Scooping the Sweepstake

On a day when Mr Ramprakash passed 35,000 first class runs, and went 39th on the all-time list, I had my own, albeit it comparatively miniscule, success: my second ever betting win. (See Grand Ambitions for the first.) Today was Day 2 of the County Championship match between Surrey and Glamorgan at The Oval. Despite Mr Ramprakash's milestone, Alviro Petersen's maiden double century and a record third wicket stand for Glamorgan against Surrey, it hadn't - like yesterday - been the most exciting day of cricket when the tenth Glamorgan wicket fell a couple of balls after lunch. Enthusiasm was reasonably high for a sweepstake and, somewhat predictably, the Surrey score at close of play was selected. Guesses ranged from 205 to 281, with number of wickets down from the supremely optimistic none to five. Bids were noted, pounds produced and a banker appointed. Only one of the participants seemed at all concerned about the outcome, assuming that, even before scoring slowed and wickets were falling, his lowest total would prevail. We heard many plans of what he'd be doing with his winnings and his repeated clarification with the banker that the nearest number would win rather than going bust when one's score was passed.

For a while, it did seem that his faith would be rewarded. However, as the number of overs remaining neared single figures, uncertainty began to enter his voice. The batsmen kept up a reasonable rate and his total, and then the upper limit of his range, passed with overs still to be bowled. It seemed that Surrey might make nearer 250 than 200 - and so it turned out. Play concluded at the end of the sixty sixth over, the score was 240-6 and the nearest guess 243. And it was mine! Good job that wickets down was only to be used as a tie-breaker since, with the usual optimism of my simple plans, I'd gone for without loss. The pot was handed over with much goodwill and now I have the hard job of working out exactly how best to spend … six quid!

Canalway Cavalcade

The Royal Wedding/May Day public holiday weekend saw London's Little Venice hosting the 2011 Canalway Cavalcade.  Having enjoyed several canal boat family holidays, and always keen to visit any of London's waterways and bridges, I happily headed north in glorious sunshine.  In its oasis of leafy calm, there were oads of gorgeously decorated canal boats moored side by side.  The towpath was lined with interesting little stalls selling a tempting range of food, trinkets and suchlike, music played, Morris men danced, beer was drunk, Punch & Judy performed and, apart from a few unfortunate stall-holders trapped in the shade and a surprisingly biting breeze, a good time appeared to be being had by many.

I discovered Britain's Best Pork Scratchings, couldn't resist a bag of fluffy pink candyfloss, found a solution for sunbathing with shorter hair, and bought a tray of little herb plants.  The first two, with a glass of Pernod, provided me with a really yummy mid-afternoon snack when I got home, which was quickly followed by some authentically sticky baklava.  Balanced diet not - but a lot of fun and perhaps a combination soon to seen on a Heston Blumenthal menu.  Amazingly, ten days on, the herbs are still alive - and even thriving, apart from the basil, which seems to be the local snails' current favourite snack - on my kitchen windowsill; giving me hope that I might be capable of growing something green after all.

It was a downside not to be able to revisit my memories of standing on a canal boat and feeling the floor move beneath my feet - and perhaps the detrimental effects of quite such a large sugar and fat blast on my waistline and teeth.  Dangerously, I've discovered that the pork scratchings are available by post: can't see that I'm going to be able to resist indulging again, although perhaps I'll just partner them with the Pernod next time …

The Ashes Revisited (1981)

One film about cricket being shown at the cinema is an unusual event but this week there have been two: Fire in Babylon and From the Ashes.  Remarkable.  Both are documentaries that make extensive use of original footage, supplemented by insightful, honest and revealing interviews, contemporary and recent, with the main protagonists and journalists.  Each has had a one off showing across the UK, followed by a live satellite Q&A session from a London cinema.  Both will shortly be on general cinema release, quickly followed by DVDs.
 

Fire in Babylon is about the emergence of the great West Indian cricket team, with its stars Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding, and directed by Stevan Riley.  From the Ashes, directed by James Erskine, is about the 1981 England v Australia series, which is generally known as "Botham's Ashes" but is actually about far more.

I certainly didn't watch, analyse and dwell upon every moment of the 1981 Ashes series as I have with the more recent ones.  It was, however, when I first became aware of cricket, and started to try to work out some of complexities of the game.  Oddly, I don't have my own memories of either Botham's anguishes and failures before he was relieved of the England captaincy, or of his heroic and liberated batting and bowling afterwards, although I have, of course, seen much footage of all of that many times since.  My memories from the time are of Kim Hughes, the blond, stylish and dashing Australian captain, in the field, Bob Willis's amazingly focussed, some have said crazed, bowling spell at Headingley, and the calm, shrewd and effective captaincy of Mike Brearley, the amazing effect of which was obvious even to a confused novice like me.

All of this, and much more, appears in the documentary, alongside political and social events at the time in the UK, backed by a terrific soundtrack, with which I didn't manage to resist singing along.  I gained insight into the huge challenges that Kim Hughes endured from members of the Australian team, such as Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, who were disrespectful to him and his office - and freely admitted so.  I appreciated just how fragile the situation was at Headingley and that it could just as easily, if not even more easily, gone horribly wrong rather than marvellously right.  I heard Willis, Brearley and Botham express insecurities about their position in the team and how they were viewed by management and fellow players.  And it was clear once again that every successful Ashes series has at least one player for whom it was not a personal playing triumph: encouraging to hear the great David Gower admit that in 1981 it was him.

There can't be an England cricket fan who doesn't know the outcome of the 1981 series, nor that it turned on Botham's performance at Headingley, but there was plenty new in the film for me, and I imagine that many others - of all ages -  may find that their understanding, appreciation and memories are enhanced by these 90 minutes of cricket.  The portrayal of some of the social and political events of the time - riots on city streets, recession, a fairly new Conservative Prime Minister, and a Royal Wedding - are interesting, not least in their parallels to today.  It's also intriguing to see how life has changed for England cricket stars: much enhanced pay, benefits and lifestyle, but also much less freedom, and opportunity to live as normal men.

Such was my enjoyment of what I gained - from the film and the Q&A afterwards - that I'll gallantly forgive the film-makers for a shot of an inappropriate dial telephone.  It was certainly old enough to have been used in 1981 and the number was for the Marylebone exchange, so might have been Lord's, but the dialling code was wrong.  In 1981, London still had its famous, and rightful, 01 code; 071 was not introduced until the other end of the decade.  Once a telephone engineer's daughter, always a telephone engineer's daughter!

The Ashes Revisited (2010/11)

This week, the documentary film From the Ashes allowed us to revisit England's 1981 Ashes victory.  Last week, however, it was last winter's win that I was reliving.  And in the actual, rather than satellite, presence of one of the main participants: Andrew Strauss, the double Ashes winning captain no less.  Courtesy, it cannot be said too often or with too much gratitude, of Simon "The Cricket Analyst" Hughes, who ran a Twitter competition.  Anyone who considers Twitter to be a complete waste of time might just want to think again.

When Simon announced on Twitter that he'd be running a competition for an evening with Mr Strauss re-enjoying last winter's cricket down under, I assumed that (a) the question would be completely impossible (certainly a characteristic of other competitions that the Analyst has run on Twitter) and (b) the world, his brother, his dog and Geoffrey Boycott's grandmother would enter.  The task was to identify a player on the Cricket Analyst mobile app (iPhone/Android), which some might cynically think was a sales ploy.  Even if it was, the purchase price was insignificant compared to the prestige of the prize.  Anyway, I had already obtained the app for a bargain price at the end of some irrelevant one-day international tournament held on the sub-continent.  I assumed that the player would be someone very obscure.  Actually, it was Brad Hogg and, very helpfully, the app told me so.  I emailed my answer off to Simon, wished him well with sorting through the avalanche of replies and hoped that he, Mr Strauss and the lucky winners would have a very happy evening.  Then I moved on to waste (sorry, invest) time on some other pursuit.

I think that there were two factors in my favour.  One, the competition was running early-afternoon in the middle of the week.  Two, and possibly more significant, entry was to be made by email not Twitter reply; plenty of people didn't seem to have noticed that.  When an email from Simon Hughes dropped in my inbox, I assumed that it was of the polite "sorry, but thanks for your interest" kind.  Amazingly, no, I had won.  I thanked him immediately and profusely and then checked that the prize was two tickets.  Apparently, no, it was only supposed to be one, but he was prepared to make an exception.  More thanks, apologies for seeming cheeky and off to break the news to my best cricket girlfriend.

Joining instructions required us to make our way to The Park Club in west London (a very obscure part of town for me) and to be attired in the ubiquitous "smart casual".  Full of excitement, but still not quite sure what would be happening, we complied, presented ourselves at reception as "guests of Simon Hughes" and found ourselves in a large white marquee, seated right at the front on Table 1.  I found my nerves rising to a level similar to that I'd last felt on 24 November 2010 waiting for the series to begin.  Suddenly, Mr Strauss was on the stage in front of us, sporting a rather severe haircut, which you might have noticed in the publicity photographs of the new trio of England captains taken the following day.

We saw, cheered and clapped lots of footage from the five Test Matches.  Simon Hughes asked our captain lots of decent questions and an occasional rubbish one.  We knew how Mr Strauss had felt getting out to the third ball of the series: we'd all watched and endured it with him - and feared what disaster might follow.  He handled them all with aplomb, humour and honesty.  Time flew by, we got some good insight into how our captain felt about his own performance, those of some of his fellow players, and what he thought of the Australian captain's "new" hair (amongst other things).

Whoever had the very bright idea of serving a supper of curry and rice was a genius; whoever thought that an early-May evening event in a marquee in London did not need heating was not.  It was terrific to relive those memories, and in such special company, but it would have been even more fab if it hadn't been quite so chilly.  (Memories of the MCG on Boxing Day 2006 returned.)  Finally, the video footage reached the marvellous moment when Strauss raised the urn, red and white tickertape fell and I felt almost as excited as I had four months earlier.  There was a raffle for charity.  Someone won a bat: not me, but I felt that I'd been plenty lucky enough just to be there.

A truly lovely evening.  Thanks, once again, to The Cricket Analyst and Twitter - and to Mr Strauss.  Long may you remain our captain; those other two are the heir and spare, and long may they stay that way.

Supporting Surrey to Success

The first one-day match of the season for Surrey on Sunday saw Scotland welcomed as the opposition at The Oval.  Not the most competitive of matches, with, thankfully, little need for nail biting or gnashing of teeth. 

There was a pitch invasion from the Laker Stand by a topless young boy, who earned a stern talking to from a steward for his transgression.  Scotland's Calvin Burnett earned vociferous approval from the crowd when he eventually gave an autograph to a female "fan", who didn't seem to have entirely grasped that his job was to pay attention to what was happening on the field rather than to her. 

I enjoyed eating my first British strawberries of the season (surprisingly tasty for so early) while sitting on the outfield during the innings break (but failed to notice Chris Tremlett practising his bowling).  Happily, it was a most comprehensive seven wicket victory for the home side, which was very well received by the spectators and did a little to ease my pain from the debacle at Lord's in the three (sorry, four) day match earlier in the week.  My scorecard's not quite fully completed, as I didn't always notice precisely when each over ended, but the really important bit in the top left hand corner looks just fine to me!

Pleased, I assume, with their victory on Sunday, Surrey headed to Southampton on Monday to play the sterner seeming opposition of Hampshire.  I followed this one on Twitter, Facebook and through the great ;ECB mobile app and "watched" with an odd mixture of increasing excitement and terror as Surrey took wicket after wicket to have Hampshire all out for only 141 after just 30 overs.  Others were full of confidence for an easy win but once Surrey started batting, my fears began to be realised as early wickets tumbled.  At 47-5 after 13, I was pretty sure that I'd be drinking consolation, rather than celebratory, rosé with my supper.  The next 20 overs, while Jason Roy and Matthew Spriegel painstakingly rebuilt the innings, seemed endless and I hardly dared breathe.  (Why did I imagine that was going to make a difference one way or another?)  Eventually, the scoreboard on my mobile showed 142, I inhaled deeply, the tension drained out of my body and I reached for the corkscrew.

I thought recreational interests were supposed to be good for one's health?  Supporting Surrey this season is going to be anything but if they keep throwing away great positions.  Perhaps they've learned their lesson from this week's experiences?  I'm going to try to follow the advice given in response to one of my Facebook comments: "Enjoy it while it lasts, because tomorrow … well you know the rest!"  And, as a start, I'm taking pleasure at Surrey being top of their group (and having the best run rate across all three groups).  Tomorrow is another day and I'll handle it when it comes.