Good drama often subtly uses a device known as foreshadowing. Something happens early in the piece, so when the dramatic climax or denouement comes, the audience isn’t completely taken by surprise by the twist.
Bad drama does this unsubtly, perhaps showing that one of the characters has an unsecured gun, or getting two characters to tell a convoluted back story for seemingly no reason other than foreshadowing.
Anyway, with the benefit of hindsight, the climax of the 2015 season (if that is the right way to describe it) beautifully and subtly foreshadowed the extraordinary climax to the 2016 season – reported here.
In many ways, the climax was all on Day One. Personally, because that was to be my last cricket of the year, accompanied that day by Charles (Charley “The Gent” Malloy) Bartlett. But also because Yorkshire clinched the title that day, by virtue of something that happened on some other cricket ground at some point during the afternoon. It was all a bit confusing for us spectators, who weren’t officially told by the announcer until tea, although many were listening to internet radio accounts from elsewhere, so word soon spread.
To some extent Charles’s presence was foreshadowing of day one of the same fixture in 2016. In some ways, the first over of Middlesex’s innings – three wickets and no runs – foreshadowed the Nottinghamshire match in 2016 – click here – which Middlesex also (despite the three wickets for zip setback) went on to win.
I wrote up this day for King Cricket as long ago as April 2016, but at the time of writing this piece (November 2016) the piece is as yet unpublished. I’ll add an update and a link here once he publishes.
At the Meet the Players party in the evening, which was splendid, I suggested that the Middlesex folk should encourage the Yorkshire celebrations. I don’t think my advice was heeded, but I also don’t think the Yorkshire players needed encouragement. Despite Middlesex being on the ropes at the end of Day One, we somehow snatched victory from the very jaws of defeat in this match.
Foreshadowing again.
Here is a link to the Cricinfo scorecard for this 2015 match.
And here is a link again to the equivalent fixture the following year. Just in case you don’t know, the match result was the same, but the County Championship result was splendiforously different in 2016.
