Ged writes:
Ged Ladd & Co Ltd quietly works wonders for world cricket. People from all manner of countries where cricket is barely played (e.g. Bulgaria, Switzerland, Nigeria, Russia, Belgium, USA, Italy, China, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa) have been introduced to cricket through our company scratch matches and T20 visits. Indeed, the annual works outing to a Lord’s T20 game or two has now become a bit of a tradition.
This year my American business partner, Timothy Tiberelli, decided to bring his lovely wife Elspeth and their delightful young daughters, Heavens-To-Mukti-Yoshke-Leopardess-Pansy (age 13) and Chakra-Howdy-Doody-Tigress-Rosebud (age 10) to the T20.
Timothy bumped into the recently estranged wife of an eminent good friend of his. The wronged woman took the trouble to describe at length a quarter century of scandalous and scurrilous hurt. I can’t imagine why News of the World journalists ever bothered to hack phones and bug rooms when they could simply have turned up at Lord’s for T20 matches and opened their ears for a while.
The Tiberelli girls were not finding any of this conversation very interesting, so they went off to play with their diabolos.
When they returned, I (foolishly) said to Timothy: “Oh, I thought the girls were going to demonstrate their diabolo skills to me later,” at which point he packed me and the kids back off to the Coronation Garden for an exhibition and a chance to shine. The girls were very good diabolists, especially Rosebud.
They let me have a go. I was not very good.
Some other youngsters were bowling at the batsman statue with very limited success, so I asked them if I could have a go or three – I hoped to redeem some pride. I bowled at the statue with even more limited success than the youngsters, at which point I graciously bowed out of the garden games.
I suspect that Pansy would have bowled better – she had managed to keep my batting in check during the previous week’s scratch game using the fiendish tactic of bowling from a low trajectory and straight at the stumps.
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October 4, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Batsman statue eh?
There’s been no references to Rob Key on here for ages & then two come along at once. 😉
October 4, 2011 at 2:36 pm
How many did the batsman statue score off you? A couple of delicate nudges down to third man, hardly any backlift? Or did it cart you back over your head for a straight six? I think we need to know.
That missing piece of information aside, lovely reporting. Very much the sort of thing that the bastard love-child of Neville Cardus and John Arlott would have produced. I’ll say no more.
October 4, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Ged’s parentage has helped clear a few things. For example, why in some of his pictures taken at cricket grounds his eyes are always closed. Clearly, he’s much too busy forming sentences in his mind about the action in the middle to pay any attention to the action itself – a disposition he shares with George Bush.
October 4, 2011 at 6:10 pm
I heard that Pansy’s bowling action is to be investigated by the ICC.
October 5, 2011 at 6:14 am
Sometimes we have to take responsibility for our own deficiencies, Howe-zat.
I personally have taken this one on the chin.
Not literally, you’ll understand. Although, come to think of it, possibly so, if I were to be taking it lying down as well…