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.
But I do remember the events of the 24 hours or so in question.
In those days, Vic Demain, now the head groundsman at Durham CCC, was the groundsman at Uxbridge. He would organise a charity party night during the county championship match to raise money for a good cause – breast cancer mostly.
This particular year, I was unable to attend the cricket on the day of the party, as it clashed with business meetings of such import I can barely bring myself to read the appointments for them in my diary without trembling.
So, I decided to hot-foot it to Uxbridge after my last meeting (in Kings Cross) and arranged for Daisy kindly to collect my weekend gear from the flat and take it to the house.
That way, I could commute to Uxbridge to the party, cab it to Daisy’s after the party, commute to Uxbridge the next day (Day Three, the Friday) and have Daisy join me for the conclusion of play and a lift home.
Simples.
I recall the charity party was a good one that year. I think I might have ended up with some Middlesex memorabilia and a lighter wallet, but that’s the idea of such things I suppose.
I also remember having terrible trouble meeting up with my minicab driver, as the gate I thought would work for my collection was locked and we struggled to work out how I might get out without walking for 10-15 minutes around the ground and adjacent fields. I think we ended up with me jumping the gate, in the style of the escape Daisy and I had made from Laos some years earlier:
While thinking through what to do with my old MTWD match reports on Ogblog, I stumbled across this one – I think one of the last (or should I say most recent) reports for MTWD. I thought I’d retroblog it right now.
One of my favourite King Cricket “match reports” this – it is the story of a freezing cold day at Lord’s in mid June with Daisy (Janie) watching Middlesex play a match to help warm up the Australians.
Following the phenomenal success of my MTWD T20 Glossary in 2008, which almost without question ensured, single handed, that Middlesex won the competition…
…it seemed sensible to update the glossary a couple of years later.
I recall cunningly arranging a slightly later than usual meet time with Ashley so I could see the denouement of the World T20 Semi-Final between Sri Lanka and England.
I recall a very convivial evening with Ashley after the match. The restaurant seemed quite good, but I seem to remember that Ashley had a fist full of vouchers, which enabled us to try the place at modest prices. We concluded that the meal had been good value for us, but that the place would not pass the Manchester “value/how much?” test once at menu prices.
Ashley might recall more about that evening; if he does, no doubt he’ll chime in Ogblog-like.
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.
This was another of those days when I hoped to see some cricket at Uxbridge but the weather was set foul. My track record over the years on days when I want to go to Middlesex out grounds can only be described as terrible…almost as terrible as Middlesex’s 2009 season.
Middlesex were having a shocking season that year, so it was hard to get reporters. Hence Hippity volunteered to go to Uxbridge and then write this one up…at least that’s what the editor was told.
Hippity’s regular (dry) vantage point
Hippity’s writing career mercifully tailed off after the 2009 season, with just the occasional piece for MTWD or King Cricket subsequently.
For the record, rabbit-friendly “Uncail Victor at Uxbridge” is Vic Demain, who has gone on to grander things – at the time of writing he is groundsman at Chester-Le-Street. Not so rabbit-friendly “Uncail Micheál at Lord’s” is Mick Hunt.
I vaguely remember Tim Groenewald being taken poorly towards the end of this match and there being a resulting health scare (unfounded as it turned out) about both squads. The details are lost in the mists of my memory, although linger somewhere on the message boards. I do remember him being a bit of a thorn in Middlesex’s side on subsequent meetings over the years though.
As for the scurrilous suggestion that Middlesex might end that rotten season coming bottom of the second division, that was an outrage. Middlesex in fact came second from bottom, a full two points clear of the county championship wooden spoon – click here to see the table. Middlesex are yet to “win” that particular wooden spoon ever, I believe.
