15th April
English cricket’s County Championship begins today. Ever since I turned on to following the daily cricket scores in the next morning’s newspaper (May 11th 1961 to be precise) it’s been for me the living, beating, at times over-stressed heart of the game. Today ten of the eighteen county teams will be playing variously at Taunton, Southampton, Leicester, Chelmsford and south London’s Kennington Oval.
Now, these aren’t necessarily places the average American tourist is likely to take in, given a precious fortnight on vacation from the drudgery of real estate or due legal process in Cleveland, Charlotte or Chattanooga. Yes, of course your priorities are to take in the Tower of London, Oxford, Bath, Edinburgh, even Stratford upon Avon. But if you had a fifteenth day, and you found yourself unaccountably drawn to Grace Road in Leicester or the Rose Bowl in Southampton, what would you find?
Well firstly, this isn’t going to be an expensive day out, compared with a night at the London theatre, where a single ticket will easily set you back sixty quid. You’re unlikely to pay a third of that – and this show lasts longer than a Springsteen gig! Secondly, the very good news is that for most of these grounds the weather forecast today is good, and in south London a sunny 70 fahrenheit’s a possibility, though I’d still advise taking some sweaters and a waterproof. Some preconceptions about England really need subverting, but the meteorological ones can’t be totally denied. Expect the unexpected.
You’ll want to arrive at about a quarter to eleven in the morning. The greeting at the turnstile may be nearer dour than effusive. The guy selling you the ticket may not look like he gives a damn, but he loves you really, baby: he just has a funny way of showing it. You’ll probably be able to choose where to sit around the ground, and your actual point of view will be significant. Most likely you’ll want to change it during the day, chasing the sun and out of sheer curiosity.
At about the time you arrive the two captains will walk to the middle of the ground and flip a coin for the right to choose whether to bat or bowl. They’ll carefully inspect the pitch, if they haven’t already done so, looking for tell-tale signs of dampness or too much grass, which might aid the bowling team. The pitch is a strip cut from a carefully laid and protected square of turf in the ground’s centre. The composition of that area is a dark art. The way the pitch will play will be central to the fortunes of the game, and the poor groundsman will take the blame for preparing it wrongly if the players struggle. From side on, watch for the way the ball bounces. Is there a high bounce with the ball carrying through with a smack into the upward-pointing gloves of the wicket-keeper? Or does he have to sweep up the ball by his toes? Is the bounce consistent? The batsman’s reactions will give you clues too. How suspiciously does he prod the pitch after a few balls received? Does he take one hand away anxiously from the bat as it makes high contact with the ball?
As the fielders walk on to the ground at eleven o’clock to a rallying cry from the Tannoys there’ll be no more than a polite ripple of applause. There couldn’t be more than that. There are, after all, only a few hundred in at best. The ground looks wonderful: freshly painted, adequately staffed and appointed, and already you’re thinking, ‘how do the economics of this work?’ The answer is that they barely do. Catch this experience while you can. It’s an endangered species of entertainment.
Check out your fellow-watchers. Find some of the old boys and sit near them if you want local flavour, though you don’t have to go very far out of London for what they say to be fairly impenetrable. My local team is Northamptonshire, and after thirty-five years living there I sometimes have to strain to catch the sense - and it only takes 48 minutes by the fastest train to get to London from Northampton! Whatever these seniors say is likely to be pungent, but not necessarily well-reasoned, and may refer to moments of cricket history now long gone. It’s a good place to learn English vernacular, but hesitate before you reproduce some of the choicest phrases in polite company.
Since it’s still the school Easter holidays, there’ll be some schoolchildren (probably male). If they have glasses and a notebook, you may also hear them giving a make-believe ball-by-ball radio commentary on proceedings. This is an ancient tradition: a subject I can’t believe we won’t return to later in the summer. As lunchtime approaches there may be some walk-up from business people, if the ground is within striking distance of a town centre. There’ll be a scattering of women, sometimes younger rather than older. Since this is early season, they may be wives and girlfriends of the players. In Leicester today as in Northampton, they may speak with a marked South African accent: both teams have suffered criticism for the number of their imports. However don’t assume the WAGs bit. More women are knowledgeably supporting male team sports than once was the case. This is very obviously the case in rugby and soccer, but it’s also true of cricket to a smaller degree. More women play all three of these sports than was true even ten years ago.
Like listening to a symphony orchestra in a concert hall, I personally find the experience of watching live sport these days excitingly hyper-real. All that telly-watching has somehow habituated me to the idea that ‘real’ experience is two-dimensional and mediated through a box in the corner of the sitting room. Here in the stadium the grass seems impossibly green, the whites of the players whiter than any detergent could plausibly render them, the action closer. On this last point, taking a walk around the boundary edge of the ground is a good idea. Depending on where the pitch has been cut, one watching side may be distinctly nearer the action than another.
Observing the game side-on can be un-nerving. A fast bowler can run up, the batsman can play a false shot, the ball may be caught by a fielder close to the wicket, and the untrained eye may see nothing but the batsman turning to make his sad way back to the pavilion. Blink and you’ve missed it. So, take your courage in your hands, and try watching from behind the bowler’s arm to see the ball as the batsman night see it (though 65 yards further away). Watch it swing and cut off the pitch. But don’t dare move. If you do, you may find yourself unintentionally involved in the game as a batsman or umpire gesticulates rudely in your direction, and all one hundred and twenty three of your fellow spectators turn to glare belligerently. Batsmen come over all temperamental when the smallest thing can be alleged to have disturbed their concentration.
Play will continue until one o’clock, when lunch will be taken. At 1.40 the players will re-emerge and a further two hours play will ensue. At 4.00 pm they’ll come back a third and last time. Providing the weather holds you’re guaranteed to see 576 balls bowled in the day, less time deducted for a change of innings. Runs may be scored: perhaps 300/350 might be a par score. Wickets may fall. There will be periods of intensity and periods of apparent torpor. Around you, if it’s warm enough, people may fall asleep. Or read the paper. You may overhear the strangest conversations. But savour it. Think of each ball bowled as a little, fierce, person to person contest within a larger collective one. Traveller, you will never pass this way again.
English cricket’s County Championship begins today. Ever since I turned on to following the daily cricket scores in the next morning’s newspaper (May 11th 1961 to be precise) it’s been for me the living, beating, at times over-stressed heart of the game. Today ten of the eighteen county teams will be playing variously at Taunton, Southampton, Leicester, Chelmsford and south London’s Kennington Oval.
Now, these aren’t necessarily places the average American tourist is likely to take in, given a precious fortnight on vacation from the drudgery of real estate or due legal process in Cleveland, Charlotte or Chattanooga. Yes, of course your priorities are to take in the Tower of London, Oxford, Bath, Edinburgh, even Stratford upon Avon. But if you had a fifteenth day, and you found yourself unaccountably drawn to Grace Road in Leicester or the Rose Bowl in Southampton, what would you find?
Well firstly, this isn’t going to be an expensive day out, compared with a night at the London theatre, where a single ticket will easily set you back sixty quid. You’re unlikely to pay a third of that – and this show lasts longer than a Springsteen gig! Secondly, the very good news is that for most of these grounds the weather forecast today is good, and in south London a sunny 70 fahrenheit’s a possibility, though I’d still advise taking some sweaters and a waterproof. Some preconceptions about England really need subverting, but the meteorological ones can’t be totally denied. Expect the unexpected.
You’ll want to arrive at about a quarter to eleven in the morning. The greeting at the turnstile may be nearer dour than effusive. The guy selling you the ticket may not look like he gives a damn, but he loves you really, baby: he just has a funny way of showing it. You’ll probably be able to choose where to sit around the ground, and your actual point of view will be significant. Most likely you’ll want to change it during the day, chasing the sun and out of sheer curiosity.
At about the time you arrive the two captains will walk to the middle of the ground and flip a coin for the right to choose whether to bat or bowl. They’ll carefully inspect the pitch, if they haven’t already done so, looking for tell-tale signs of dampness or too much grass, which might aid the bowling team. The pitch is a strip cut from a carefully laid and protected square of turf in the ground’s centre. The composition of that area is a dark art. The way the pitch will play will be central to the fortunes of the game, and the poor groundsman will take the blame for preparing it wrongly if the players struggle. From side on, watch for the way the ball bounces. Is there a high bounce with the ball carrying through with a smack into the upward-pointing gloves of the wicket-keeper? Or does he have to sweep up the ball by his toes? Is the bounce consistent? The batsman’s reactions will give you clues too. How suspiciously does he prod the pitch after a few balls received? Does he take one hand away anxiously from the bat as it makes high contact with the ball?
As the fielders walk on to the ground at eleven o’clock to a rallying cry from the Tannoys there’ll be no more than a polite ripple of applause. There couldn’t be more than that. There are, after all, only a few hundred in at best. The ground looks wonderful: freshly painted, adequately staffed and appointed, and already you’re thinking, ‘how do the economics of this work?’ The answer is that they barely do. Catch this experience while you can. It’s an endangered species of entertainment.
Check out your fellow-watchers. Find some of the old boys and sit near them if you want local flavour, though you don’t have to go very far out of London for what they say to be fairly impenetrable. My local team is Northamptonshire, and after thirty-five years living there I sometimes have to strain to catch the sense - and it only takes 48 minutes by the fastest train to get to London from Northampton! Whatever these seniors say is likely to be pungent, but not necessarily well-reasoned, and may refer to moments of cricket history now long gone. It’s a good place to learn English vernacular, but hesitate before you reproduce some of the choicest phrases in polite company.
Since it’s still the school Easter holidays, there’ll be some schoolchildren (probably male). If they have glasses and a notebook, you may also hear them giving a make-believe ball-by-ball radio commentary on proceedings. This is an ancient tradition: a subject I can’t believe we won’t return to later in the summer. As lunchtime approaches there may be some walk-up from business people, if the ground is within striking distance of a town centre. There’ll be a scattering of women, sometimes younger rather than older. Since this is early season, they may be wives and girlfriends of the players. In Leicester today as in Northampton, they may speak with a marked South African accent: both teams have suffered criticism for the number of their imports. However don’t assume the WAGs bit. More women are knowledgeably supporting male team sports than once was the case. This is very obviously the case in rugby and soccer, but it’s also true of cricket to a smaller degree. More women play all three of these sports than was true even ten years ago.
Like listening to a symphony orchestra in a concert hall, I personally find the experience of watching live sport these days excitingly hyper-real. All that telly-watching has somehow habituated me to the idea that ‘real’ experience is two-dimensional and mediated through a box in the corner of the sitting room. Here in the stadium the grass seems impossibly green, the whites of the players whiter than any detergent could plausibly render them, the action closer. On this last point, taking a walk around the boundary edge of the ground is a good idea. Depending on where the pitch has been cut, one watching side may be distinctly nearer the action than another.
Observing the game side-on can be un-nerving. A fast bowler can run up, the batsman can play a false shot, the ball may be caught by a fielder close to the wicket, and the untrained eye may see nothing but the batsman turning to make his sad way back to the pavilion. Blink and you’ve missed it. So, take your courage in your hands, and try watching from behind the bowler’s arm to see the ball as the batsman night see it (though 65 yards further away). Watch it swing and cut off the pitch. But don’t dare move. If you do, you may find yourself unintentionally involved in the game as a batsman or umpire gesticulates rudely in your direction, and all one hundred and twenty three of your fellow spectators turn to glare belligerently. Batsmen come over all temperamental when the smallest thing can be alleged to have disturbed their concentration.
Play will continue until one o’clock, when lunch will be taken. At 1.40 the players will re-emerge and a further two hours play will ensue. At 4.00 pm they’ll come back a third and last time. Providing the weather holds you’re guaranteed to see 576 balls bowled in the day, less time deducted for a change of innings. Runs may be scored: perhaps 300/350 might be a par score. Wickets may fall. There will be periods of intensity and periods of apparent torpor. Around you, if it’s warm enough, people may fall asleep. Or read the paper. You may overhear the strangest conversations. But savour it. Think of each ball bowled as a little, fierce, person to person contest within a larger collective one. Traveller, you will never pass this way again.
