In pursuit of sporting mediocrity…………

 

 In pursuit of sporting mediocrity…………

This is a blog to explore the lowest end of playing cricket – somewhere in between ‘that’s so village’ and ‘wheelie bin park rubbish’. I am playing in the bottom division of the Hampshire League. When playing at this level it is easy to be looked down on – by the general public, as you are playing cricket, which is (quite rightly) considered to be a bit weird. But also by other people that play cricket, as the standard is not that high and cricket (at least in England) is still a very snobbish game and I have listened to comments about ‘why would people even bother playing at such a standard?’

In answer to such questions, I play because I love it, and my sense of self worth is not tied into how good I am at playing this odd. bizarre game. I only started playing 2 years ago – and I am a gentleman on the wrong side of 50. Why start playing at such a late age? Well, because both my children did so I eventually decided to give it a go in the same spirit that I learnt to ride a horse several years ago; as a challenge, to see if I could learn new tricks. Because playing cricket is really hard. No really, even to play in the bottom divisions it is difficult in a way that most people do not realise. People who have never played think it’s easy because they have only ever seen it from a distance and it looks sedate and easy, how hard can it be? People that have played all their life just don’t realise the basic skills they learnt as a kid are a lot more difficult than they think. I mean, bowling a ball – is a complicated and counter intuitive way to propel a ball forward in a direction you want it to go, it makes no sense. Batting looks easy – just a bit of hand eye co-ordination and give the ball a whack. This is true, until the ball is faster than you think, or it changes direction mid way through its flight.

Am I any good? Such a question is probably best answered by my children.

My boy on my batting; ‘When you are taking guard and the bowler is running in you have a good stance and look quite stylish, but then you try and play a shot and well………..’

My girl on my bowling; ‘You don’t really spin the ball do you dad? You just say you are a spin bowler because you bowl so slowly’.

With such ringing endorsements what could possibly go wrong?

So what will the blog cover? I will be giving a view of the clubs I play and the people I meet throughout the season. This will include a short and utterly bias write up on each game that I play. As I will be writing about other people I will probably have to change names to protect the guilty. Before the season starts though I will be writing an overview of the division I play in. So for the next blog entry, be prepared to learn about that centre of competitive sporting excellence that is the Hampshire Cricket League, Division 6 (South West).