J

just want to give a shoutout to my dad who has run the fourth team at the local cricket club for something like 15 years. before today, they’d lost 22 games in a row and consist of, usually, a 75 year old wicket keeper, two 60 year olds, couple of fifty year olds, a handful of teenage girls and boys, and then some odd bits and bobs like me who play once a year. my dad messaged me this morning whilst I was on my way up to wolverhampton to say that he’d been ill overnight so would be captaining from the shade of a tree whilst drinking lots of fluids, but ended up umpiring for an hour and fielding the whole time. he couldn’t pick me up from the train station, so Ben the vice captain did, who can’t really walk anymore, and he sent me this: Morning Jamie hope ur well. U have the misfortune of being picked up by me today. Let me know how your train is doing and I will be outside station as u exit. Look for a metallic blue Renault kadjgar being driven by gimli from the Lord of the rings ....wearing a blue cap. anyway, we lost in the final over today but my dad still moved himself into a catching position and took a catch two balls later, and we batted together for a couple of overs. our two opening batsmen were a 73 year old and a 50 something year old, and our opening bowlers were a 13 year old boy and 17 year old girl. cricket at highest level can be disappointingly upper class and archaic, so disappointingly, but at a grassroots level like this it’s so fulfilling. not sure any other sport in the world can have such a wide demographic of people playing in a single game. anyway, that makes it 23 lost games in a row. win soon come.