Listening to cricket
Having started at nine o’clock yesterday morning, and having finished at ten o’clock last night, it seemed reasonable to finish at five o’clock today. The trouble, though, is that free evenings have become times of doing nothing in particular and then reaching eleven o’clock and wishing something constructive had been done with the time.
The time is generally wasted watching re-runs of detective series on ITV 3 with the good lady of the house commenting that she is sure we have seen it before. (Last night, a moment of uncertainty came in an episode of “Lewis” when Sergeant Hathaway couldn’t gain access to a locked swimming pool. Would he jump through a glass ceiling or break down the door? It was the latter, perhaps it was Inspector Frost who jumped through a ceiling when someone was in danger of being murdered in a swimming pool.) Tonight the detective was Miss Marple, who seems only to have a nasty edge when played by Geraldine McEwan and who is often annoyingly smug, and, anyway, the episode was one that had been broadcast several times before.
Opening the CricInfo App on the phone to see where Somerset might be losing (Somerset tend to lose more often than they win), the score from Taunton showed they were bowling tightly in a Twenty-Twenty match against Essex. Opening the website on the desktop, it offered a link to a BBC cricket commentary. A further click, and it was the County Ground on an early summer’s evening with the commentator expressing delight in the beautiful view of the Quantock Hills from the commentary box high in the new stand.
It was like being at home. Being born in the hospital that once stood in Taunton’s Canon Street, a hundred yards or so from the gates of the cricket ground, cricket coverage offers a tie to childhood years and the many, many visits to Taunton and parking in the shadow of one of the medieval churches in the town centre.
The ease with which it is possible to listen to a match is extraordinary. Live cricket coverage of anything other than major matches was rare in times past.
The first commentary from Taunton I recall was a Gillette Cup match in 1979. Somerset played Kent and, batting first, scraped their way to just 190 runs of sixty overs, an innings in which a solidly built batsman called Graham Burgess was top scorer with fifty runs. The commentators thought it far too small a total for Somerset to win the match and believed Kent, a team filled with top class players, would ease themselves to victory. What followed was an hour and half of an eighteen year old leaping with delight as the Kent batting was destroyed by the six foot nine West Indian bowler Joel Garner and rising England star Ian Botham: Kent were out for just sixty runs leaving Somerset the victors by a massive one hundred and thirty run margin.
Would there be a record of the match on the Internet? Indeed, there was. Wednesday, 8th August 1979. There was even a full scorecard on the CricInfo website. The only mystery that remains is how I came to be at home listening to the match, I should have been at work that day.
I remember working with English and NZ people who’d have BBCRadio4 on just to listen to the cricket. It was always a mystery to me. And something that I found to be an ideal sport for the passive aggressive.
It was only with a NZ guy telling me about the West Indies and their short to the head bowling style that I realised it had an interesting history.
Did you know that in the 1850 there was more teams in Tipperary, than Hampshire, lost to the GAA. And Kilkenny had a more than a few too. I think pretty much any large farm slash estate supported a team. Makes you wonder if it wasn’t a game with a wider spread and perhaps deeper in history than it’s home in Maida Vale would suggest.
Have you encountered Road Boweling in Co. Cork. I suspect that is a variant.
Cricket is a complete sub-culture! I must admit to having frequently listened to commentary where the game being played was almost incidental to reminiscence and discussion.
RTE Radio ran a feature a few years ago on cricket in 19th Century Ireland. It seems the strongest hurling counties were once the cricketing areas – I suppose the focus would have been on sports that drove out the “foreign games.”
I have only seen road bowling once, a Sunday morning in May near Clonakilty about fifteen years ago. It seemed to demand a lot of co-ordination, strength and skill (and is probably illegal!).
I waas thinking more the awareeness and understanding of ‘spin’ that would be requuirred to roound corners and likening it to spin bowling. The hurling areas are the Marcher areas. Awkward sods were put there by both sides.
Sorry new kkkey board bluettootheed to the tablet. Too many oor doesn’t print the letter at all. 1st world issues eh.
I hadn’t thought about the wrist action in both spin bowling and road bowling. Leg spin bowling is the most extraordinary physical accomplishment
In the East you has slingers, a la the young David who would pound an advancing phalanx with fist sized stones. I expect the bowling is the hand delivered version. The batting on the other hand I’ve no clue. ‘Tis hard to see someone standing bare legged with a lump of wood to whack a rounded stone. But there’s no doubt a belt of a cricket ball would do damage to a shin, never mind what a stone would do.
My particular favourite was having TMS on all through the night – waking every so often to listen to the score and the stories from West Indies and Australia particularly
The crackling sound of 198 longwave never bothered me. My wife purchased an internet radio for a present – I don’t think she was equally ambivalent to the crackling (or cricket)
For an enjoyable 83 minutes – http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2011/0324/646666-irish-cricket-ireland-icc-world-cup-2007-cwc-07/
I remember the 2007 World Cup vividly!
I am sorry it is no longer possible to listen to 198 Long Wave in most of Ireland. The swearing by the Guerilla Cricket commentators was enough to make me turn it off.