Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Middle please umpire...

Good afternoon Internet.

Something happened today that inspired me to start this blog. I've been off work sick with a raging stinking cold (the kind that only hits you when you have a long bank holiday weekend) and after I had become thorough sick of daytime TV I searched online for a live stream of England's first tour match of their current tour of the West Indies. It was the first day yesterday of their match against a St Kitts and Nevis XI, and I managed to find a UStream link on the WI cricket board website. It was a very basic setup of a soundless, fixed camera angle from one end. It wasn't really worth watching, but  The Jeremy Kyle Show had long since lost its appeal. I was genuinely interested in seeing how Alistair Cook and Jonathan Trott would fair in their first match as an opening pair. (I had already missed the woefully weak St Kitts team being demolished for 59 all out).

One thing struck me straight away - Alistair Cook seemed to be taking guard with a very open stance. He must be trying to get his front foot moving more freely, thus negating his head falling over to the off side when playing outside the off-stump I thought. The only thing giving away that it was Cook was the fact that it was left handed batting, such was the poor quality of streaming, but somehow I managed to notice his change in stance.

I decided to tweet George Dobell (the excellent cricinfo.com writer) who I had noticed was covering the game out in the Caribbean. He replied saying that he would ask Cook about it at the close of play. Lo and behold, in his day 1 report on cricinfo.com he mentioned the change in Cook's setup at the crease.

It's only a small thing, but it made me feel very smug indeed. The kind of smug that cricket geeks like myself are very good at when they make a seemingly good call from their comfy armchairs, and I'm unashamedly no different. It's the endless talking points that make cricket such an enjoyable subject to discuss at length. My lovely fiancée persuaded me to write some thoughts down on here. (Yes that's right - I found a girl who listens to my cricket ramblings, and still agreed to marry me. My 15 year old self would never have believed it was possible..)

So here I am. A sounding board for some thoughts I have on cricket and the cricketing world. The odd baking entry will make it on here too, as any club cricketer knows, cakes and cricket go hand in hand..


Over bowled...

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