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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
Our other Sri Lanka photos- 79 excluded from the album – can be found through the link below:
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.
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.
At the Bastar Jungle Resort, in Chhattisgarh, central plains of India, we had great fun playing garden cricket after our touring on a couple of evenings; especially 5 February.
Another day of county championship cricket at Lord’s that needs a bit of explaining.
Michael Mainelli and I had formed a bit of a tradition that, each year, we’d spend a few hours at Lord’s watching first class cricket and chatting strategically/laterally/crazily about our business, Z/Yen.
In earlier years, before such sessions took place at Lord’s, we called them “Stiermerde sessions”, not that bullshit came into it…of course it didn’t. Once such sessions were at Lord’s, we called them “Stumpfmerde sessions” instead.
Michael must have enjoyed it because his e-mail that evening included:
Great Stumpfmerde and thank you…
My response included:
Indeed I have cleared my e-mails and shall down tools. But I couldn’t do so before scribbling and uploading today’s match report.
Very enjoyable day. And productive Stumpfmerdwise and bookwise too.
Oh, and you really did miss lots of excitement by leaving early – 6 wickets in the last hour, five of them to the youngster Toby Roland-Jones who is the product of your charming neighbour’s brother at the Middlesex Academy. What a happy coincidence!
I must say that it had completely escaped my memory that I witnessed that exceptional breakthrough performance by Toby Roland-Jones on a Stumpfmerde day – in my mind I would have completely separated the two events.
