LGCC v MCC 25th July 2010

Sunday was the big day as far as the Littlewick Green Cricket Club Bicentenary celebrations went, a match against the MCC. The standard of players the MCC use is a good deal higher than anything we're used to playing, especially in the 2nd XI, and it was a pleasure to see their batsmen show how a cricket ball should be hit! They scored 278-6 before declaring, although everyone's performance dropped a little after a heavy 2-course lunch including wine! If only it was like that every weekend... We scored 197-8 in reply, so we didn't lose, although clearly the MCC did take their foot off the pedal a little, but their "part-time" bowlers were still better than anyone I'll face at 2nd XI village level. I did hit 14 runs, including 3 fours, all of which were proper shots, so I'm happy with that, and Olga managed to get a couple of action photos, although the one I've published is of a more defensive variety. You can almost read the maker's name on the bat!

At last.... (updated)

If you look really closely, you'll see that that photo is actually of Andrew Flintoff, and not me, but it might have well have been me! I'd not reported on Littlewick Green 2nd XI's first two games of the season, seeing as they were defeats, but yesterday we enjoyed our first win. We were short of bowlers, and even I had to bowl 9 overs, something I've not done before, not in one spell at least. I concentrated enough to get three wickets, it could have been five had a simple catch been taken and an umpire hadn't heard the mythical sound of leather on willow a microsecond before the really obvious sound of leather on plastic-covering-of-batsman's-pad. Anyway, the opposition declared on 276-4 after 50 overs, and we reached 278-7 in the 44th over of our reply. The opposition helped us as much as possible by conceding a massive 67 extras, beating our top-scorer who made 53, but hey, I'm not complaining, 30 points is 30 points and although we're still bottom of the division, there's now only 5 points between us and the team in the middle of the division.

Update: I've finally got round to writing a Match Report.

Cricket updates

I nearly saw the England team this weekend....
Well, I had an outside chance of going to Dhaka for 24 hours to deliver this bid that we've been working on last week, but the 2nd-in-command got that job, and just as well, as the England team moved to Chittagong on Wednesday, and won't be back in Dhaka for a week or so yet. Our MD had more luck last weekend, he was staying there for a couple of nights while the England team were there. The players weren't allowed in the hotel bar, not even for soft drinks, and in fact our boss was asked by Graeme Swann to get him a bottle of fizzy water. When asked for an autograph in return (for me, I'd asked if the boss could get something signed for LGCC to auction later this year), he was told that the players "aren't allowed to sign anything". The boss did catch Swanny out on another occasion, literally, when the team were playing cricket by the pool with a wet sponge ball and a tray for a bat. Sideshow Bob (Ryan Sidebottom) was told off by the cricket authorities for wearing shorts in the hotel's reception area, and Pietersen was grumbling because the hotel gym wasn't up to his standards. I don't know what he was grumbling about, I thought it was great, from what I saw of it (through the gym windows, from my chair by the pool bar, during happy hour).

On the home front, I attended my first Littlewick Green Cricket Club Committee Meeting on Tuesday night in my new capacity as Captain of the Second Eleven. The opportunity arose a few weeks ago when I was quietly approached by a member of the second XI, and after discussing it with Olga, I accepted. It would involve me playing more often than I did last summer, and I didn't want to feel like I was "abandoning" Olga to look after Lara for almost all of every Saturday during the summer, but with Luda coming over to help, that takes the pressure Olga, and hence me, a lot. It's also LGCC's 200th anniversary year this year, and seems like it would be a good year to be more involved in the Club. Plus it's about time I tested myself as a captain as well as a slogger, we'll see how my decisions pan out.

Littlewick Green - famous at last...

.. but perhaps they wish they weren't, when you read this article from the Ashes pullout of Monday's Times newspaper.

Littlewick's fielding was described as "excorable", which I had to look up in a dictionary, but this has since been strongly refuted by the 2nd XI vice captain, who reckons the reporter wasn't watching the right game, and that the Green only dropped one catch... Imagine, not being able to trust the reports of a national newspaper reporter!!

Cold, wet, dark? Must be the cricket season

I have my hobby too - it's not February yet, it's still cold and wet outside, so naturally it's time to dig out my cricket bag from the garage - winter nets start tonight; I like going to the first one, anyone who turns up is stiff and rusty, so any lack of technique is immediately forgiven... I'll not guarantee I'll go to any more, but we'll see.

Cricket update - LGCC

I missed the first league game of the season by being on a Stag Do, but it seems I was surplus to requirements as Littlewick won away from home against Wargrave First XI. Like in county cricket, we get different points depending on the runs we score, the wickets we take, the result of the game and the decision made by the team who won the toss as to whether to bat or bowl. It's complicated, but the bottom line is the maximum points a team can achieve is 30, and Littlewick got 30 in their first match. In recent seasons there haven't been many 30-point wins, I can tell you. So you can imagine the surprise when we won other game on Saturday, achieving 30 points again!
We bowled White Waltham out for 124 in 38 overs - this relatively low score due in no small part to the opposition being without their opening batsman who scored something like 203 on his own against us in their home game last season. I did contribute by catching their new opening batsman out, and I'd love to say it was a diving one-hander down the leg side, but it was about as straight-forward as wicketkeeper's catches get. I was pleased it stuck though as this was the first time I'd put gloves on since the end of last season and I'd arrived late at the Green and had no time for a warm up.
In fairly typical Littlewick style, we struggled to 127-6, although we did have a strong batting line up, so our Captain and best batsman decided to give other people a chance and he batted at 8 rather than 4, which no doubt annoyed White Waltham when he came out to bat with only 13 needed to win. Batting at number six, I managed three runs before being bowled by as good a ball as I can remember getting in all my cricketing years, and I'm not just saying that! Their wicketkeeper called it a "jaffa" at the time, and my batting partner at the other end, who used to be our opening fast bowler, told me later that "it was a damn good ball". For those who care, it pitched on leg stump (the 'keeper told me he was heading down the legside to take it), I played to defend it on that line, it moved off the seam and hit the very top of the off-stump, and this is from a lively medium pacer, not a spinner.
I'm missing this coming Saturday's game at Little Marlow to be at Ollie & Jo's wedding in Devon, so fingers crossed for the weather.

England cricket? Pah

A few days ago I made a mental note to blog something about the England cricket team, but they don't deserve it. They can have a post to themselves (apart from this one) when they do something right. OK, I admit it, their catching was good in the First Test, apparently, but something had to be.
The next Test starts on Thursday, I'll not be staying up late to listen to it!

Colin Croft

I recognise the name Colin Croft more from his commentaty stints on TMS on the radio rather than from his playing days (here's a photo from Spring 1981, l-r Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft & Joel Garner). I met him on Wednesday night, as he's coaching at our pre-season cricket nets! Littlewick have joined forces with one of our rival clubs to share the cost of running nets, as both clubs had trouble getting enough people to attend in their own right. I don't know how they did it, but they arranged for Colin Croft to come and coach us! Littlewick still only contributed 6 players, and White Waltham brought 17. There were people of all ages and shapes, and I don't think any of us were expecting to be jumping around and running up and down a sports hall bouncing basketballs, but that's what he had us doing for the first 20 minutes as a warm up. We were then split into two groups, and his assistant took one group for fielding drills, and the other group went with him to do bowling and batting in the nets. By the time I got round to batting he switched roles to take the fielding drills, so he couldn't stand back and admire the cover drives, pulls and straight drives I executed with the kind of mistiming you can only achieve when you try batting for the first time in 4 months. Actually, one or two did come out of the middle of the bat, and my judgement for leaving deliveries was good too, so I'm thinking I might fill the new gap for an opening bat for the second XI this summer. Seeing as we've got a West Indian fast bowler as a coach, I might try and get over my bowling yips and give that another go too!

Frazzled & sore paws

It seems the weather on Saturday was better than I thought, by the time we got home I was burnt to a crisp - you can never find the After Sun Cream when you need it.
The other news is poor Mishka's got sore feet; we noticed he was licking one of his paws on Friday evening, but we thought he might just have scratched it, he wasn't limping or complaining when we touched it. By Saturday evening the little fella had has paw pretty much permanently stuffed in his gob, I'm sure the 5 miles he must have walked that day didn't help!
Anyway, Olga got him an appointment this lunchtime at the vet's, and he's had two injections to bring the swelling down and hopefully kill the infection he got, it's likely he was bitten by a tick or some other nasty little thing. It's his birthday on Thursday, hopefully he'll be OK to celebrate with a beer as he'll just have finished his antibiotics by then!
I managed to finish the cricket season yesterday by biffing 58 for our friend Sahan's "Sloggers" team, which feels better than finishing it on a 2-ball duck last week. The kit will now be washed and hidden away until the morning of the first match of next season!

A Relaxing Bank Holiday? No Chance

So the Bank Holiday weekend is almost over, at least the weather was good for once. Littlewick Firsts thumped Little Marlow Firsts at the Green, by 8 wickets. 6 unbeaten on the run now, and we're off the bottom of the league! POW Rangers continue their low-key warm up to the new season, with our 3rd defeat in a row, but this was a close-run 4-3 loss to the Cross Keys pub. At home Olga and I have made progress in the kitchen, the old one is bare now, and pretty much ready to be removed. The new one is taking shape, well, some of the cabinets are, except they're in the dining room at the moment. It's an improvement to them being in boxes on the driveway.
Cath, Nick and Lizzie popped round on Sunday evening after a flight to the Isle of Wight; both Olga and I practised our baby-holding technique, and Lizzie wasn't sick on either of us, so we must be doing something right.
So this week is going to be "interesting". We're not sure what to do with Mishka while Kevan the Builder is working next week, at least one day we might have to take him to the office. It'll also be take-away week for tea, we'll see if we can do the Quadruple of English, Indian, Chinese and Pizza during the next four days....