Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2022

11 In those days life members (my 21st birthday gi from my parents – the present that keeps on giving) were entitled to free Test Match tickets for the Leeds game. My friend Matthew and I had tickets for Saturday, but decided that if Mr. Boycott was out before noon, we would pop down to Trent Bridge to watch Yorkshire. Boycott was duly dismissed, so with nothing worth watching here we mounted my old motorcycle and, for the cost of a couple of pounds’ worth of petrol, pottered o down the M1 to Nottingham. As we arrived Yorkshire had plummeted to 87-7 and were soon dismissed for 104. We then had to watch (from behind the metaphorical sofa) Clive Rice score a century as he and Derek Randall compiled a 263 third- wicket partnership. I’ve had better days. What I love most about the game is its aesthetic beauty, of the shots, of a bowler’s action, of graceful elding. It’s like poetry in motion, ballet without the music if you like. Perhaps that’s why I am less enamoured with the white- ball game. Players like Liam Livingstone have a fantastic eye for the ball, but their game is based on crude brutality. Sure, the ball sails over the boundary, if not out of the ground, but at what price? I watch quite a lot of the women’s games and maybe it’s because what the girls lack in power they more than make up for in cultured stroke- play. Perhaps the ECB were right in what they said when launching e Hundred; this game’s not for me. Here are a few things that make my blood boil. First the lack of a regular third man in ‘proper’ cricket. I’m sure that there will be data ‘proving’ that more runs are saved by catches at third slip than are haemorrhaged through third man, but it doesn’t feel like it. Next, the current tactic, towards the end of an innings, of stopping trying to get a set batsman out by placing the eld back and o ering them a cheap single. Just the two problems there as I see it. e set batsman isn’t going to take that single o the rst ball and expose the rabbit to ve balls (and how many rabbits are there in the modern game anyway? Very few indeed). Any decent batsman can nd the boundary early in the over and still steal a single when the eld comes up (Lehmann was very good at this). If the bowlers have taken eight or nine wickets, why stop trying? It seldom works and it leads to very boring cricket. Please stop it. Finally, I fear our game is dying in South Yorkshire. e She eld League I played in hasn’t existed for many years and the majority of municipal pitches have disappeared. If Yorkshire CCC truly represented the whole county surely they could allocate a Royal London Cup match to South Yorkshire. As pleasant as the Cli on Lane ground is, North Yorkshire has more than its fair share of cricket. Come on Yorkshire, throw us a bone whilst there are still enough of us le to encourage the youngsters to fall in love with our summer game. Roll on, April. Headingley looking di erent in 1981