The Club Cricket Conference Yearbook 2020

- 20 - explained that to achieve Herd Immunity all players would have to be given a bowl and that by the time Herd Immunity was achieved the score would be over 500,000 and that the Chinese would still be batting on Day Four. The Captain quickly shelved this plan and pretended that he had never subscribed to it. Instead the Captain inexplicably started babbling in Latin and then said “In our last match everyone came on side when we kept repeating “Don’t drop catches” over and over again”. So, he introduced a series of Mantras which everyone had to learn and repeat between overs: “Stay in the Ring, Protect our Bowling Averages and Save Runs”. Soon everyone in the crowd was saying them too. Fielding became increasingly difficult; many substitute fielders were used and the Dressing Room became overcrowded. Someone suggested that a new pavilion should be built and so all of the club’s financial resources for the next five years were spent on converting the local school. As more and more players needed to get kit from the team bag they found that there was a shortage of pads, boxes, helmets and other protective gear. Mat Hancock, the Kit Monitor, claimed that he had ordered enough but no one believed him. When the Captain’s best friend came on to bowl, he took a wicket with what the umpire decided was a no-ball. Everyone could see that his foot had landed over the line but the captain denied this and said that his friend was being discriminated against and that he had done nothing wrong. When someone sent a message out to the captain that the score was nearing 30,000, he said “I’ve stopped looking at the scoreboard. I’m more concerned with what a prat I shall look if they score more than Italy”. Articles: Test Cricket, 2nd Test, 3rd Test and ODI are courtesy of James Sharp, Editor of Googlies & Chinamen and give an accurate (sic) and humorous version of this summer's Covid events in a cricketing environment.