Bonjour de Normandy

My Sunday slumber in the idyllic French countryside was shattered by the incessant droning of my phone – I should have turned the damned thing off, merde!! Anyway best see what it is all about. Ah, my special correspondent is checking in with news of the first match of the season.

Well, well, well … First game out of the way … At 1 o'clock we had 7 at 2 we had 9 by 23 overs we had 11 yes 11 … anyway we hit 197-5 … we bowled them all out for 179 … Jason took 4 wickets … yes jason butler Wayne also played … Jim topped with 76 Gary 70 not out

So there it is, game one and maximum points. Bien fait et quelle surprise!!

KRCL Pre-season Meeting

The pre-season meeting will be held on Wednesday 19th April at Old Eltamians Granby. It starts at 7:30pm.

Flicx Pitch installed

I got a txt this morning from Stacy – "Flicks pitch is going down a treat". Now this brings up two painful points. The first,  I was not aware that the Flicx Pitch was being laid this weekend but since I left the club I've been slightly out of touch and I guess that is fair enough. The second is that since I left, loads seems to have been achieved. Was I holding them back?

At this point I should explain what this pitch is and how we came by it. It is essentially an artificial batting surface made up of over 6000 interlocking plastic tiles to form one continuous flat surface to create either a portable cricket pitch or (as in out case) a permanent practice area. The surface consists of small hexagonal holes. The roughened area provides a surface for the cricket ball to grip and bounce, ensuring one of the most versatile cricketing surfaces on the market. It is fully endorsed by the English and Wales Cricket Board although it is not certified for use in our league fixtures. It was decided to install it on the edge of the square for use as nets. 

Anyhow, the txt was an hour old so I grabbed a camera and the dog and headed off to the ground to be greeted by four good men – Stacy, Gary, Neil and Dave Evans. My timing was perfect – they'd just finished.

And what a job they'd made of it. It looks great. With a Herculean effort Stacy managed to stay awake throughout the excruciatingly dull video that accompanied the pitch and all the correct procedures had been followed, the time of year was right, the heavy roller hired, the pitch was laid out and rolled into the very earth itself.

How did we come by it? Well, a couple of years ago Sport England were persuaded to provide it for quite a bit less than cost and and very nice man from Honda UK (take a bow Mr Jeff Dodds) came up with the readies – everyone should buy a Honda. It sat in the equipment shed for the last couple of seasons gathering dust and generally getting in Tim's way. It was time to do something about it.

Anyway, this is a smashing way to kick off the season. Well, done to all those involved in making this happen.

Great stuff from the new groundsman

Since the start of the year Dave Evans (yep, Gary’s dad) has been tasked with the daunting and somewhat thankless challange of preparing the square. And what a great job he’s doing. Already a heavy roller has been applied and I swear it hasn’t looked this flat for years. He’s even rolled the outfield to leave us gentle undulations to sprint over rather a 3D map of the Himalayas.

The perennial problem of a mossy wicket has been eradicated thanks to a couple of Saturdays of hard work with a scarifier (and a little help from number one son) to leave a track that is going to be a pleasure to bat on.

Anyhow, well done Dave.