An average cricketers week

Sunday – You struggle out of bed, you probably have a hangover from the night before, initiated either by stunningly good performance with both bat and ball, (or more likely a stunningly bad performance with both bat and ball), both these are then followed by six pints of 1664 (or 10 bottles of Magners), followed by a triangular excursion first to Nural, followed by Reflex and then unconsciousness on whichever bed / bench / small patch of dog turd infested grass you happen to stumble upon first. You are also nursing a catalogue of niggling injuries that would lead an England fast bowler to be out for a summer. These injuries normally consist of one, two or all of the following; serious amounts of bruising on both your hands from the fielding session that brought two dropped catches and that at least one ball every two overs being smashed directly at you, leaving you no option but to try and stop it. A minor hamstring tear from having to turn and run to the boundary repeatedly, because at least one ball every over went straight through you much to the delight of the batsman and has led the captain to seriously consider slashing your tyres after the game. A dead shoulder from having to bowl any more 3 overs, coupled with all the throws from the boundary (that followed all the misfields). Finally a rather nasty back twinge from not warming down thoroughly before attempting to wipe your bum on the loo after the game.

If you have committed yourself to playing today (only due to the Sunday captain kidnapping your children / wife / girlfriend and threatening to send random body parts of theirs to you through the post until you agreed to join the Sunday XI trip to West Essex) you will need to shake off the injuries gained yesterday, get over the hangover headache, regain the ability to walk and get out there and do it all again today!


Monday – (See Sunday if you were one of the few the Sunday captain had what the mafia call ‘leverage’ over) If you learned from the last time they were taken, and sent your children into hiding for the week then you should be able to walk with only a slight limp and just about be able to cradle a pen in your hands without yelping like a Jack Russell terrier that has just been involved in a particularly grisly fight with an angry Doberman pincher. Conversations at work today will primarily revolve around ‘what you did at the weekend’ whilst you cant quite remember large chunks of the post game action of Saturday due to copious amounts of alcohol, the game itself remains stubbornly vivid in your memory. You now have the quandary over whether you lie to your work mates and tell them you scored a fifty (best not go for a hundred they will never buy that) and took two wickets, or tell the truth and say you got a big fat zero and dropped two catches? You make your decision and casually shrug off the questions about why you are not playing for Essex.


Tuesday – Work is already starting to lose what little appeal it had. Even though you swore that you ‘F***ing hated cricket’ when the 12 yr old child got you lbw on Saturday, you find your mind wandering back to cricket and the foremost question on your mind is “I wonder what team I will be this Saturday”. (Somewhere the fourth team captain is desperately trying to shuffle his side in the hope of making the answer to that question “none of them”)


Wednesday – The prospect of indoor cricket nets in the evening starts running around your mind as early as 09.03 with as ever the choice between potential practice and personal safety coming into play. You decide that you should risk it, who knows you may even get some confidence from it.


Thursday – Work colleagues marvel at the huge bump on the side of your head and the fact that the first two fingers on your right hand can now not be straightened. They all ask what you were doing to pick up such nasty looking injuries, you lie and say you were in a set upon by a gang of 15 yr olds (much less embarrassing that way) They know you are lying and secretly think you are crazy and have done for some time.


Friday - The prospect of cricket tomorrow is now looming large. Your level of anticipation has gone off the chart. You check the same 6 weather websites that you checked on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday seeking more information about Saturday and see that the forecast is for scattered showers, you begin to worry about the possibly having to spend some time with your family at the weekend rather than larking about with your mates pretending to be playing cricket.


Saturday – Day of the game dawns with bright sunshine. You wake and give a smile and tell your significant other that looks like you will get a game in after all; you feign disappointment that you can’t spend the day with them instead. Meet time is 12.00. How do you space out your meals? Do you get up at 7 and have breakfast then squeeze in lunch at 11 or do you wait in bed and go for one big meal at half ten? Decisions, decisions. You begin searching for the various pieces of equipment that you threw into various corners after last week. 11.30 comes around and you leave the house. Clouds begin to assemble in a threatening manner as soon as you put your keys in the ignition and they follow you to whichever ground you are going to. Tiny pin pricks of doubt start to appear in your mind; where will I bat? Will any catches be hit in my direction? Have I packed my box? Mild panic takes hold because you know you will only be able to find out once you get there.

These questions will all be answered during the course of another Saturday hitting or chasing a little red ball around a big field…..joy!

15 things The Voice has learned this week....

1) Stuart Elliott is now a fully qualified doctor, specialising in fingers. (‘The Family’ surgery is open Mon – Thurs 09.00 – 18.00, they also are able to help you with any horse problems you may have or unpaid debts you need collected)

2) Mark Sexton has turned 44 (Not 37 as he first announced to the dressing room)

3) When it is made with sheer hatred, vindaloo sauce can take on all the major characteristics of CS Gas, leading to eyes watering, machine gun like coughing, spontaneously combusting tongue and bleeding from various orifices around the body. (source: Mr L Willson)

4) Richard Bassett’s female friend having consumed a fair deal of this (particularly nasty) sauce without experiencing these side-effects, is therefore made of steel and should not be trifled with. (The trifle in the Taj Mahal, although not sampled in person, should also possibly not be trifled with)

5) No-one in the Stanford-Le-Hope first team has ever seen Geoff Boycott hit a six (They have however now seen Dave Clarke hit a six)

6) Jack Sexton is wittier than Rob Catchpole (Fact)

7) Joe Green still has pad rash from Saturday (Watching Liston bat like Tavare (again) is never good)

8) The club actually has four overseas players:

C Villani - Australia
B Chin - China/ Vietnam
D.Clarke - Bosnia
S Elliott - Russia

9) Tucking your cricket trousers into your socks when batting is no longer a valid option (Stanford’s second team has highlighted this, in a variety of colours)

10) Steve Elliott has no respect for his brothers property (This is particularly surprising seeing as most of his Sean’s property is actually the property of someone else, just residing with the Russian until the actual owners realise they have gone missing)

11) Chris Villani is starting to struggle to get into his compression shirt (The fact he has 17 sandwiches, 3 pizza slices, 5 handfulls of crisps, 4 fairy cakes and 2 chocolate bars for tea every week could be taking its toll on the Aussie firebrand, a head to head weigh off vs Damian is due for a months time, book your seats on http://www.heavyaustralian.com/ now to avoid disappointment!)

12) Rob Catchpole is in a gang of hoodies on tiny scooters (Called ‘The Robettes’)

13) Matt Wallace has recently bought himself a ‘stinger’ just in case ‘The Robettes’ scoot round his way.

14) The vortex is at Dean Waller’s house (Probably cowering in the corner, hands on its knees, rocking slightly)

15) The second team number 3 spot is clearly made for ginger left handers (Ginger left-handers at number 3 ave - 76.6, non ginger left handers ave – 25.3)

Is there an I in Team?

Once again I find myself taking stock of the game that we happy band of miscreants have elected to spend most of our adult lives pursuing something approaching respectability in. It’s clear that cricket gets into our psyche the way that almost nothing else can. When was the last time that you looked forward to anything as much as the next time you bat after you score a 50? Birthdays, weddings, births of your children and other so called special occasions hold nothing in comparison to the anticipation of a sunny Saturday afternoon when we are in good form.

It is possibly the complexity and contrasts of the game that drive us into putting heart, soul, body and in Stuart’s case all of his fingers fully into performing? The general slow nature of the game which most uninitiated see as the major drawback of cricket, we few know is actually the most tense periods, both teams in their respective trenches shelling from long range knowing that something could go off at any time to spark the game ‘going right off’! Then suddenly its wickets tumbling, runs piling up rapidly or someone going completely bananas because a catch goes down or a decision goes against them.

Although cricket is a team game, the team is obviously going to be made up of a wide variety of individuals. All of these take a different view on their role within the club and the game as a whole. However is team ethic a prevalent feature in everyone’s cricket psyche? Seemingly more and more cricketers are thinking less about ‘we’ and more about ‘me’.

Individual performances are vital to the team being successful. Where would the West Indies be in the last decade without Mr Brian Charles Lara? Maybe a more pertinent point would be; was BC sitting on the balcony hoping that one of his team-mates got out? We will probably never know, (unless of course Chris Gayle stops smoking dope and writes an autobiography) although I happen to think KP always wants Strauss and Bell to get out ASAP so he can stride to the crease waving his woodworm around.

Selfishness in cricket can take many forms, every captain of the club that has sought to maximise their own impact on a game by both batting high up the order and doing a bit of bowling has been labelled ‘Seado’. Mostly all these captains have had justifiable reasons for ‘getting in the game’, as most have needed to lead their team like Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar due to the performances of their charges being less like the finest crack shots of the Royal Navy and something more in keeping with a ragged bunch of rum soaked shipwrecks.

Selfish batting is possibly the easiest form of securing full value for £6, meandering along at our own pace irrespective of the game situation or the good of our team-mates. Who can forget the purgatory of watching David ‘Test Match’ Thompson in his prime, smashing third team bowling all around Belfair’s park and being not out with 64 at the end of 52 overs. Recently other players have taken on this slow scoring mantle (not all of them native to these shores); however a new ingredient has been added to the turkey’s mix. Now the selfish batter will sit on the sidelines positively chomping at the bit to get out into the middle to face the oppositions bowling which, in the eyes of the (very) eager watcher, is delivering nothing but a string of half volleys and long hops that everyone batting is just too timidly restrained to dispatch. This cafeteria serving then becomes a string of unplayable deliveries when they finally get to the crease and they find it just a little bit harder swotting it all over the ground than it appeared from the boundary. I am sure we have all at one point in our cricket lives found it is rather difficult not wishing ill on at least one of your team if you are sitting there having carded a low score, always better having two of you with a duck rather than being the only player in the team who couldn’t get to 30.

But in truth selfishness in cricket is no bad thing, relentless run getters such as Waugh, Boycott, Dravid and Monk could all be looked at in a negative light but they put runs on the board. They all give their team a platform with which to go forward and get something from a game. No-one (except the truly selfish player) really minds others getting bagfuls of runs as long as everyone bats to contribute to the team as well as for that feeling of self worth you get from scoring more runs than anyone else!