The cricket thread (incorporating the Ashes)

[Welshie]

Hi FH, heavy rain on Thursday, but this evening was beutifull so who knows!
May the best team win. (but it will probably be a draw!)
Cheers
Aled

[firehazard]

Hi FH, heavy rain on Thursday, but this evening was beutifull so who knows!
May the best team win. (but it will probably be a draw!)

You got hat one right, Aled! The weather was the only winner. I'd guess neither team will be exactly setting the CC alight this year, I'm afraid.

[Welshie]

Hi FH, heavy rain on Thursday, but this evening was beutifull so who knows!
May the best team win. (but it will probably be a draw!)

You got hat one right, Aled! The weather was the only winner. I'd guess neither team will be exactly setting the CC alight this year, I'm afraid.

Yes FH, despite serious training this winter Glamorgan really do look crap! Ah well another long summer! On the other hand Simon Jones played in the one day format on Sunday....
Essex did appear to have the best of it on the whole i must say so maybe the rain suited us best!
Well more to ponder in coming months.
Cheers
Aled

[Welshie]

We're giving Hampshire a game at the moment anyway.....
Welshie

[firehazard]

We're giving Hampshire a game at the moment anyway.....

Good to see.
Essex look in a real mess at the moment. Got a thorough tonking by Derbyshire, and even look poor in the one-day stuff too. It's normally further into the season before they get this bad.

West Indies touring England always evokes a lot of memories of the years when they had a wealth of great players who could regularly thrash England. And another level of brilliant West Indians on the English county circuit who rarely got a chance in the national team. The wonderful Keith Boyce playing for Essex is an abiding memory of my younger days.

[Welshie]

And then we bloody well blew it big time! I am very pissed off with Glammy at the moment.

I too have soft spot for the Windies i saw my first CBEW test match at Lords against the Windies, i had won tickets through a Glamorgan questionnaire and was able to treat my Dad to a lovely 60th birthday present a trip to Lords. The Windies fans were a pleasure to hear and see, with one very amusingly vocal lady screaming after every Windies boundary "Were di Barmy Army Now bois......" For us it got better......Simon Jones took the first wicket and the Red Dragon flew proudly at Lords for a few minutes!
We also got extremely pissed and were rather worried as to how our wives would be when we got back,....turns out they had had an even bigger session than us! Glory days!
Cheers
Aled

[firehazard]

I too have soft spot for the Windies i saw my first CBEW test match at Lords against the Windies...

Great memories, Aled!

My first day at a test was England-West Indies too. My dad (who didn't really like cricket much - he was a hockey player) took me to The Oval one baking hot Saturday in 1973, to watch Illingworth's England being entertainingly steamrollered by an impressive West Indian team, under the captaincy of Rohan Kanhai, and including Sobers,Clive Lloyd, Fredericks, Kallicharran and one of my heroes at the time, Keith Boyce (who played for Essex when he wasn't touring with the Windies).

'Twas the Saturday, the third day of the match. The Windies had scored some vast amount of runs in their first innings, but England's reply had started promisingly, with only two wickets down overnight and a young Lancashire batsman called Frank Hayes on his debut having hit a couple of boundaries the previous evening, and there was a fair bit of excitement about him. In the event he was out early on, and though he hit a century in the second innings, he didn't play many more tests. Sir Geoffrey scratched around for ages before being out in the 90s, and the rest of the batting more or less fell away, to give time for a bit of Windies batting in the evening, of which the highlight I remember was Clive Lloyd being caught in the deep hooking John Snow.

But the thing that's stuck most in my memory is that the crowd (especially in the cheap seats where we were) was overwhelmingly Caribbean, had a fantastic time and made an amazing and continuous amount of noise (back in the days before the stewarding at tests got officious and tried to put a stop to that kind of thing). It was a great experience, and loved it!

[Welshie]

Sobers,Clive Lloyd, Fredericks, Kallicharran

Some great names there, seems that a lot of the Caribbean fans just love the Carnival atmosphere, good for them, adds to it all i say.
Cheers
Aled

[John McGovern]

When the West Indies ruled the cricketing world,those were the days,apart from the spectacular, breathtaking cricket they played,the thing i remembered most were the West Indian fans,who would have thought that hundreds of rattling beer cans could make such a wonderful noise?This was long before the barmy army with their trumpets and other brass instruments.The looks on the faces of the stripe suit and Lords tie brigade was a joy to behold!Mind you it WAS a bloody racket,but it was an entertaining racket.Sobers,Kanhai,Lloyd, Greenidge,Gibbs,Marshall, Garner,Roberts and IVA Richards,best cricketers i ever saw.

[soulfinger]

When the West Indies ruled the cricketing world,those were the days,apart from the spectacular, breathtaking cricket they played,the thing i remembered most were the West Indian fans,who would have thought that hundreds of rattling beer cans could make such a wonderful noise?This was long before the barmy army with their trumpets and other brass instruments.The looks on the faces of the stripe suit and Lords tie brigade was a joy to behold!Mind you it WAS a bloody racket,but it was an entertaining racket.Sobers,Kanhai,Lloyd, Greenidge,Gibbs,Marshall, Garner,Roberts and IVA Richards,best cricketers i ever saw.

Amen to that. Greenidge and Haynes were the most entertaining opening bats ever. God help you if one of them had a muscle pull. They would do it all in boundaries. Sir Viv was the best batsman I ever saw. I saw him put the ball out of the ground at the Warwick Road End completely effortlessly in a ODI - like he was swatting a fly. Genius. And as for Michael Holding...what a bowler, unbelievably fast even off his short run.

[firehazard]

...Sir Viv was the best batsman I ever saw. I saw him put the ball out of the ground at the Warwick Road End completely effortlessly in a ODI - like he was swatting a fly. Genius...

He was (still is, in fact) also ludicrously cool. I remember seeing him, probably for the first time, playing for Somerset at one of Essex's out grounds in the mid 70s. I was part of the melee of boys swarming around him to get his autograph. It was like coming face to face with some kind of superior being from another, much cooler planet. Star-struck. I tried doing the King Viv swagger myself afterwards, but for some reason it didn't seem to work.

[Welshie]

Sir Viv, a deserved legend in the Cricketing World, and an adopted hero here in Wales. The biggest compliment given to an overseas player at Glamorgan is to called Welsh, to the best of my knowledge Sir Viv, along with Waquir, and Kasporvich are the only players to have had that accolade.
"Richards is a Welshman Richards is a Welshman tra la la la...v.etc"
OK a bit childish but hey.....
Cheers
Aled

[Welshie]

Rain Rain Rain bloody rain!"
Aled

[firehazard]

Rain Rain Rain bloody rain!

Third test lost to the weather, like most of the season so far. But glad it stopped raining long enough for Tino Best's amazing innings!

[Welshie]

Yep thats fair enough and Glamorgan won at Colwyn Bay! At last a win!
Cheers
Aled