Club life

My old club in West Yorkshire is having a crisis, although something always seems to be going wrong. If it isn’t someone leaving the gate open so the horse can run through the village, it is trucks dumping soil while ruining the neighbouring football pitch, or rabbits eating the grass on the wicket. It’s always fun to get updates.

On Saturday only nine guys turned up for the first team, they did well to hold the opposition to about 160 and were all out for 40. My host top scored and the tale of the game was told in two of the village’s three local pubs. It was a gloomy night until I brightened things up by telling them about my day, and how Australia were five wickets from levelling the Ashes after only two days at Headingely. That helped them brighten up after their losing streak extended to seven.

The club has changed a lot since I played a handful of games over two seasons back in 2002 and 2003. When I popped in for a visit last week I thought I was in the wrong place. The ground was flat and there were covers and a scoreboard. When I was here last the fielder at deep midwicket was unable to see the stumps due to the slope. If a catch went that way everyone else would start yelling to let the person know the ball was coming. It was a pretty safe shot.

At other times in the year the game has to be stopped for 10 minutes because the sun is in the batsman’s eyes - it’s one of the few east to west pitches. They were good times. Next year the club is getting even more on-field improvements. Now all they need to do is stop losing.