Week 3

Kilve – Away

Countryfile on Sunday evening is a must see programme, nothing to do with Helen Skelton, Julia Bradbury or Ellie Harrison (but they do help), it is about the weekly weather forecast at about 45 minutes in to the programme.

Why is this significant, especially in the summer? Well isn’t it obvious, it gives you an early, and accurate, indication of the likely weather for the end of the week and the weekend. In other words will the weather be ok for cricket?

This particular broadcast certainly took my eye, again nothing to do with Helen...etc. but to do with the expected heat wave coming across the country from Thursday onwards, and hopefully staying put for at least the next four months.

So as the week goes on, the forecasters gave a more accurate forecast and it looked good for Saturday, in fact the whole weekend. Good news for Stowey and Somerset.

So then a decision had to be made by myself, whether to do the trip to Kilve with the 2^nd XI, umpire part of the game and then bugger off to watch the FA Cup Final, or forget the final completely as I have a hunch that Arsenal will muck it up again and umpire the whole Kilve v Stowey game or just embrace the whole FA Cup ritual, watch FA Cup Mastermind, It’s a Knockout etc. Decisions, decisions, hmm, what to do?

The only thing nagging me was that we are over half way through May and I haven’t done a bit of umpiring so far this season. I have promised both 2^nd XI Skipper Carl and Under 15’s manager Tina I would be available to help, but so far have done absolutely nothing.

Carl even sent me a text to remind me, but to be fair he did subtly mentioned football in the text. I think I did reply, but I did have my nose stuck in the Umpire’s Bible, my new edition of Tom Smith’s. Need to be reminded in the rules now and again - I think counting to six is the hardest thing!

Cricket began in earnest on Friday, Somerset played Gloucestershire away at Bristol in their first T20 game and won. Stowey Under 11’s played North Curry away. Both of which I was unable to attend, as I went to a party on Friday somewhere in South Gloucestershire. Stowey 1^st XI were at home against Bagborough, and the 2^nd XI played Kilve away on the Saturday. And on Sunday the under 15’s were at home as well as Somerset where Surrey (Batty, Smith etc) were the visitors.

Ok, mind made up, FA Cup final on Saturday (might watch the 1^st XI for a bit), umpire the Under 15’s on Sunday and then a trip to Taunton for T20 cricket. Oh how I love the sunshine, cider and cricket. I did contemplate going to Kilve, hoping that Stowey would be batting first and thus the game could be over by kick-off. So I could still do a bit of umpiring, watch the FA Cup Final and have all day Sunday to do umpiring and watch Somerset. In other words I still hadn’t made up my mind.

So what happened was.....

Saturday:

·         Went to watch FA Cup Final Question of Sport – wasn’t on, and nor was the overhead helicopter which would normally film the teams leaving their hotel going to Wembley via the team coach .

·         Went to Stogursey May Fair – not much there.

·         Went to watch the 1^st XI for a while– not much going on there either.

·         Watched the FA Cup Final – I wished I was at Kilve, especially after the first 10 minutes.

·         Drank cider before, during and after the cup final. 

Sunday:

·         As this is about the 2^nd XI Grand Tour of the West Somerset Cricket League I was trying to find out what happened, well as Carl summed it up as an ‘unmitigated disaster’ and was somewhat reluctant to talk about it.

·         Umpired the Under 15’s – well some of it anyway

·         Went to watch Somerset – Jade Denbach is a bigger idiot than last time I wrote about him. One thing for sure he is just a bog standard County bowler and will never make the grade at International level. 

Eventually I found out what happened to the super two’s, they got hammered, Kilve batted first and hit 212-7, Stowey replied with 73 all out. Carl said that he had planned to bat first if he won the toss, and what happened, he won the toss and put Kilve in to bat. Last time he is going to do that.

However he did go on to say that the youngsters done well, Stephen Miller and Lee Rich taking five wickets between them. Apparently Stephen is a bit worried that when he bats he is turning in to a Mark Sortwell; can you bat like a snail instead, that is much faster.

Something really annoying also happened over the week; I missed an Over Stowey friendly against a Les Biffen XI on the Wednesday evening. A clue was ll the cars in the ground as I drove passed that evening, me think it was the youth playing a cup game.

So when I consulted the fixture card, which I designed and should of know there was a friendly going on, I found to my annoyance that it was the Les Biffen match, a match which usually involves cider before, during and after the game... drat and double drat!

Anyway, as a footnote, while watching Somerset in a recent home game against Nottinghamshire, I was sat with Simon Pickard and Mark Sortwell. We were talking all things cricket and we started to compare the Somerset skipper, Marcus Trescothick, with Stowey’s influential batsman, Phil Rich. We came to this conclusion:

·         They both deal only in boundaries

·         They both are reluctant to run a second

·         They are both not the fastest between the wickets

·         They both field in the slips or close in on the square

·         They are both very knowledgeable about the game

·         And they both like sausages

Oh, by the way, I missed Countryfile on Sunday, sorry Helen, Julia and Ellie, something to do with sun, cider and cricket!