- England v Sri Lanka Day 3 (14 June 2014) – linked here describes a similar encounter with Mr Johnny Friendly the previous year. I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece and King Cricket missed the error when he subbed; both of us metaphorically ate our own livers for the error in private, but I decided to milk the pun. Thus this piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy.
The irony that I myself have now enthusiastically taken up real tennis in the months between writing this piece and it being published is not wasted on me.
To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:
- Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
- King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “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.”
If you do want to know about the cricket itself, you might want to have a look at the on-line scorecard – here. But if you are an England supporter you probably don’t want to look.