Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Year Book 2014

18 Space, all that space. New Zealand and I was there and I loved it. The land of the bungee jump and other high octane, heart thumping, adrenalin filled activities. The BBC Cricket Correspondent, Jonathan Agnew took great delight on goading me into presenting features on Test Match Special which would involve me taking part in one of these challenges or as I consider them mindless aberrations. I declined. Seven weeks in a country I had always wanted to visit, and there are not many I do, especially cricket playing nations. It is part of a charmed working life I lead and appreciate. The word ‘charm’ is one I often, maybe too often, feel when watching cricket. It has many definitions and interpretations. They range from sugary and slightly distrustful to a magic like quality, not quite of this world. It’s the term that springs to mind when trying to understand what is it is that draws me more towards domestic over international cricket. Of course there is something magical about following England to various parts of the world. Maybe it is the manufactured intensity of the media which blows that aura away for me, which wouldn’t touch a spectator. Timed interviews when too often a battle like encounter can flare, where those being interviewed are determined to give the media ‘nothing’ they can use. The players lose out and so do the employers, when as happened this year, a young international was given an opportunity to talk up his own test ground, which was in much need of selling extra tickets, gave us nothing, and therefore his interview was never broadcast and any subsequent publicity didn’t materialise. But as I write the magic still filters through the county game. There, to my mind, remains an integrity. I also imagine the term, ‘charm’ to some people has connotations of all things unfashionable also naive. The latter meaning to always believe what you are told. Direct question to you the reader. Do you expect to hear in an interview with coach, player or administrator, always the truth? Or do you accept a certain amount of deception to be an acceptable tool in the locker of sport, to be employed as a means of getting the upper hand over the opponents. ‘Don’t tell ‘em Pike!’. That economical use of the facts too often infuriates me, as it means I’ve failed in one of my main objectives which is to transmit the truth. At times that deception can also be part of a charm, a cheekiness which is innocent and to be laughed at. You the listener can be your own best judge of the truth and how important it is. There is no shortage of ‘charming’ cricket grounds. Most to be found in the leagues up and down the country. Many photographic books adorn coffee tables in our living rooms as testament to that. Always asked at supporter meetings which are your favourite The Charm of Cricket Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society By KEVIN HOWELLS, BBC twitter: @scloverssociety