The Village Cricketer

The Village Cricketer has been to the south of Fraaaarnce baby to play cricket near Monaaaarco. Just like in Malta, there are people in European countries who play cricket, and in the south of France they tend to be English ex-pats. There are also, however, Sri Lankans, and they knew what they were doing. All marvellous baby, and big up to Entrecasteaux CC, Riviera CC and the Mediterranean Juniors for their hospitality.

entrecasteaux cricket club, fraaaaaarnce

A bit of grass roots sanity for a moment. The Torygraph has located what readers believe to be the best village cricket grounds in the UK. Here is the winner:

Bridgetown Cricket Club in Somerset

A few years ago I had tickets to the Sunday of The Oval test between England and the West Indies. My mates came along to stay in London and we were excited by the prospect of a good day’s cricket in Kennington. Imagine how dissapointed we were to see the Windies rolled in less than three days, leaving us without any quality cricket to watch.

So instead we ploughed up to St Johns Wood to watch the final of the Village Cup for FREE. A decent club side from South Wales stuffed a village side from the West Midlands, and although there was controversy as to whether the Welsh side was actually a village (I recall that it was a village, but was too good to be considered to be in the true spirit of ‘village’) everyone had a great day out at Lords.

Yesterday, several thousand spectators saw Woodhouse Grange from somewhere near York (Yorkies love a freebie) beat southern side Findon to lift the Village Cup. Read all about it on Cricinfo. Shame it wasn’t televised and broadcast live mind. That would have been truely village!

Not one usually to delve into local cricketing matters, and definitely not one to big up a club side I don’t play for, however TVC was struck by a remarkable batting performance by Saeed Bin Nasir, who scored 256 out of Pilsley’s 368 for 2 in 46 overs against Denby’s 2nd XI.

Saeed is, according to Cricinfo, “a middle-order batsman who has been knocking on the doors of national selection for a while, has played first-class cricket for the last six seasons. He has toured with the Pakistan A team as well, but has been in search of an outstanding season which would catapult him into the national team. He was included in the squad for the first two Tests against Bangladesh in 2003-04, but failed to break into the final XI.”

Now, even for a man with fine first class and list A credentials, that is still some going. Even if he had batted all 46 overs, he still needed to personally score at rate approaching six runs an over, and given that one of his teammates scored 90-odd as well, he must have spent a fair proportion of the time at the non-striker’s end. Also, be aware that although Pilsley is a village, this cricket is certainly not! It is only two divisions down from Derbyshire Premier League, and is a division which also features the likes of Rajesh Ramesh (Karachi and Pakistan A) for Ambergate, Iain O’Brien (Wellington and New Zealand) for South Wingfield and Nilantha Cooray (Moors Sports Club and Sri Lanka A) for Darley Dale.

Take a look at his stats as Pilsley’s pro, which at the time of writing have not been updated to include the 256. There can’t be many better signings as a pro in English club cricket this season.

Jonny from accounts is steaming down the hill, despite almost tripping on the astro-matting, he delivers neither a wide or no-ball at a pace not exceeding 50mph. The ‘batsman’, the best player in the East Town Cabs Wednesday night XI almost swings himself off his feet to cuff the ball to point, where Derek (the smelliest programmer in the North West) drops the ball. Ho hum, at least you managed to get 11 players, even though three are wearing shorts!

Ahhh, the joys of work cricket. The evening class of village cricketers, 11-year-old sons, test match wannabes and the occasional decent player present to smash you all over the place. Squabbles over the batting order, retire at 25, “get on with it”, terrible running and even more terrible fielding. 16 eight-ball overs and finish in the dark.

You will play in the rain, probably nick off first up, and your team will lose yet another match in the Dave’s Pizza House Sponsored Evening Cricket League. Like roadcrash TV, you keep going back.