Weather forecast not looking good tomorrow and Saturday. Will be four abandoned in a row to start the season for us if that forecast holds.
Weather forecast not looking good tomorrow and Saturday. Will be four abandoned in a row to start the season for us if that forecast holds.
The league starts on Saturday for us (looks showery too). My club has been promoted into Surrey div 1 which is where it really stops being club cricket and starts being semi-pro. The only issue is we have a budget of £0 so staying up would be a miracle. We've managed to bring in 4 players, nonetheless. One is a 'character' who has fallen out with the local Prem sides so now settles for us. There's a weird lad, pretty boy with a good technique whose mum drives him everywhere (he's 23) and failed hard at the local giants. There's an Aussie grade player overseas who started by watching porn so loudly that the neighbours complained, and there's a Scotland under 19 quick who I scouted while umpiring a lower league game and then got others to go on a covert grooming mission for me.
All in all, we should get battered every week by the Surrey pros, paid players and ludicrous overseas in the other teams.
That happened to us our last year in the Prem. We had a pro but he was very cheap (actually he's doing alright in Pakistan first class now, but I could get a few runs on those decks) and otherwise had nothing. We had a mercurial captain who attracted some mercenaries from around the league; they were better than what we had but skin as thin as tracing paper. They didn't perform and we were in the relegation spots half way through the year and a couple of them left, prompting the captain to have a full on meltdown in the local paper, seething at our shortcomings and openly questioning why a bunch of amateurs can't compete with guys who'd literally played Test cricket mere months before. We had a players meeting without him, ousted him, installed me as interim captain and went down on the last day having tossed up with a fag packet, never to return to the top division yet. Lessons were learned.
Our last-but-one jaunt at this level was 2016, when our 22 year old captain told the local paper he thought we'd get back-to-back promotions. This found it into the rag as 'xxx: WE'RE READY FOR THE PREM', which was good confident stuff until after 13/18 games we were bottom and he resigned having come to a match straight from a night out without his whites or kit.
Weather's poor for us too - doubt we get a game in. Not sure what the minimum overs required are but the rain looks pretty persistent on the forecast.
Had a drink after the nets and got chatting to some of the other members. Turns out one of the first team players was pretty instrumental in the early declaration in Pembrokeshire a few years back, one which denied their opponents the bonus points needed for the title. I remember it making BBC News so I looked up the article and there he is in the team photo, grinning away with his medal.
I did something similar once, in the season after the debacle mentioned above. We were about 4th going into the final day, so had nothing to play for. It was only one up that season because they were cutting back the size of the Premier Division to comply with ECB regulations. In our league, you get more points for winning batting first, to encourage a bit of variety because otherwise everyone wins the toss and bowls. The team in 1st obviously were going to play it safe and bowl first if they could (which they did), meaning the team in 2nd could leapfrog them into the promotion spot with a win batting first. They played us. I had a long history with the captain and we very much disliked each other. So I fucked it for them completely by winning the toss and having a bat. Absolute uproar ensued and it was the most heated game of cricket I've ever played. Incredible stuff.
The next season the league changed the rule so you can get the maximum win points batting second, if your opponent wins the toss and has a bat.
We've brought that in for this season, in the timed stuff (we play white ball 50/50 for half the season). 20pts for the win if you win and bowl, 24pts otherwise. Sounds like a load of balls to me but at least we don't play that stuff in the last few weeks so no opportunity for the above shenanigans.
White ball for half the season? So do you play two leagues essentially (one white ball, one red)? I think the Newcastle league is doing that as well because I watched some highlights from a game at the weekend and it was coloured kit and white ball, which took me by surprise. Maybe our league will go that way eventually if it's becoming a trend.
One table, but half the games are white ball and half the games red (middle nine are 120 overs and you can bat first for 66). We'd been playing split formats for donkeys, but white ball and coloured clothing is only in the last 2-3 years.
That is mental. And I say that as someone from a league that still does draws.
We've got coloured kits and orange balls in our league. 50 over games for the firsts, 45 for the seconds.
We use orange balls for "The Hundred" and pink for all other cups. Horrendous things for bowlers, they go miles off the bat. It's like hitting a golf ball.
All fixtures at the weekend were inevitably washed out. Probably for the best as we were scheduled to play a team that had thumped 282/2 from their allotted 45 in the opening weekend of the season, and we're still fielding a few kids to cope with the unavailability.
World Cup opener and final confirmed for Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad. Can already see it's going to be a disturbing ethno-nationalist propaganda event.
Not to worry, the final will double up as Kohli’s funeral when they get dumped out by New Zealand in the semis.
The subcontinent is a bridge too far for us unfortunately.
I think I've thrown myself back into cricket too eagerly, and I'm now ruing it. I netted on Wednesday and my shoulder felt quite sore when bowling and it got to the game on Saturday and I couldn't bowl without real pain as I got through the action.
Absolutely typical that I've injured myself just as I got involved. And of course I was an absolute magnet for the ball in the field; I think I had to pull out a slide or dive 4 times in quick succession in the outfield. Throwing the ball back in didn't feel good either.
Shoulders are a pain in the arse once you get past the first flush of youth. If I was still playing I think mine would have gone.
Had one of the great days Saturday. My game was rained off so I watched our newly promoted 1s play away at a Big Club that have just come down from the Prem. They had two Surrey contracted players in the side and they thought they were going to walk it. We ambushed the fuck out of them, with our 50 year old legend getting the 23 year old Surrey pro out and then pointing at the number 50 on the back of his shirt. We then made an absolute cunt of the chase until the same guy (50 year old) came in at number 10 and was part of a 50 odd stand to bring it home, and only the fact that I'm a recognisable face as an umpire stopped me from Mourinho-ing down the boundary edge.
Lovely stuff. Didn't realise the weather was bad that way on Saturday, we had glorious sunshine all day long. Quite burnt on the back of my neck from it all.
My personal contribution at the weekend as a specialist number 10 was a golden blob.Given out lbw, although I think I got quite a healthy nick on it. Not that it mattered as it went through to the keeper who caught it cleanly. We had them 4 down for not much but two experienced lads made 50s and they ended up winning by 5 wickets.
Foakes dropped from the Test squad. That's incredibly harsh.
Archer also out for the summer after reinjuring his elbow. It was nice knowing him.
The Foakes decision is mystifying to me. You've got a 15 man squad, put him in there to give yourself options even if for some reason you are hell bent on giving the gloves back to Bairstow who averages less than 30 with them, let alone coming off an injury.
I'm sick of them binning off having a good wicketkeeper any time they remember Bairstow exists.
Apparently his average is slightly higher with the gloves than without but this is a joke decision.
Foakes would be well within his rights to tell them where to shove it when they come crawling back.
And yet the inevitability of Zak Crawley continues unabated at the top of the order.
Crawley's dad must be giving Rob Key the best handjobs imaginable on these 'golf' outings.
Our 3rd team have a cup game tonight and apparently one of the young opening bowlers just bowled a 23 ball over.
Some pretty punchy Crawley quotes today.
It seems like they've genuinely made him believe that it's fine if he doesn't do much most of the time because the odd big innings matters more. Whether they're right about that, I'm not sure."I haven't been getting the runs I should have, but I have had a few good knocks."
The Kent batter added: "My failings in international cricket have been from putting too much pressure on myself. That is the only reason. Whenever I have gone out there with the right attitude I have done well.
"I have done a lot of thinking about my game, especially in the last couple of months. I look back at times I have played well and I take the expectation away from myself and I just try and play.
"A lot of people talk about scoring hundreds all of the time in cricket. I am coming to believe that is nonsense.
"I just want to go out there and play well and the score will come after that."
Yes I was quietly simmering reading that earlier.
Bazball venturing further into the thought experiment realm. Personally I'm not a fan of all the chat. What was Ollie Robinson doing calling them out in March or whatever it was?
Josh Hazlewood will lol him back into the hutch so many times it’ll make Atherton vs. McGrath look like child’s play.
Robinson's done his ankle now, added to Jimmy's groin and Archer being dead. All going swimmingly.
Woakes, Broad, Potts, Leach? Not terrible but pretty second string.
Dropped down to the thirds this weekend and we played yesterday. A much more laid-back vibe, with a bit more emphasis on getting the youngsters involved, giving them some overs. Thankfully my shoulder felt a bit better so I was able to chip in with 5 overs - first 4 were really good, but lost my length in the last and got clubbed for a couple of boundaries. No wickets but got the ball swinging and beating the edge several times.
Batting-wise I wanted to just get some time at the crease, get used to it all over again. Despite telling myself that, I couldn't help myself and drove hard at the 6th ball I faced. It was full and dipped under my bat, swinging back into the stumps.
We ended up losing comfortably but the weather was lovely and I did a bit of umpiring for the rest of our innings before a couple of pints in the clubhouse after. Top day.
We were 4/4 chasing 198 and won on the last ball with a boundary in an unbroken 194 partnership. Great scenes.
I did a game in which the team batting first had a (shit) paid pro opening the batting. He batted into the 49th of 50 overs and was bowled for 97. Probably the most disgraceful innings I have ever witnessed. They finished 221/4 off 50, I'd rather have watched the crease paint dry.
In the second innings my colleague gave the oppo captain caught behind off his thigh pad, a massive tantrum ensued and the first disciplinary report of the season. Good to be back. Next week I have a spicy south London derby at a much higher level, probably the biggest game I've yet been appointed to.
Jim, how many umpires down your way are guilty of trying to erase their own blunders? We had a lad absolutely stone dead on Saturday and the umpire managed to convince himself it wasn't hitting (was about half way up middle), then the next over he gives us a shocker to make sure his previous howler didn't affect the game. It benefitted us but I was pretty embarrassed and if that decision happened in a vacuum I'd have thought about calling him back.
I ask because most of our umpires do this and we are supposed to be at a good level.
We're lucky and have a really strong panel down here. The standard is really high and we have loads of support structures, development opportunities etc which means almost everyone I've been paired with has been really good. I don't think I've seen an umpire try to right wrongs like that. Most errors I've seen are just brain fog or general fuck-ups. When you make a mistake (or suspect you may have done) you have to just immediately put it in a mental drawer and treat the next ball afresh.
The main issue on panels is that old boys who have been there for years and are well past their best don't get punted or relegated down the divisions, either for political reasons or just to sate their egos and prevent them from stropping off entirely. That probably happens even more in smaller counties where there might not be plenty of fresh blood coming through. I've been promoted up quite quickly so far but there are lots of people who get blocked because of this.
That's a huge problem for us too. We've finally (long overdue) got a few, really good, younger umpires coming through but for whatever reason aren't able to oust the old guard, so umpiring standard in the second tier is often better than the Prem. We produced Michael Gough yet didn't learn a lick from it.Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
In my first season I stood with a bloke on the Prem list who said to me beforehand that he'd had a stroke during the winter and so he might struggle with a few things. I asked what things he would struggle with and he said he wasn't able to judge leg-side wides anymore (I have no idea how the stroke prevented this but apparently it did). He asked me to do a little signal from square leg if there was a leg side wide, so that he would know it was down the leg side. He also asked me not to tell any of the Prem umpires about this issue, in case he lost his place on the Prem list.
He did get punted from Prem but he's still on the panel doing Div 1, bless him.
What a bizarrely specific inability [although presumably he could just guess everything else, but that is a bit of a clear cut thing one way or the other]. You'd have to be fairly committed to the glamour of umpiring to keep on doing it even when you can't tell which side of the batsman the ball has passed.
Bringing my niece to her guitar lesson this evening and had brought a book to pass the time but turns out there is some top notch sport on the go.
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Can't get the image tags working on my phone.
Edit: there we go.
Last edited by Ian; 23-05-2023 at 06:13 PM.
Just seen a beamer get very dismissively dispatched for six.
That looks a nice ground actually.
The Tunnock's bakery doesn't fund any old shit, mate.
Somerset mincing Hampshire at Taunton. Lovely stuff.
I'm a bit late to the party on this but surely the IPL final was a massive fix? All seemed a bit convenient for Dhoni to be lifting the trophy, then U-turn on his retirement, capped off by the losing team celebrating with him like India had just won the World Cup.
152/1off 25 overs, nicely set up to hit 400+, oh wait, this is a test match.
I heard Stokes yesterday absolutely refusing to acknowledge that the Ashes is a big, important series because it's all part of the joooooourneeeey maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
If it works it works but c'mon mate.
That's some forehead on Ben Duckett.
WFH on a sunny Friday when I don't have much work on and can finish early if I want should be prime Watching An England Test time but I really can't muster much enthusiasm for this given how one sided it is. I absolutely want more test teams and for the format to prosper but Ireland look very out of their depth here
Hoping for a comedy collapse like in 2019 to liven things up.
We are very good and they are very shit (at bowling, they're just mildly shit at batting).
In an ideal world you'd have two (or more) divisions of eight for Test cricket, with promotion and relegation. In fact I think something like that was once proposed, but Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had a massive tantrum so that was the end of that.
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