After some unpleasant weekends with opposition batsmen querying whether they had 28 runs and NOT 27, umpires questioning my 30 years of scoring (eek) and an opposition fielder deciding to empty his nose several times infront of Mary until she put a stop to it, and loudly commenting on every delivery (except when his went to the boundary), how pleasant it was this Saturday. A journey down the M4 to the beautiful ground at Englefield set in the grounds of Englefield House, a country pile resembling Hogworts, this was a magical afternoon. Ok, so the usual suspects were still to arrive at T-5 minutes, but in a rare show of sympathy and sportsmanship, the oppo skipper delayed the start so that we did not have to take the field with 6 men, which might also have been against the Laws ancient and modern. I almost felt embarrassed when we thrashed them by 6 wickets, the usual suspects having all arrived by over 2, 10 minutes after we should have started.
As thunder rolled to the north of us, my 15 year old nephew opened the bowling and took his first wicket for the 1XI with his third ball and barely flinched when Dave Walton returned the ball off Alex's head. Alex walked back to his mark trying not to show pain, and barely missed a stride.
Then off to Lardy's 40th birthday bash and a reunion with some characters of Hurley's past who sadly have lost that lovin feeling with village cricket. Numerous sprogs and nuptuals might also have played their part. We could have put together a fantastic Ex-Hurley XI (nearly) from Ches, Lardy, Mike T, Sonic, Chris Long and Bush. The rest of the side could have been made up from some still small Furneauxs and Dawkins who I really hope might continue their famous names in the club in years to come.
And finally, the death of Farah Fawcett was a bit more shocking to me than Michael Jackson. Ok, not such a super star, but a beautiful actress and a much more tragic story.
I don't usually agree with Ian Chappell but our summers are crap. Luckily we managed to call off our game on Saturday relatively quickly, get a beer in the pub and then sit down to 5 hours of sport on TV. I got to watch the Aussies going down to the awesome Chris Gayle which is always a bonus.
As an antidote to sky sports I went down the club on Sunday for a drowsey few hours of gentle cricket where the age span of Hurley was about 45 years. It was excellent to see two 15-year old colts (Jack Chambers and Sam Draper) enjoying their afternoon, oh for a few more. I managed to persuade a couple of my work mates to stop off at Hurley mid bike ride and Rita and Val chased around for keys so that I could offer them a beer and a packet of crisps while Darryn blasted away. Jonno managed one of the more bizarre methods of dismissal scooping the ball round into the keepers gloves. His explanation to son Theo that it was the pitch seemed to amuse my colleague while the cute lady cyclist checked for flies down her front and enquired if we play rounders. Sometimes I think we do.
My day was complete with England playing their get out of jail card in the self deprecating shape of Pietersen who ‘came to the party' as Botham explained to us while Bumble did not disappoint with ‘Start the car - it's all over' as the Pakistanis faded. Watch out for my next clichéd packed match report, I have to get Bumble's phrase in there when we beat Amersham Hill next week.
