I can tell you with certainty that ...
Simplicity is one of the truly precious things
in this life
Live Simply by Annie Traurig
Hi everyone!
Even if - to quote AA Milne & Winnie the Pooh - you are a Bear of Little Brain, when the Fixtures for Season 2022 were first published, Friday 19th August looked a Simple Enough day …
It would be off to Taunton, the
annual trip to the Wild West.
To watch Sussex play an RL50 game against Somerset.
But – as Winnie knew only too well – Life isn’t always Simple.
Somerset decided to make the match an afternoon / evening game, starting at 2 o’clock. Finishing too late for me to catch the last train back to Paddington with onward connections back to Bickley.
So, the annual trip to the Wild
West was switched to the Somerset game v Durham on Wednesday 10th
August.
See: http://lord-ric.blogspot.com/2022/08/our-paths-may-change.html
Now with a free day on Friday 19th, it was back to the Fixtures …
What about Kent v Yorkshire at Canterbury?
I spoke with Graham Bishopp (‘Bish’) – a lifelong Kent fan, a friend from school and, like me, a Co-Founder of the Upper Banner Farm Cricket Club, the iconic UBFCC - who confirmed he would be going along.
In truth, it is a Simple enough rail journey from Bickley to Canterbury. Bickley to Bromley South, change at Bromley South for the Canterbury train and then a short walk up the Old Dover Road.
As I crossed the footbridge at
Canterbury station, it just didn’t look that familiar …
That was because I had gone to Canterbury West, not East !!
Faced with a 1½ mile walk, twice
the distance from the correct station, Google Maps soon got me heading through
Canterbury, past The Cricketers in St Peter’s Street.
On by the Whitefriars Shopping Centre, I crossed the A28 inner ring road and headed up the Old Dover Road.
As you turn off the public road
into the Kent ground you pass Keepers Close.
A memory of all those wonderful
Kent Wicketkeepers…
Les Ames, Godfrey Evans and, of course, Knotty, Wisden’s selection in 2013 for the World Alltime XI (I guess Young Jim must have been unavailable !!!).
Time - and there is never need for
any excuse – for a telling of the game TW Borderers played away at Newick.
Let the scorebook show for ever that Piers Morgan ( yes, that Piers Morgan) was ... Stumped Bishopp !
In the photo - from the celebration of Kent's 150th Birthday - the gentleman in the front row in the blazer is Alan Knott.
To His right is a gentleman in a
grey sports jacket.
Now Knotty has his fans to be the
Greatest wicket keeper the game has ever known
But he never ever stumped Piers Morgan !!
(Editor: dear readers, many of you may be thinking very little is actually true in a Lord Ric Blog… but this tale definitely is !!).
As I finally took my seat in the upper tier of the Frank Woolley stand, Yorkshire were batting with the score about 60 without loss.
The Yorkshire innings progressed steadily with Top 3 all scoring 50+: Will Fraine 68, Harry Finaly Duke 85 and Bean 61.
At 235 for 4 after 40 overs it looked Simple enough for the score to get around 325.
But Life isn’t always Simple …
A couple of rain showers meant that the Yorkshire innings was reduced by 5 overs to a 45 overs a side match. They finished on 282 for 6.
At this point you might be thinking that Kent would need to score 283 to win.
But oh no … the Duckworth Lewis System
(‘DLS’) required Kent to score 14 more runs than Yorkshire.
297 to win !
It was a moment when - to be frank
– you needed a DLS World Expert to explain what on earth was going on.
Fortunately, we had Martin Hansell, a friend from Tunbridge Wells Borderers Cricket Club.
Watching with The Lads - Bish & Martin
(I think Martin explained that) It is all to do with Yorkshire would have scored more than the 283 they did if they had known from the start (rather than after 40 overs) they would have an innings of 45 overs, not the regulation 50.
When Kent batted Joey Evison was out first ball. DLS went into overdrive and immediately Kent were 30 behind the required run rate.
Though getting ever further behind DLS, Ben Compton (grandson of Denis who was Young Jim’s favourite cricketer and cousin of Ben) scored a steady 81, Ollie Robinson (not the Sussex one !) 59 and Joe Denly 61.
The Kent No.6 looked a Really Good
Player !!!
Harry Zacariah Finch … played for
Sussex & was born in Hastings.
(Editor: dear readers, absolutely no need to ask Lord Ric where he was born …)
But when Harry was out for 42, Kent were 274 for 6; needing 23 to win off just 17 balls.
Harry Podmore scored 8 off 5 balls, leaving 7 off 4 balls.
The new batsman Hamidullah Qadri scrambled a single.
The Kent No. 7 Grant Stewart declined a single off Matthew Revis’ penultimate ball to leave everything on the Final Ball.
What can I tell you about Grant
Stewart?
His story is far from Simple !!
Born in Kalgoorlie, Western
Australia, Grant is a graduate engineer from the University of Newcastle in New
South Wales.
He made his First Class debut for
Kent in 2017.
Earlier in 2022 he was loaned to Sussex
for one game.
Grant’s mother is Italian and in 2021 he played for Italy in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier.
Not too many other players, perhaps, with an Italian & Sussex connection.
But there is one …
He was born in Milan on 15 May 1935.
All my life I’ve known only too well that
I was a Bear of Little Brain.
That - for me – it just had to be Simplicity
is one of the truly precious things in this life.
Grant Stewart may never have heard of
the Sussex player born on 15 May 1935.
And - even if he has – he probably doesn’t know that Edward Ralph Dexter was born in Milan, Italy.
It had all come down to One Ball Left - Six To
Win.
With Bish & Martin scarcely
able to look , I thought of what would would Ted would have down … …
Never in doubt, was it ??!!
For Lord Ted knew the Essential
Message of Life:
Give It Go !!!
Grant Stewart pulled Matt Revis
through backward square leg for a Huge Six.
To a huge cheer from the home crowd.
In the end … it had been a Simple Enough day !!
---
We are well into Season 2022, just a few weeks of Fixtures left.
Do get out your diary & have a look at the fixtures for the remaining weeks of Season 2022.
I really hope that you’ll come along and watch cricket with me.
I can’t promise you that the game
will actually go to the Final Ball.
Though it surely will have done by the time I write the Blog !!
After all ….
Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can star in your own.
See you soon!!
Lord
Ric of Beckley Furnace
PS
During the afternoon I had been e-following the game in Taunton.
It turned out to be a Simple win for Sussex.
Scoring 397 for 5, Sussex won by 196 runs.
The Sussex opener Ali Orr is just 21 years old.
His score of 206 off 161 balls with 11 sixes and 18 fours was the
first ever List A double century by a Sussex player.
Beating the 174 made by Cheteshwar Pujara against Surrey at Hove just five days earlier. It is equal 5th place among the top scorers ever in List A cricket.
I thought back 59 Seasons to the first One Day Cup Final at Lords:
Sussex v Worcestershire.
65 overs a side.
Dad & I were at the game watching from the Mound Stand, cheering when Lord Ted lifted the Cup.
I doubt that either of us would ever have believed that a Sussex
batter would score 200 in a 50 overs game.
More than the entire Sussex XI that September Saturday now long, long ago.
Lord Ted, Young Jim & Snowy. All play in my Sussex Alltime XI.
This Tuesday Sussex play down at Hove Actually against top of the
table Middlesex in the RL50 Cup.
Win and the mighty Sussex definitely go through to the Quarter finals
Would any of Ted, Jim or Snowy even make the starting XI … …
What did that great cricket lover LP Hartley write in The
Go-Between?
The Past is a different country.
They do things differently there.
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