The first-class (major league?) cricket season has begun, with what sports writers sometimes call the pipe-opener. It’s a four day match – you’re getting used to this idea, right? – between the Marylebone Cricket Club and last year’s county champions, Durham. This all needs some explanation.
First the day thing. Test Matches, between different countries, are scheduled to take five days, but may end in less if one team can force a win. They often do, sometimes in as little (!) as three days. Major regional matches within a country are often scheduled for four days. Shorter practice games sometimes take place over two or three days. But games that take one day or only a portion of one day with a limited number of balls to be bowled have become the contemporary thing. One-day matches may be played between local amateur teams or international ones. Crowds like them, because they require less attention-span, and in theory they allow for more concentrated excitement. In this sense they’re more like baseball matches, although we Brits have been slow to take to cheerleaders.
Now for the Marylebone Cricket Club. Marylebone is an ancient part of London, named after a church. It’s the home of a rather beautiful rail station, not much used now unless you’re travelling through the lovely Chiltern Hills in the direction of Birmingham, and there’s still a High Street with rather expensive shops. This road bends around a bit - unlike most straight London streets - thus revealing its ancient origins as a country lane. Just to the north of Marylebone in the leafy and exclusive suburb of St. John’s Wood lies Thomas Lord’s cricket ground which in 1814 became the home of the Cricket Club. Because this was so geographically close to the seat of power and government, the M.C.C in time became the governing body of cricket, and remained so until relatively recently. It sent British teams to tour abroad, and membership of the M.C.C. is still a cherished, fought-over, possession. I was at school with the only man I have known who became a member and wore their sartorially-challenged custard and plum jam tie. He was indicted for fraud, and subsequently committed suicide. But don’t think you can ever become an M.C.C. insider. They’ve only just let women in, and as for Americans – well, forget it. Unless your name’s Getty, of course. For the purposes of this match, the M.C.C. have selected an invitation team of eleven, all of whom are players it’s hoped may sooner or later figure in the English national team. In many ways you see, the M.C.C .and the interests of English cricket are still identical, still influenced by the same cabal of individuals. You may think this charming or exasperating. Or just what you’d have expected of the English.
If you’ve been to the UK you’ll know that the country is divided into fifty or so counties, whose origins may be more or less ancient. For instance the county of Kent can trace itself back to the pre-Roman tribe of the Cantii who roamed the extreme south-eastern part of England two thousand or more years ago. The counties remain part of the division of administration in Britain to a limited extent – for example some police forces are related to individual counties – but to many it seems rather an anomaly that cricket loyalties should still divide this way. You’d think that cities would be a more logical way of doing things, as is the case with soccer or with leading US sports, but though the idea gets tentatively floated from time to time, it has yet to properly set sail.
Durham is a latecomer to cricket’s elite levels. Its small county town should be on the ‘must-see’ of English tourist sights, with a university set high above a pretty encircling river valley. Its cricket ground in the neighbouring Chester-le-Street is overlooked by a charming, but hokey castle, which looks much older than it really is. In fact it’s a slightly musty hotel.
At the time of writing two of the four days have passed and the match isn’t a third way finished. It’s the weather, of course. The cold has to be coped with at this time of the year, but rain renders cricket impossible. The ball is wet, and can’t be controlled, the grassy outfield becomes outwith health and safety parameters, the spectators are few and miserable, and straightforwardly the whole thing stops being any fun at all. Insofar as the match is set up to be a trial for stars of the future, this one is a failure. The only man to score many runs (and the first to record a century – 100 runs in a single innings –this season) is a cheerful fellow now playing for Durham called Ian Blackwell, who was briefly tried in the England team a few years ago and found wanting. Blackwell is an honest cricketer, ruddy and cheerful of face, more rounded of body than is fashionable or thought to be athletic, and strong of forearm. He can hit the ball a long way and often on his day, but it’s said that nerves have prevented him showing his best on the biggest occasions.
Today other matches of even less significance are scheduled to begin, between counties and universities, players feeling their way into form, some finding that the game has astonishingly become far easier than it was at the end of the previous season, others feeling the shape of the ball in hand to be strangely foreign, the feet reluctant to move in the right way in addressing the ball. Many will have a pack of cards in their cricket bag: the forecast isn’t good for the next day or two, and it’ll be chilly for a month or so yet. A major tournament was due to take place in India over the next few weeks, but was cancelled because the Indian government said security couldn’t be guaranteed at the same time as a general election was to be held. There were two candidates as replacement venues. One was South Africa, the other England. So which do you think they chose? But if it rains hard in Cape Town or Johannesburg during the next week or two, my, how we shall laugh.
First the day thing. Test Matches, between different countries, are scheduled to take five days, but may end in less if one team can force a win. They often do, sometimes in as little (!) as three days. Major regional matches within a country are often scheduled for four days. Shorter practice games sometimes take place over two or three days. But games that take one day or only a portion of one day with a limited number of balls to be bowled have become the contemporary thing. One-day matches may be played between local amateur teams or international ones. Crowds like them, because they require less attention-span, and in theory they allow for more concentrated excitement. In this sense they’re more like baseball matches, although we Brits have been slow to take to cheerleaders.
Now for the Marylebone Cricket Club. Marylebone is an ancient part of London, named after a church. It’s the home of a rather beautiful rail station, not much used now unless you’re travelling through the lovely Chiltern Hills in the direction of Birmingham, and there’s still a High Street with rather expensive shops. This road bends around a bit - unlike most straight London streets - thus revealing its ancient origins as a country lane. Just to the north of Marylebone in the leafy and exclusive suburb of St. John’s Wood lies Thomas Lord’s cricket ground which in 1814 became the home of the Cricket Club. Because this was so geographically close to the seat of power and government, the M.C.C in time became the governing body of cricket, and remained so until relatively recently. It sent British teams to tour abroad, and membership of the M.C.C. is still a cherished, fought-over, possession. I was at school with the only man I have known who became a member and wore their sartorially-challenged custard and plum jam tie. He was indicted for fraud, and subsequently committed suicide. But don’t think you can ever become an M.C.C. insider. They’ve only just let women in, and as for Americans – well, forget it. Unless your name’s Getty, of course. For the purposes of this match, the M.C.C. have selected an invitation team of eleven, all of whom are players it’s hoped may sooner or later figure in the English national team. In many ways you see, the M.C.C .and the interests of English cricket are still identical, still influenced by the same cabal of individuals. You may think this charming or exasperating. Or just what you’d have expected of the English.
If you’ve been to the UK you’ll know that the country is divided into fifty or so counties, whose origins may be more or less ancient. For instance the county of Kent can trace itself back to the pre-Roman tribe of the Cantii who roamed the extreme south-eastern part of England two thousand or more years ago. The counties remain part of the division of administration in Britain to a limited extent – for example some police forces are related to individual counties – but to many it seems rather an anomaly that cricket loyalties should still divide this way. You’d think that cities would be a more logical way of doing things, as is the case with soccer or with leading US sports, but though the idea gets tentatively floated from time to time, it has yet to properly set sail.
Durham is a latecomer to cricket’s elite levels. Its small county town should be on the ‘must-see’ of English tourist sights, with a university set high above a pretty encircling river valley. Its cricket ground in the neighbouring Chester-le-Street is overlooked by a charming, but hokey castle, which looks much older than it really is. In fact it’s a slightly musty hotel.
At the time of writing two of the four days have passed and the match isn’t a third way finished. It’s the weather, of course. The cold has to be coped with at this time of the year, but rain renders cricket impossible. The ball is wet, and can’t be controlled, the grassy outfield becomes outwith health and safety parameters, the spectators are few and miserable, and straightforwardly the whole thing stops being any fun at all. Insofar as the match is set up to be a trial for stars of the future, this one is a failure. The only man to score many runs (and the first to record a century – 100 runs in a single innings –this season) is a cheerful fellow now playing for Durham called Ian Blackwell, who was briefly tried in the England team a few years ago and found wanting. Blackwell is an honest cricketer, ruddy and cheerful of face, more rounded of body than is fashionable or thought to be athletic, and strong of forearm. He can hit the ball a long way and often on his day, but it’s said that nerves have prevented him showing his best on the biggest occasions.
Today other matches of even less significance are scheduled to begin, between counties and universities, players feeling their way into form, some finding that the game has astonishingly become far easier than it was at the end of the previous season, others feeling the shape of the ball in hand to be strangely foreign, the feet reluctant to move in the right way in addressing the ball. Many will have a pack of cards in their cricket bag: the forecast isn’t good for the next day or two, and it’ll be chilly for a month or so yet. A major tournament was due to take place in India over the next few weeks, but was cancelled because the Indian government said security couldn’t be guaranteed at the same time as a general election was to be held. There were two candidates as replacement venues. One was South Africa, the other England. So which do you think they chose? But if it rains hard in Cape Town or Johannesburg during the next week or two, my, how we shall laugh.
