For it is from the past that we learn

He who does not know his past cannot make the best of his present and future.

For it is from the past that we learn.

     Sheikh Zayed

Hi everyone!

And hello from Abu Dhabi.

Alongside visiting Nicole, I have been able to watch the Pakistan v England Test Match:  Days 1 to 3 at the Sheikh Zayed stadium.

It has been a tremendous few days, for this is most definitely not like watching cricket at my beloved Hove.

You buy your ticket from a portacabin, somewhat mysteriously placed some 400 metres from the stadium.

And as you walk to the ground, you can see games going on, played on sand,

I won’t overly dwell on the Catering ....

Day 1: vegetable samosas – never again

Day 2: meat biryani

Day 3: back to the vegetable samosas !!

As someone who often benefits from Mrs Lambourne’s Luxury Cricket Picnics; I’m never going on an overseas tour again without you, Sally!!

The weather has been in the mid 30 degrees in the shade of the South Stand; probably closer to 40 out in the middle.

One Old Timer (*) said it was the hottest temperature for a Test Match since The Don scored 169 at the MCG against Gubby Allen’s England on the Down Under tour of 1936/37 for the Aussies to win the series, having been 2 down with 3 to play.

* (Editor: that would be an Old Timer with access to Google!!)

For those of you who have watched T20s with me at Hove on a Friday evening and felt the chill of the Westerly wind whipping across the County Ground, well there’s absolutely no need for a jumper and an outdoor coat here!!

In truth, the crowd has been small. Not so much the Barmy Army as the Barmy Platoon. Probably 3 to 1 Pakistan to England supporters. Fantastic supporters: the Barmies starting each day with their singing of Jerusalem and the Pakistanis waving their flags and cheering on their team.

I was very fortunate to be joined on Day 2 by Dave Marshall, a friend of Nicole’s, and on Day 3 by Dave, his son Wilf and Wilf’s friend Mia.

They were great company. I look forward to seeing them at Hove when Pakistan visit to play Sussex in Summer 2016.

As for the game itself, by necessity I must be even more vague than usual.

There was a fantastic electronic scoreboard on the far side of the ground. But the combination of the sun and my fading eyesight meant I could only read it with any confidence in the last hour of each day’s play!

As I write this, at the end of Day 4 Pakistan have scored 523 for 8 declared, with England on 569 for 8, leading by 46 runs.

This is not a pitch on which to be a bowler, especially not a debutant. Poor old Adil Rashid, playing his first Test for England, bowled 34 overs for 163 runs and no wickets; the most number of first innings runs conceded on debut without a wicket.

Take heart, Adil, for another leg spinner’s first bowling stats were 150 for 1. But it didn’t turn out to badly for him: Shane Warne ended his career with 708 Test wickets and was voted one of  Wisden's Five Cricketers of the 20^th Century.

(Post Blog note: in the second innings Rashid took 5 for 64. Cricket, eh !! )

With such high scores, there were batting records as far as the eye could see.

Alastair Cook, the England Captain, scored 263 and batted 836 minutes, the 3^rd longest innings in Test history and the longest ever by an England player. To put the 836 minutes in context, it was longer the entire Test match at Trent Bridge in the 2015 Ashes.And longer than the combined total match time of England at the last Football and Rugby World Cups!

For Pakistan Shoaib Malik was playing his first Test match for over 5 years.His 245 was the first time it had ever been scored in Test cricket. Only 229 and 238 are left to complete a full set of scores from 0 to 250.

Sitting next to me on Day 1 was a youngish (late 20s?) guy who was following Twitter.

A few minutes after Malik scored his century, the young guy said he had just seen a tweet from Andrew Samson, the Test Match Special scorer, that Shoaib had joined a very select band of players who have scored a 100 in their comeback Test after missing 40+ Tests.

I saw him look again at the tweet.

Only one English player on the list, he said. Anyone know anything about who J Parks was?

Truly the Gods look after those in the desert in their hour of need … As Sheikh Zayed said: He who does not know his past cannot make the best of his present.

That would be Young Jim Parks, I said, my Favourite Player.

What would you like to know about him?

[Dear Reader: Please insert any – but surely not all - of the many stories you have heard me tell many, many times about Young Jim.]

I so, so enjoyed my 3 days at the Sheikh Zayed stadium.

Memories to treasure forever.

I will sign off with just one.

Watching England play overseas – especially with such a small crowd – you feel like part of a family. The players at the centre, of course, the backup staff, the media and finally the supporters.

Have a look at the photo, at the man in white shirt between the two umbrellas.

I had seen him on the first morning, on the edge of the outfield, looking at the England players warming up. He chatted to a couple of the England coaches.

And then about 15 minutes before Close of Play he made his way to sit by the photographers, whom he clearly knew very well, and watched the last few overs intently.

Every day he did exactly the same.

And every day I especially looked out for him, morning and evening.

At end of Day 3, as the England Captain walked back to the Pavilion not out 167, the man was one of the very first to stand up and applaud.

Most of us, I guess, have learnt to live contented lives, but by the Laws of Statistics  they are ordinary lives.

As I looked down at the man clapping, I wondered what it must be like to be a Sky Sports cricket commentator, to be paid to travel the world and to watch and talk about the game that you have loved all your life.

Beyond Wonderful indeed!

But what if you had played for England for 15 years in 102 Tests, scoring 5,200 runs and taking 383 wickets? If the scorecard had showed you as IT Botham?

Sir Ian and I have never met.

But we don’t need to for me to know that he would give up commentating in an instant if Cookie came over one morning and said: Beefy, we’re one short today, fancy playing?

After all ….

Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can be in one. ^©

See you soon!!

Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace

Follow me on Twitter: LordRic52

PS

It may not have been Hove, but some things never change.

My eyelids still get very heavy after lunch !!!

Because men all come and go

For cricket is never about one man.

Because men all come and go.

                                                                 

Gideon Haigh, The Times

Hi everyone !

Another Season over all far, far too quickly …

It was a very, very tense - and disappointing -  end to Season 2015.

Hampshire had looked certainties for relegation from Division 1 of the Championship. 26 points adrift at the bottom of the table as late as mid-July, they achieved one of the most successful turnarounds of recent seasons.

With three wins from their last five games and with Sussex losing their last game away to champion’s Yorkshire, Hampshire’s 163 points was two more than Sussex on 161, who were relegated along with Worcestershire.

So it is Division 2 for the Sharks in 2016.

Not much to recommend the lower division for the World’s Oldest Professional Cricket Club. 

But at least we get to play Kent; hopefully at the Nevill, where they “always” used to play when I was boy !!

In truth, 2015 wasn’t much of a season for Sussex. 

As well as relegation, and though we did get to the quarter finals of the t20, in the RL50 we only got any points from the three rain abandoned games !

But cricket for me is never just about results.

Thank you to all those who came along & watched with Lord Ric; perhaps for the first time or whether you started half a century ago and more.

(Come back soon, Young Man !!)

Though rained off games meant I didn’t get to Horsham or the Oval this year, there were lots and lots of days at my beloved Hove.
And the trips to the Ageas Bowl at Southampton, Arundel and Lords for day one of England v Australia in the Ashes.

And two wonderful sunny days with Old Chums at the Nevill.

And a very first trip to cricket – over 35 years since we first met - for Lady Piper for England women v the Aussies night game at Hove.

Indeed men all come and go and as with all seasons, we had to say goodbye:

To retiring players, such as Matt Prior and Mike Yardy, both legends from Sussex’s (latest) Golden Age.

And to those passing away, including Richie Benaud (for so long the Voice of Cricket on FreeToView: “Morning Everyone”) and Brian Close (who was playing for Yorkshire on my First Ever Visit to Hove in May 1960 and who may just have been a worse driver than me, if that’s possible!)

He once retrieved his car from the garage after major repairs, smacked into the back of a van within 100 yards of turning left out of the forecourt, did a U-turn at the first roundabout and checked it straight back in at the garage more surgery to the chassis.

Mike Walters, Daily Mirror

And to Anne Bowe, a close friend of Dianne’s from the Cancer Counselling group and a lifelong Leicestershire and David Gower fan.

Looking ahead to the Winter, I’m planning to have minor operations on both my eyes.

This season I haven’t really been able to read the scoreboard. 
I don’t think this has affected my blogs – quite frankly, Lord Ric blogs are never overly influenced by the exact details of the score!! 
But it became just too difficult to see out into the middle.

But before then, in mid-October I’m off to Pakistan v England at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi, just down the road from where Nicole lives. 

Think of the trip as a training camp for the Ashes Down Under with Lord Ric in 2017/18 !!

Let’s keep in contact over the coming months.

And definitely see you up by the sight screen at the Cromwell Road end when the Season 2016 starts in April  !!

Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can be in one. ^©

See you soon !!

Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace

PS
Follow me on Twitter : LordRic52

Plus ça change ...

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Les Guêpes by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr 

55 years on from my First Ever Visit who’d have guessed that just after 17.30 on Friday the Good Mrs Piper, Lady Lambourne and I would be walking round from Chatsworth Square to the Ground.

We walked past The Palmeira; not even a suggestion that there was time for a pint of Harveys!!

Never mind a second one !!!

We were soon seated in the front row at the Cromwell Road end; where else?

Dianne’s First Ever Visit to the Ground.

In fact, 35 years and more after we met, her First Ever Game of Cricket.

England Women v Australia Women in a T20.

As I sat looking out across the ground it was hard to know where to start by way of introduction.

I pointed out the Pavilion Steps which the players used to walk down.

From where - long before my time – CB Fry, Ranji, Duleep, Maurice Tate & The Don had walked on to the ground.

Where - on that Saturday morning long ago – Lord Ted strode down to take on Fred Trueman.

And Snow, Greig, Imran Khan and all the other Legends had played.

The Committee Room: where I had lunched with Young Jim and watched Sussex play Hampshire on that never-to-be-forgotten day.

On we went:  round past the Herbal Life stand and the Media Centre.

And the Synagogue: the only professional cricket ground in the world to be overlooked by one.

Past the Boundary Rooms, we paused at the Scoreboard.

Full of information; and Duckworth-Lewis scores !!

We’ll come back to it; once the game starts, I said, for D-L is never to be explained ... ...

England won the toss and put the Aussies in.

45 for 3 after 10 overs, Australia pushed on to 107 for 7 after 20 overs, with three players, including the captain, Meg Lanning, each scoring 21.

Chasing what should have been a very attainable target of 108, England’s batting once again failed miserably.

10 for 3 became 28 for 5.

All out for 87, England lost by 20 runs. Lydia Greenway, from Bromley, top scored with 26.

It was England’s ninth loss in 12 games against Australia.

The frailty in their batting led to them losing the Ashes

As I sat watching, I wondered Dad would have made of it?

   Women professional cricketers?

   T20?

   Under the floodlights ?

None were around when he watched.

Truly: plus ça change …

But I'm sure he'd had entered into the spirit of the evening.
He’d definitely have been really pleased to see a Sell Out crowd, plenty of whom were making their own First Ever Visit.

And he’d have been delighted that: plus c'est la même chose.

(Editor: dear reader, please be re-assured. The Tomatoes are #JustThereForDecoration !!)

Season 2015 is coming to a close.

Struggling to avoid relegation from Division One, Sussex are in a Must Win (& Absolutely Do Not Lose) game against Worcestershire at Worcester starting on 1 September.

The last game at Hove is against Somerset.

 *** Why not come along on Monday or Tuesday 14 & 15 September?

Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can be in one. ^©

See you soon !!

Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace

PS

For those of you, like me, who are not too familiar with the work of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, I’ll end with another of his bon mots:

If men knew all that women think, they would be twenty times more audacious.

I’ll leave the Bickley Ladies Book Club to discuss that one at their upcoming weekend away in Norfolk !!!

The Last Match; and the First.

This is about cricket, but it is also about life

The Last Match by Colin Philpott & Kit Monkman

55 years on from my First Ever Visit who’d have guessed that after Stumps on Day 2  of Sussex v Yorkshire I would be making my way to the Boundary Rooms at the sea end of the ground to see The Last Match?

The Last Match tells the story of the 1939 match between Sussex and Yorkshire played Hove on the day Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain responded and war was declared.

Whilst other county matches were abandoned, the Sussex and Yorkshire teams refused to stop play – Young Jim’s dad was having his Benefit Match !! -  and in a game of high drama, Yorkshire triumphed over Sussex.

The play’s central character is bowling legend, Hedley Verity who played his last ever first-class match that day, taking 7 wickets for just 9 runs.

Four years later he died of his wounds after fighting in Sicily.

Sussex v Yorkshire, always a keenly anticipated game.

Of course, way back in May 1960 it was the very first game I ever saw at Hove. 
You know the story: Lord Ted whacking Fred Trueman to all parts of the ground for his 96.

But there were a couple of Legends at the ground in August 2015.

Heavy Sunday morning rain, which prevented any play until after lunch, meant that there were fewer than 1,000 spectators in the ground on the third day, as opposed to the 3,500 who attended on Friday and the near-2,000 who turned up for the second day.

Yet the sun was shining again by the time Mike Yardy - in his penultimate championship appearance at Hove, having announced that he will retire at the age of 34 at the end of the season - made 124, his 22^nd first-class hundred.  

He is the last survivor of Sussex’s historic 2003 championship triumph, a club captain for four seasons, and the winner of seven domestic trophies and a Twenty20 World Cup winner in 2010.

He will be missed.

But what of the other Legend?

His career stretches way back to the 1960s.

They still talk about the three catches he dropped off my bowling at Sanderstead one Saturday afternoon long, long ago !

And he still reminds me of the day I got out (bowled playing my trade mark shot: whipping the ball from off stump through midwicket) in the last game we ever played together !!

These days he’s very much the Senior Professional, playing his cricket in New Zealand, including for the NZ Over 60’s.

It was Gideon Haigh who wrote in The Times a few weeks ago that Form is temporary, Class is permanent & Legend … well, that’s indestructible.

There’s only one Young Man to me.

Watching our beloved Sussex play, sitting together in the sunshine at the Cromwell Road end ... it just doesn't get any better !

It been great to watch cricket with you at the Nevill, with Bishopp, Chris Vickery and all the Boys.

Come back soon, Pete !!

We’re into the final few weeks of the Season.

Some tremendous days out:

At Lords for day one of the Ashes v the Aussies.

Amazing results across the five Tests, with the pendulum swinging from one game to the next.

At the Nevill; just wonderful to see such good crowds, especially as it was rumoured that Kent wouldn’t be playing there this year.

And plenty more besides; the Ageas Bowl, Arundel and the rest.

Another really enjoyable season !!

As we head into September, Sussex are fighting relegation from Division One… so fingers crossed for some good results, especially against fellow strugglers Somerset & Worcestershire.

We started with The Last Match.

So let’s finish with the First.

This Friday I will be attending my first Women’s Test match: England v Australia in a T20 under the floodlights at Hove.

I'm delighted that Mrs Lambourne will be coming along.

(Editor: so that’s the Picnic sorted!!)

But there’s another guest …

We first met over 35 years ago.

How many cricket picnics has she packed for me over all those years?

But she’s never, ever been to a game.

This Friday that all changes…

Welcome to the County Ground, Mrs P !!

Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can be in one. ^©

See you soon !!

Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace

Conception of Eternity

Cricket: a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some Conception of Eternity.

     Bees in Some Bonnets, Lord Mancroft

As May turns into June, Season 2015 is well underway.

Over the last week or so I’ve seen games at both Beckenham and Hove.

A short journey from home in Bickley to Beckenham for Kent v Surrey in the Championship: Day 1.

The ground is undergoing plenty of development, including a new stand on the north side.

There was only a pitifully small crowd, even though it was local derby.

I do hope Kent persist in playing at Beckenham, with its huge local population in SE London.

It was good to chat with Graham Bishopp, an old friend from Upper Banner Farm Cricket Club days in the 60's (that's the 1960's; obviously!!). 
We are both looking forward to seeing Pete (from NZ) and watching some games with him in a few weeks’ time.

Kent made a decent start, with Key scoring 89 and Northeast 73.

But 282 all out looked 50+ too low. 

And so it proved by end of Day 4, with Surrey winning by just 3 wickets

Then it was on to Hove for Sussex v Warwickshire in the Championship: Days 2 & 3.

A very low scoring game: 180, 191, 200 & 190-9 to win.

And all over by Tea on Day 3.

But what an exciting last day. 

In their second innings Sussex slumped to 45-5, only for Ben Brown 53 & Chris Jordan 56 not out off just 34 balls (including 6 off the final ball !!) to see Sussex home.

A tremendous day, watching with James Serjeant on his first visit to the ground.

Come back soon, James; and bring your sons !!

And finally my first T20 this season: Sussex v Middlesex on Friday evening under the Floodlights.

Middlesex's opening partnership of 187 in 16.5 overs between Stirling (88 off 47 balls) and Malan  (unbeaten 115 off 64 balls) was the fourth highest in T20 history and the second highest in England.

 

One of Malan’s sixes dented the roof of the Ferrari in the car park up by the sightscreen at the Cromwell Road end.

Thank God I’d walked to the ground & left the Porsche in Chatsworth Square !

Middlesex’s 221-2 always looked far too many for Sussex who reached 179-9, with captain Luke Wright hitting 91 off 47 balls.

June is always a Big Month: more cricket at Hove + the trips to Arundel & to the Ageas Bowl, Southampton to see Sussex play Hampshire.

Arundel

And then onto July for the much looked forward to annual visit to the Nevill Ground, Tunbridge Wells, so very near to where I lived as a child.

The first ground where I ever saw County Cricket, close to 60 years ago in 1958; and my first limited overs game, the Gillette Cup in 1963.

Where I walked to & watched so many games with Dad.

And where on Saturday 23 June 1951 Fred & Isabel were at the Nevill for Kent v Sussex.

They'd only decided to Go Along the previous evening when having a drink in the Saloon Bar in The Queen's Head in Rye.
(Their Son too would make his very best Give It A Go decisions in Bars !!!)

What a day it turned out to be; Never to be forgotten.

Do come to the Nevill & hear me tell the tale - yet again -  of Young Jim's century & why Maurice Tate, the old England & Sussex bowler, poured a double G&T for my Mum  ... & why she downed it in one!!

Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can be in one. ^©

See you soon !!

Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace