Results tagged “cricket beautiful Stanford” from Birmingham Mail - Warwickshire Cricket Blog

With cricket, all soiled and diminished, still hosing itself down after the Stanford debacle, it's tempting to think that the sport has lost it completely. Terminally damaged and heading inexorably along the lucre-mined road of ruin down which football travelled 16 years ago.

But it's not so, of course. Cricket still is and always will be, in essence, a beautiful game. Populated by some beautiful people. In some beautiful places.

I used to play in one such place for a village team in south Warwickshire. What a location. Stately home on one boundary. River flowing past another. Meadows and trees around the rest of a ground which sloped eccentrically on one side so that any ball that got through the ring was four for sure. A tiny, rustic pavilion nestled straight behind the stumps. No sight screens. Scoreboard of rusty nails (still more use than the Edgbaston model circa 2008!). No power. Early and late in the season we changed amid shadows sent flickering round the tiny changing-rooms by the flame of a fag-lighter.

Just gorgeous. Like so many little cricket club grounds all over the country. We didn't much care whether we won or lost. It was just a privilege to spend a few hours of our week in such magnificent, peaceful surroundings. Having a bit of a bat and a bowl. Oh the joy if you scored a few or got among the wickets or managed to hold on to a screamer. Actually, there was just as much joy in the teasing if you copped a blob, got hit over the pavilion or shelled a sitter. Playing a great sport in a great location, the details were incidental.

Among our ranks was a chap called Phil. Not in the first flush of youth, Phil was a regular for the Old 'Uns when they took on the Young 'Uns at the end of the season. And he was the biggest asset any cricket team could possess. Decent sharp slip-fielder. Tidy medium-pacer, though vulnerable if the ball wasn't doing much. Batsman of number nine or ten ilk. But just a great bloke. Gentle, strong, wise, witty, intelligent, balanced, kind. When I was getting changed before a game if I saw Phil lumbering across the field, holdall in hand, I knew it was going to be a good day. Didn't matter in the slightest how the game went. It would be fun.

Phil has gone now, bless him. A wonderful man taken from us far too soon. But anyone fortunate enough to share any time with him on a cricket field or in the pub afterwards or on tour or at his beloved Highfield Road will cherish memories of him. He stood for everything that cricket, historically, has represented in the broad, often feverish, sometimes tacky spectrum of the sporting world. And it is the likes of Phil - you probably know one or two from your local club - who will safeguard the future of the sport because, although world cricket and English cricket are currently in alarmingly feckless hands, the dear old game in essence will always thrive due to the people who matter most - those who are not necessarily much good at it and don't care if they never make a penny from it, but just love it dearly.