Thwack of Willow on Leather...
Apart from baking bread, (it's cooking now) I'm going to put the housework on hold this weekend in order to concentrate on writing the next chapter of my novel. Yes, really. If the rain holds off tomorrow, I will be scoring for our team at the home game in our village cricket league.
Before you say it...maybe you've already thought it... “scoring” does not mean “to seduce/sleep with any or all of the opposing team”. I may have been on my own for a few years now but I really am not that kind of gal even in my wildest fantasies. Nor am I my local team’s wunderkind, or a wildcard sent out to confuse the opposition into thinking that I may have better cricketing skills than the mature (=old/overweight) openers sent out to bat at numbers 1-4. (If I’m losing you at this point just bugger orf and read a blog on football. If you’re still with me and keeping up, thanks!)
Our captain actually allowed a female player two weeks ago. No offence to her but he was desperate and couldn’t field a full team and was facing defeat before a single ball had been bowled. But the girl did good and was not out albeit for no runs, and despite warning the captain that she couldn’t bowl, he was desperate enough to ignore her modest admission. It's true, she really can’t bowl and should not bowl again until she’s learned how to throw more or less at the stumps at the opposite end of the wicket. To see her you would think she was trying to hit overhead seagulls and chucking superb parabolas will not a match win. But bless her, she is only 15 years old and if she wasn’t put off by the jeers, sniggers and taunts of the local boys, who knows, she could be the next Rachael Heyhoe-Flint. And who am I to criticse..?
So, back to me…when we didn’t have anyone to keep score (ah, you’re there now aren’t you?) I quietly volunteered to have a go “as long as someone shows me what to do”. I’ve been told by all the blokes that it’s a piece of cake (not the piece of cake that players, not score-keepers are allowed stuff down in the pub at tea). But I have now watched an expert keep score for one innings, a 12 year old boy who couldn’t continue because it was doing his head in. There being nobody else, it was my chance to shine. Now, if anyone tells you it’s a piece of cake, please feel free to clock them one. Let me tell you I’m not surprised the 12 year old’s head was done in! Any opportunity to catch up on the last week’s village gossip with the girls goes right out of the leaded window when you’re scoring. You have to concentrate that hard just to see what’s going on 250 feet away. I need glasses to see long distance and difference specs to see close up and short of juggling two pairs of glasses on my head I had to compromise - my reading glasses also come in a tinted version so in order to stop the sun from also doing my head in, I wore those and hoped my long vision would work out what was going on at the wicket. Gawd help me when it's really sunny and I have to wear a hat as well!
And then there’s the knack of interpreting the different arm-waving signals the umpires give for byes, wides, fours and sixes etc. At one point I was merrily marking down “wides” when I was kindly informed that it wasn’t the umpire waving at all but the captain telling his fielders to spread out. Aren’t umpires supposed to wear white coats?
I admit I missed a couple of quick balls at the start of the innings because I was too busy chatting to the doctor’s wife, my regular boundary companion, a cricket widow having lost her husband and two sons to the game. I knew I’d gone wrong when the over was over and I’d only got 4 balls bowled on the sheet! The away team’s score-keeper tutted and very kindly informed me I should have six dot balls. Lucky for me, I knew what a dot ball was! Hah!
And so it went on. It was actually quite an exciting game by our village's standards. We were never going to win, not with a team of 4 very mature/overweight men, none of whom can run, bend down or throw, 3 boys, 1 girl and a man who’s not held a bat for about 15 years, leaving “no pressure” to chase 198 runs for the 2 remaining fit men. But a draw was definitely on the cards, that was until our number 1 and highest scorer was responsible for two run-outs and we had to stay in for only 5 more balls. Did we do it? Of course we didn’t!
So I think, by default, I am the new reserve score-keeper - I say “reserve” because I won’t get a look in if there’s a spare man around, and I mean any man, as long as he can use a pen or coloured pencil. The captain is from the dark ages and behaves like a woman's place is for bringing on refreshments - but I'm not proud - I'm thinking outside the (cricket) box: fit: I’m thinking male, interested in cricket, impressed by my knowledge of the game. This is my big opportunity to score in the real sense! There must be someone out there from one of our opposing teams who fits my requirements after I've whittled away all the pot-belly, smoking, unfit, boring chauvinists? Okay, so I'm not holding my breath!
Before you say it...maybe you've already thought it... “scoring” does not mean “to seduce/sleep with any or all of the opposing team”. I may have been on my own for a few years now but I really am not that kind of gal even in my wildest fantasies. Nor am I my local team’s wunderkind, or a wildcard sent out to confuse the opposition into thinking that I may have better cricketing skills than the mature (=old/overweight) openers sent out to bat at numbers 1-4. (If I’m losing you at this point just bugger orf and read a blog on football. If you’re still with me and keeping up, thanks!)
Our captain actually allowed a female player two weeks ago. No offence to her but he was desperate and couldn’t field a full team and was facing defeat before a single ball had been bowled. But the girl did good and was not out albeit for no runs, and despite warning the captain that she couldn’t bowl, he was desperate enough to ignore her modest admission. It's true, she really can’t bowl and should not bowl again until she’s learned how to throw more or less at the stumps at the opposite end of the wicket. To see her you would think she was trying to hit overhead seagulls and chucking superb parabolas will not a match win. But bless her, she is only 15 years old and if she wasn’t put off by the jeers, sniggers and taunts of the local boys, who knows, she could be the next Rachael Heyhoe-Flint. And who am I to criticse..?
So, back to me…when we didn’t have anyone to keep score (ah, you’re there now aren’t you?) I quietly volunteered to have a go “as long as someone shows me what to do”. I’ve been told by all the blokes that it’s a piece of cake (not the piece of cake that players, not score-keepers are allowed stuff down in the pub at tea). But I have now watched an expert keep score for one innings, a 12 year old boy who couldn’t continue because it was doing his head in. There being nobody else, it was my chance to shine. Now, if anyone tells you it’s a piece of cake, please feel free to clock them one. Let me tell you I’m not surprised the 12 year old’s head was done in! Any opportunity to catch up on the last week’s village gossip with the girls goes right out of the leaded window when you’re scoring. You have to concentrate that hard just to see what’s going on 250 feet away. I need glasses to see long distance and difference specs to see close up and short of juggling two pairs of glasses on my head I had to compromise - my reading glasses also come in a tinted version so in order to stop the sun from also doing my head in, I wore those and hoped my long vision would work out what was going on at the wicket. Gawd help me when it's really sunny and I have to wear a hat as well!
And then there’s the knack of interpreting the different arm-waving signals the umpires give for byes, wides, fours and sixes etc. At one point I was merrily marking down “wides” when I was kindly informed that it wasn’t the umpire waving at all but the captain telling his fielders to spread out. Aren’t umpires supposed to wear white coats?
I admit I missed a couple of quick balls at the start of the innings because I was too busy chatting to the doctor’s wife, my regular boundary companion, a cricket widow having lost her husband and two sons to the game. I knew I’d gone wrong when the over was over and I’d only got 4 balls bowled on the sheet! The away team’s score-keeper tutted and very kindly informed me I should have six dot balls. Lucky for me, I knew what a dot ball was! Hah!
And so it went on. It was actually quite an exciting game by our village's standards. We were never going to win, not with a team of 4 very mature/overweight men, none of whom can run, bend down or throw, 3 boys, 1 girl and a man who’s not held a bat for about 15 years, leaving “no pressure” to chase 198 runs for the 2 remaining fit men. But a draw was definitely on the cards, that was until our number 1 and highest scorer was responsible for two run-outs and we had to stay in for only 5 more balls. Did we do it? Of course we didn’t!
So I think, by default, I am the new reserve score-keeper - I say “reserve” because I won’t get a look in if there’s a spare man around, and I mean any man, as long as he can use a pen or coloured pencil. The captain is from the dark ages and behaves like a woman's place is for bringing on refreshments - but I'm not proud - I'm thinking outside the (cricket) box: fit: I’m thinking male, interested in cricket, impressed by my knowledge of the game. This is my big opportunity to score in the real sense! There must be someone out there from one of our opposing teams who fits my requirements after I've whittled away all the pot-belly, smoking, unfit, boring chauvinists? Okay, so I'm not holding my breath!