Cricket Appeal

On the charm of cricket...

I am writing this in the aftermath of another monstrous England defeat down under, inept batting being blown away by some old school hostile Australian bowling. I am, like all other England supporters feeling disappointed, disillusioned and angry at the current performance. The warning signs were there in the summer, but few would have predicted just how horrendously this series would have started. But despite it all, I am genuinely looking forward to the the next game. Why? Because as the famous 10CC song goes, I don’t like cricket, I love it. 

Those who know me know all too well my trainspotter-like knowledge and passion for sport. Most would probably in the first instance identify me as the football guy. More recent acquaintances (and some older) will also be aware of my comparatively recent infatuation with rugby union. But while my level of obsession and engagement with those sports requiring larger balls (so to speak) has fluctuated over the years, one love has remained constant – cricket. I can’t pinpoint when the affair started, though I do have a vague memory of England v West Indies tests on TV (most likely the 1988 tour) where most of the game seemed to be spent waiting for the Windies bowlers to get to the end of their unfeasibly long run-ups. And England being crap, obviously. 

However, it was the summer of 1992 when the relationship was consummated as I attended my first game. A family friend and unusual candidate for a cricket fan, the American illustrator Linda Combi had given me for a birthday a membership for Yorkshire’s young supporters’ club, the Junior Tykes. My first match was a Sunday League game at Scarborough against Warwickshire, which we won thanks in the main to a century from wicketkeeper Richard Blakey (who as a result immediately became my favourite player) and according to the scorecard some tight bowling from a young Darren Gough. I’d forgotten the latter detail but distinctly remember that the main draw, a certain Sachin Tendulkar, only made 15 (just four less than his age at the time). I was absolutely rapt, loved every minute of it. The same probably cannot be said of my sister and friends who had been brought along for company, who all clearly would rather have spent the day on the nearby beach. In fact my ever-intuitive mother did take the others down there at one point, leaving me to enjoy the game in peace for a while. 

I immediately recognised that I had found something quite special; even at the age of 12 I loved the experience of watching cricket live as something captivating that you could completely immerse and lose yourself in. The rhythm of the day, the steady progression of the match, it all felt somehow timeless. I also realised at such a young age that as such it was something that could be very much enjoyed as a solitary experience. 

Of course it’s fun going to the cricket with friends too, but back then in particular I rather struggled. I simply wanted to absorb the game, while the other kids with shorter (or rather more normal) attention spans and less fascination with the game itself simply wanted to play with a bat and ball round the back of the stands and collect autographs from the boundary fielders. I also remember the adolescent resentment at being dragged away by my adult chaperones before the end of the day’s play to catch earlier trains, not wanting to miss a single ball even if the result was already almost certain. Thankfully things changed within just a short few years. Quite early on I endured the cricketing rite of passage of going to a game that thanks to the weather was abandoned without a ball being bowled. I grew to appreciate that hanging around station platforms for hours extra for the sake of a couple inconsequential overs didn’t have a lot of sense, and my kind and sympathetic mother trusted me enough to allow me to go to games unaccompanied at an age when many mothers wouldn’t have. I don’t think I ever abused that trust, although I do recall at around 16 having an illicitly procured pint of Tetley’s in my hand when I spotted my school headmaster and having to take evasive action behind a portakabin.

I think I can probably also put my enduring passion for the game down to the fact that my formative years as a cricket appreciator were the 1990s, a particularly depressing time for both Yorkshire and England. My first day of international cricket saw the England batting line-up go right round following on en route to a crushing innings defeat to Allan Border’s merciless Australians at Headingley in 1993, and things didn’t improve much over the following years. Generally Yorkshire were equally inept, the decade appropriately closing with a feeble defeat in the 1999 B&H Cup final against Gloucestershire at Lords: one long and depressing day flying solo when for once I really pined for some company to share in the misery. If you can come through all that and still be in love with something, it's likely it'll be with you for life.

This all changed in the new millennium though. England started winning – I gave my university housemates a rare old fright with my screams and shouts as I literally ran round the house when they became the first team ever to beat Pakistan in a test in Karachi. Then in 2001 I was there on the pitch at Scarborough celebrating equally wildly with friends as Yorkshire won their first County Championship since the 60s. Finally my ample enjoyment of the game in general was being complemented by serious success for my teams. On the international stage this came to a stunning head when England finally defeated Australia to take the Ashes for the first time since I began following the sport. Not only that, they continued to defeat them. I think these series wins make the current impending defeat a lot easier to take, because there was a point in the past when I never thought I would get to see success in my lifetime! For various reasons I didn’t actually witness firsthand any of the 2005 or 2009 series, so that made it even more special for me to be present on that rainy day at Old Trafford this August when England retained the Ashes. Twenty years of personal pain were erased in a few chilly but glorious hours, topped off by ruining every press photographer’s shot and appearing in every newspaper in the land in the process of obtaining this most satisfying of selfies:

 

So, cricket. It has brought me so many unforgettable moments: watching Merv Hughes bowling to a young kid during the tea break of a tour match at Durham (which turned out to be the final first class game of Ian Botham’s career); Yorkshire skittling the old enemy from the dark side of the hills for just 76 in one of the first day-night games at Headingley; a whole ground falling totally and utterly silent with a collective intake of breath as Darren Gough ran in to bowl the final ball of a limited overs game with Glamorgan needing just 2 runs to win, and that silence being broken by sound of the stumps exploding with the impact of his devastating Yorker; seeing Curtley Ambrose take his 400^th Test wicket; Otis Gibson scoring a 69-ball century for West Indies in a tour match at Taunton, including despatching at least four balls into the river behind the stands at one end.

For every one of these great memories there are of course an equal quantity of frustrations and disappointments, but I will keep going back. Watching cricket can fulfil almost any purpose: it can be something to while away a lazy day; it can be something to keep you hanging off the edge of your seat with nerve-shredding tension; it can joyfully bamboozle with its beguiling arcane terminology and blizzard of statistics. The drama can unfold slowly like an epic work of theatre, or you can witness wild plot twists; a game lasting five days which turns on just a few minutes of action. Then there are the characters – the legendary players of course, the oddly even more legendary radio commentators, and if you go watching county cricket in particular the curious folk who spend their summers at the boundary edge. I will never really enjoy the alcohol-soaked anarchy that seems to be the way that many choose to watch a day of Test cricket, though I admit I have had a couple of good ones in the past. But there are so many other live cricket experiences to be had, from a quiet county match to a manic Twenty20 slog fest; I really believe there is an experience for everybody. It is the most wonderful and engaging of sports, and I would defy anyone to not find at least something to enjoy on the lush green ovals and the curious little worlds that surround them.