Category: Writing (my writing)

Anyone For Real Tennis?, England v New Zealand Lord’s Test Day 4, King Cricket Match Report, 24 May 2015

Janie and I (or should I say Ged and Daisy) went to the Sunday of the Lord’s test against New Zealand in 2015.

My King Cricket match report linked here and below, describing our day, was published on King Cricket in October 2015.

Anyone For Real Tennis? – England v New Zealand match report

I-Cant-Get-My-Head-Round-These-Rules

Just in case anything ever happens to the King Cricket site, the above piece has been scraped to here. 

This piece is, in a way, the second part of a trilogy.  It is linked to a couple of other pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:

The irony that I myself have subsequently taken up real tennis with gusto 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. We were there the day Stokes scored a scintillating, fastest ever test hundred at Lord’s. Stokes had only just started at tea, when we ran into Mr Johnny Friendly. Of course the King Cricket report is silent on such details.

Cocktails For Two, England v New Zealand Lord’s Test Day 2, King Cricket Match Report, 22 May 2015

King Cricket published the match report for this day in September 2015 – click here to read it.

Not much to add or explain.  I started a running gag about Charley “The Gent” Malloy’s bottle of wine in this earlier piece.  But apart from that, nothing fancy or obscure.

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. New Zealand were making hay that day and it looked like one of those Lord’s tests that could only end up a draw unless England messed-up the third innings – how wrong we were. Of course the King Cricket report is silent on such details.

The Rump Ire Strikes Back, King Cricket Match report, Middlesex v Durham Day 3 at Lord’s, 4 May 2015

This King Cricket report was published in August 2015 – you can read it here.

It is a pretty self-explanatory piece about a bank holiday weekend visit to Lord’s by me and Janie – or should I say Ged and Daisy?

If anything ever goes awry with that King Cricket link, I have scraped the piece to here.

Of course, 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.”

As this was a quite extraordinary afternoon of cricket, you might like to look at the scorecard here. The match had ambled to lunch on the third day with only 14-15 wickets down and seemed to be heading the way of a bore draw. Then the weather turned from sunny spring sunshine to wintry gloom, the threat of rain and an early close, but not before another 14-15 wickets fell in not much more than a couple of hours. That’s cricket for you. Middlesex came out the right side of this one the next morning.

Addendum (written 8 December 2016)

I had the pleasure to witness, on the TV this morning, Keaton Jennings score a test match hundred on debut for England. A rare and happy event. That made me wonder whether I had yet seen Keaton Jennings bat live, so my thoughts turned to the day reported in this posting.

Daisy and I arrived at Lord’s soon after play resumed in the afternoon, after the lunch interval. I had the internet radio on. While Daisy was parking up on the St John’s Wood Road, just outside the ground, we heard a cheer, then a few seconds later heard the commentary describe Keaton Jennings first innings dismissal for 98.

After tea, before the rain came, we got to see all of Keaton Jennings’s second innings, including his dismissal for a sixth ball blob. Very unusual for an opening batsman to be dismissed twice in one afternoon.

Exam question for students of linguistic philosophy and amateur lovers of semantics: could/should Daisy and I claim to have witnessed both dismissals in those circumstances?

With a bit of luck, I/we will get to see Keaton Jennings score runs live soon enough.

First of the Summer Whine, King Cricket Match report, Middlesex v Nottinghamshire Day 2, 13 April 2015

King Cricket published this piece in July 2015 – click here or below to read it:

First of the summer whine – Middlesex v Nottinghamshire match report

If anything by chance ever happens o the King Crciekt site, that piece is scraped to here.

It is a pretty self-explanatory piece and gives no clues towards the mayhem that would later break out in my 2015 match reports, with my possessions increasingly taking over the report writing role. Frankly, the idea had not yet occurred to me.

The only idea for a runner that crops up in this report was Charley “the Gent” Malloy’s forgetfulness regarding the bottle of wine. I guessed that the “offending and delicious sounding bottle would somehow never quite find its way to be downed in part by me. I could be wrong, but in April 2016 let’s just say that I’m still waiting.

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 want to know what actually happened in the match and on the day we visited, then click here and scrutinise the scorecard. It wasn’t one of Middlesex’s more glorious days.

Middlesex v Nottinghamshire Match Preview, King Cricket Piece, 10 April 2015

This King Cricket piece was published in June 2015 – click here to read the piece.

Titfer and Provisions
Titfer and Provisions

The piece pretty much speaks for itself. It was a heartfelt, if slightly tongue in cheek, tribute to Richie Benaud, who died on the day I was preparing to go to the cricket with Charley “the Gent” Malloy for the first time in 2015.

In all seriousness, I asked Janie if she thought it was in bad taste. She used to treat Daphne Benaud and had met Richie several times. Janie thought that the piece would have appealed to Richie’s sense of humour. But she didn’t think that Richie would attempt to use self-service checkout machines in supermarkets.

 

England v Sri Lanka Day 3 Lord’s Test Match, King Cricket Match Report, 14 June 2014

Janie and I (or should I say Ged and Daisy) went to the Saturday of the Lord’s test against Sri Lanka in 2014.

My King Cricket match report linked here, describing our day, was published on King Cricket in October 2014.

This piece is, in a way, the first part of a trilogy.  It is linked to a couple of other pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:

This piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy because I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece. 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 when we ran into Mr Johnny Friendly again.

The irony that I myself have subsequently taken up real tennis with gusto 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.

It was not the most exciting day’s cricket we’ve ever seen. Daisy said the match was destined for a draw and of course she was right. Except that a nail-biter of a nine-down squeaky-bum draw is not the sort of draw Daisy probably had in mind. Of course the King Cricket report is silent on such details.

Two Wheels On My Roller, But I Keep Rolling Along…England v India Days One and Two, Edgbaston, 10 & 11 August 2011

king-cricket-logo copy
Pretty much everything I want to say about this event, has been said at King Cricket, click the link below.

I think it is fair to say that matters did not go according to plan in 2011, especially as far as Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett was concerned, for reasons explained in sufficient gory detail in the King Cricket piece I wrote about our 2011 visit to the Edgbaston test – click here or below:

England v India, Edgbaston Test match report

If anything ever happens to the King Cricket website, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog and you can click and read all about it here instead…

…except, of course, you can’t read ALL about it at King Cricket, because of that site’s reporting rules…

…so here is the scorecard if you want to know how the match turned out.

Also there was the backdrop of the riots that summer, which were unfolding as we arrived and during our stay, although leafy Harborne seemed unaware of or at least untouched by them.

Naturally Nigel and I made the most of it without Chas. It would be cruel to harp on about the extent to which we were nevertheless able to enjoy ourselves despite Chas’s indisposition. In any case, I doubtless harped sufficiently when I saw Charles again a bit later that season.

It must have been especially galling for Chas as I seem to recall he had gone to a great deal of trouble that year to secure our “honorary” front row seats, book nets, book rooms, book an Indian feast…oy!

I believe that I drove up that year having booked the extra night after the second day’s play. That might have been Nobby’s only visit to Harborne Hall.

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Nobby never really acquired a taste for cricket…unlike Dumbo subsequently...but I digress.

 

Middlesex v Surrey At Lord’s Twenty20 Match, King Cricket Report, 7 July 2011

At some point in the future I might…just might…be able to provide a multi-faceted piece on this particular evening at Lord’s.

At the time of writing (January 2018), only my King Cricket piece, published October 2011, survives to tell the tale.

Yet tell the tale it does, I think – certainly from my perspective. Internationalism, scandal and some improbable, impromptu games…not bad.

Middlesex v Surrey Twenty20 match report

Just in case anything ever happens to the King Cricket site, I have also scraped that report to here.

For those who have the stomach to look (i.e. most often neutrals and Surrey fans for these occasions), actually it looks as thought his was a pretty good match, despite the fact that I must have missed quite a fair chunk of it – click here for the scorecard and reports.

One extra bit of evidence on who, from “Ged Ladd & Co”, attended that time, in addition to “The Tiberellis”, comes from Jez’s e-mail to me a few week’s before the match:

Mark

Monique

Steph

Ben

Rich

David

 

Simon Strez would also like to come as it’s his last chance to see a cricket game in England before returning home to New Zealand. I also have 3 friends that will be coming to the game.

Garden Cricket At the Frangipani Tree, Near Galle, Sri Lanka, As Reported On King Cricket, Plus My Journal For That Whole Day, 19 February 2011

This report for King Cricket relates to a small part of our India & Sri Lanka trip, for which the Ogblog placeholder and links can be found by clicking here or below:

India and Sri Lanka, 29 January to 26 February 2011, placeholder and links

Here is a link to the King Cricket piece, which relates to one of several games of garden cricket on that holiday – this one at the Frangipani Tree, near Galle, on 19 February:

Match report of garden cricket at the Frangipani Tree near Galle

 

King Cricket published the piece on 19 July 2011. Just in case the above link goes duff, I have also scraped the report to here.

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

Lord’s isn’t the only place where cricket and tennis intertwine

Here is my contemporaneous journal record for the whole day:

Very heavy overnight rain – some of Daisy’s things get wet – no point in even considering tennis this morning at seven – Daisy does hair drying instead.

We invent our own exercise regime.

Breakfast, reading (Kalooki Nights), lunch of grilled calamari, chips and bread! With beer.

World Cup [cricket] 2011 starts but we play our own garden version.

Five aside, Wojciech refuses to play but tennis ball cricket enables Daisy to have a go.

We make a respectable 89 for three of eight (I scored 15 in an open stand of 40 odd). We meet “Major General” Richard and his sporty son Chris (my opening partner) and daughter Millie and who knows we might meet the wife (Rosie?).

Our side loses as big fella Sanjay takes advantage of asymmetric field which helps left-hander with big hitting ability.

Even Daisy scores a run off my bowling.

More reading afterwards, followed by dinner of lamb tajine followed by chocolate ice cream washed down with a Spanish Crianza

Tough day.

Our album of Galle photos, all 31 of them, can be seen through the flickr album below:

001 14 Feb 2011 Cricket On The Western Ramparts Of Galle Fort P1010867

Our other Sri Lanka photos- 79 excluded from the album – can be found through the link below:

P1010866

South Africa v Zimbabwe World Cup Warm Up Match, Chennai Stadium, As Reported On King Cricket, 12 February 2011

This report for King Cricket relates to a small part of our India & Sri Lanka trip, which I shall write up more comprehensively eventually, for which the Ogblog placeholder and links can be found by clicking here or below:

India and Sri Lanka, 29 January to 26 February 2011, placeholder and links

Here is a link to the King Cricket piece, which relates to just one of the many places we visited in Chennai on 12 February:

South Africa v Zimbabwe World Cup warm-up match report

King Cricket published the piece on 18 April 2011. Just in case the above link goes duff, I have also scraped the report to here.

No photo

No photo of tickets either

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