The Cricketer Magazine – June 2018

The big match

Royal London One-Day Cup tour

Northwood, Oakham, Beckenham and Eastbourne

Of Metroland and

the South Downs

Paul Edwards digs out his rail card and

enjoys four different outgrounds

A damp Wednesday morning in

Northwood, the slate sky threatening

further rain and two umpires gazing

doubtfully at the pitch, as though

they suspect the presence of reptiles.

Then a crystal Sunday evening in

Eastbourne, the light such as Eric

Ravilious painted and white chairs

piled neatly for collection. The

Saffrons turning back into a club

ground for another year.

In five days straddling May and

June I had visited four outgrounds,

watched eight counties and benefited

from the many small acts of

hospitality upon which any traveller

depends. I had been reminded how

rich and precious county cricket

is to those for whom it is an event,

a date ringed on the calendar for

months. On the Thursday of my

tour Leicestershire returned to

Oakham School for the first time in

10 summers and were obliterated by

Lancashire. Yet the home coach, Paul

Nixon, was so impressed with the

place that he resolved to come back

next season. On the following day,

while England played a Test match

at Headingley, Beckenham was

jam-packed with spectators eager to

see Kent take on the Surrey cracks.

Children sitting on the grass a few

feet from the boundary rope watched

Morne Morkel make his county

debut. No players complained and no

zealous jobsworths shooed the young

spectators away.

“For one day only...” It is the most

enticing of event taglines. Catch this

if you can. Do not miss out. They

were easy imperatives to obey in

April as I contemplated the fixture

wallchart. Who would not swap the

cloistral hush of a press box with

few residents and hardly any noise

from the game for the rough and

tumble of media tents, crowded and

cluttered as they often are?

At Beckenham, perhaps

anticipating the arrival of Virat

Kohli, Kent even supplied two tents,

one of which was raised a few feet

off the ground. This grand affair

housed the Surrey analysts and

coaches, the excellent OPTA man

and a few lucky journalists. All you

could see from ground level, though,

was a row of upper bodies and

heads. We must have looked like the

Politburo. “It’s like Glastonbury,”

countered Kent’s press man, Tom

Brown, as he ferried coffees over

from the pavilion. So on the Pyramid

Stage that afternoon we had Alex

Blake and the Siege-Gun Sixes, four

of which were smashed off the first

four balls of a Gareth Batty over, one

or two of them landing in Crystal

Palace’s training ground.

Beckenham hardly seems like

Kent at all, yet is much prized by the

county for its closeness to London

and its huge catchment area. Yet I

had the feeling that Sam Billings and

his players could have prospered

anywhere. Heino Kuhn made the first

of his two Royal London centuries in

three days, before Imran Qayyum’s

left-arm spin flummoxed both Jason

Roy and Ben Foakes in the flight.

Then Darren Stevens came on and

performed a series of three-card

tricks. On the boundary, both Batty

and Tom Curran signed autographs

for the children. It is easy to be so

affable when you are winning a

cricket match, rather less so when

you are getting buried by 220

runs. But how often do players get

opportunities to connect with the

public on a Test ground?

My outground tour had begun

48 hours earlier on the outskirts

of Betjeman’s Metroland. “It’s

down there, old scout,” said a

member of Sandy Lodge Golf Club

as he fished his clubs out of his

boot and responded to my query

about the location of Merchant

Taylors’ School, Northwood. And

so I tramped on, past houses of

effortless affluence, cars the size of

tanks in their drives and the trees

still heavy with overnight rain.

I doubted we’d start for a while

but the cricket began at noon and

the WiFi arrived an hour later, at

roughly the time the chef dished up

the lunchtime salmon. It remained

cloudy all morning but Steven Finn

opted to bat, which eventually Getty ima

Ges

Above

Beckenham

looking

resplendent

opposite

from Left

Steve Finn chose to

bat for Middlesex;

Lancashire’s Matt

Parkinson appeals;

Tom Westley

anchored Essex’s

run-chase

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