I Was There (as we say in Wales)

I phoned my mother, choked with emotion. “We’ve just won The Ashes” I told her. She was amazed; only an hour or so ago Australia were just five down. Then she was suspicious because if I was still at The Oval, why was it so quiet?

And it was. After the initial celebration, there was a definitely a lull. Not the normal listlessness you experience waiting for the presentation stand to appear, while people mill around or more likely drift away. This was a still point of calm, of reflection maybe, or disbelief, or just pure wrung out emotion.

Wickets had been slow to come, you see. Just after tea I had been on the point of phoning Cricketing Girlfriend to make our arrangements to come back on Monday, but then it all happened. Haddin skying to Swanny; a brief but vicious spell from Harmy and another Swann ball ripping into Mr Cricket to finish it all off. In about eight overs (or a little over half an hour to non cricketing folk). And then we were on our feet; yelling and cheering and hugging for all we were worth.

For four long years I had dreamed of being there when England raised the little urn, but after the initial wave of emotion swept past, something closer to detachment began to creep in. Of course I was excited, delighted and proud, but then the analytical began to take hold. I collected souvenir chunks of red and white confetti while all the time thinking that someone had pressed a rewind button on 2005, because the celebrations were visually identical. I smirked at the karaoke-style words of Jerusalem being put up on the big screens, but sung along lustily all the same. I cringed at yet another crumpled beige suit from ECB Chairman Giles Clarke (no upside there then).

And Husband and I, from our vantage point in the stand in front of the dressing rooms, stayed to applaud every single England player back up the stairs. However long their media interviews took. Walking away from the ground were people already wearing Ashes victory T-shirts and crowds spilling out onto the sunny pavements from the local pubs. We followed one very well dressed gentleman as he failed miserably to walk in anything that remotely resembled a straight line. Yes – this Ashes victory had certainly made a lot of people very happy. Myself included.

But it wasn’t 2005. As the news reporters gathered outside the team hotel I could have told them that. The strange thing is, as yet I have no one clear idea why.

Trophy

A moment in time when it matters so much that you can hardly breathe. I never understood the (normally) male obsession with sport until I re-discovered cricket. And I certainly couldn’t relate to the tribal passion of following a team… your team. But since I’ve fallen in love with Hampshire I can.

Yep – that’s me; the sad spectacle of a middle aged woman living her sporting life vicariously through a pack of younger men. And it’s not just the players; even some of the coaches and backroom staff are under forty – although thankfully not all of them. So I don’t feel a complete geriatric. Although I have to admit I am quite old enough to be the mother of a handful of the more youthful cricketers.

Jimmy Adams (photo by Barry Zee)

 

I suppose I (or more particularly, they) should feel relieved that it’s not a sexual thing; it’s sheer pleasure in the runs they score and the wickets they take. Although in a moment of heady abandonment after HAMPSHIRE WON THE FRIENDS PROVIDENT TROPHY yesterday, I did send a text to Senior Colleague professing a desire to have Jimmy Adams’ babies (if I had been 10 years younger, of course). Well, he had top scored with 55. And at least she replied in kind about his opening partner… but it would have probably been more useful for me to want to rub oil into his bat or something.

Anyway, as I was saying, did I mention that HAMPSHIRE WON THE FRIENDS PROVIDENT TROPHY yesterday? I was at Lord’s, watching every ball, every run. Oh, the bliss when Corky took three early wickets. And even better when Tremlett ran out Goodwin with a direct hit. The cries of ‘Hampshire, Hampshire’ resounding around Lord’s… amazing. The only fly in the ointment was that Adams got an awful lbw decision, just when I was envisaging a hundred for him and his name on the honours board.

But when Chris Benham hit the winning runs; that was the moment out of time. Pure, sheer, bliss – a moment I was almost close to tears of joy. And as the team did a lap of honour with the Trophy (the FRIENDS PROVIDENT TROPHY THAT HAMPSHIRE WON, that is) I was chanting and yelling and clapping with the rest of them. My day – and probably my cricketing season – felt totally complete.

And do you know what? I was stone, cold sober. No Lucozade induced high either, no sharp intake of caffeine. It was all one hundred percent natural. Thank the good Lord for little hormones… and for the eleven toy boys who make up the Hampshire Hawks!

'My' boys (photo by Barry Zee)

(Did I tell you that HAMPSHIRE JUST WON THE FRIENDS PROVIDENT TROPHY?)

From Ashes to Gold Dust

I’m not going to follow The Ashes; I’m not going to follow The Ashes; I’m not going to follow The Ashes… oops. All of a sudden I find myself in my home city of Cardiff on the third morning of the Test. And what’s more, for reasons I won’t go into here, I am heading for the SWALEC Stadium.

SWALEC – I ask you. Not a romantic name, like The Rose Bowl. Nor one evocative of generations of cricketing history like Lord’s or Old Trafford. The SWALEC. Money talks. It used to be called Sophia Gardens when my father brought me here to see Glamorgan when I was a child.

Due to my father’s local cricketing connections I find myself in the hospitality box used by one of the Glamorgan directors. It is a first for me and I am amazed to find that the dozen or so seats outside are wide and thickly padded; almost to the point of being like theatre seats – except they’re covered with plastic, not plush, because of the rain. And inside the box the hospitality is lavish; tea, coffee, pastries – bacon butties even. As many as you can eat (except I don’t… well, maybe just one small apricot danish… it would have been rude not to).

On pitch the players are warming up, and although I want to watch I am drawn into polite conversation. Names fly around my buzzing head; Rod Bransgrove, Hampshire’s Chairman, is expected to drop by later, because Ian Botham asked my host to find a space for him. And yesterday Wales’ First Minister, Peter Hain, was here, accompanied by Wales’ First Minstrel, Max Boyce. After a while I find out that the pleasant man I’ve been talking to is controversial former Cardiff Mayor, Russell Goodway. Who hasn’t been in this box, I ask myself. In my chinos and M&S T-shirt (even one with little pearls and sequins embroidered on – very Per Una, AWOL friend would have said) I feel distinctly out of place.

I’m not even sure that I want to watch the cricket and I am glad I have told my host I can only stay for half an hour. I watch the Australians leap up the steps to their dressing room, Brett Lee and Michael Clarke stopping to sign autographs and pose for photos only feet away from me. In contrast the England players look grim – as well they might. They haven’t looked like taking even half a wicket between them. Where are Harmison, Hoggard and local hero Simon Jones when you need them?

And, as if my magic, said local hero walks into the box, accompanied by his tiny glamorous wife. I am flabbergasted. This man is a god; the only thing I have in common with him is that our fathers once got thrown out of a pub together – but I am much too shy to tell him that. This man has won Test matches with his bowling; indeed the moment I first believed we could win the 2005 Ashes was when he stormed through the Australians at Old Trafford. I should also mention that this man has posed naked for Cosmopolitan. I can see why. On a purely intellectual level, of course. And just for the record I wasn’t dribbling (much).

But actually, he (and his wife) are really nice. We talk cricket… county cricket… Ashes cricket… just cricket. He loves talking about cricket and so do I. To talk to someone this knowledgeable is a real treat for me and far more interesting than watching Australia bring the 500 up. And when I leave the rarefied atmosphere of the box to rejoin the real world, I am still floating on air. Some days have gold dust sprinkled on them, and this is surely one.

Vaughany – my tribute

How could I not? But what would I say? Let me take you back to June 10th, 2005:

I only have the courage to walk up to him because I am holding two orange slips of paper on which are written our table’s questions for the Q&A session. They said to take them to table 5, and as they have said this, and as I have drunk several glasses of wine I am able to do it.

He is sitting on his own. Flintoff is at the bar having a fag and that leaves a gap for me to approach him. I push the papers into his hand and say nervously “I’m sorry it’s a bit of a technical sort of question, but I’ve always been fascinated by how you set a field” only I am aware I’m stumbling over my words. He smiles, and reads it. “No. It’s a good one. I’ll answer it now for you if you like, just in case they don’t let me when we’re up there.”

His voice is familiar, but softer than when you hear it on the radio. I remember afterwards that stress can strain the vocal chords. He’s not stressed now. I crouch down next to his seat so that our eyes are almost on the same level. We make eye contact – and amazingly hold it while he explains to me (and I interrupt).

“In the first fifteen overs it’s all analysis”
“From when you look at the tapes and stuff?”
“Yes. After that it depends on who’s bowling and how the bowlers are doing.”
“Are the bowlers a bit of a worry at the moment? I saw on the BBC website this afternoon that Harmison has an ankle injury.” He smiles and averts his gaze for a moment, clearly indicating it isn’t a worry at all.
“And Alex Wharf?”
“He’s only got a side strain – I think he’s starting to play again.”
“Yes. He was meant to turn out for my father’s club on Saturday but it rained. Do you think his chance for England has passed?”
“Alex is a good bloke, good bowler.”

By now I am lost in those eyes. You can tell a lot about someone by watching their eyes while you talk. I actively use eye contact to win business; strangely enough by imagining I am talking to Michael Vaughan. The reality is far better – I did not expect this level of openness in the eyes, this response. Of course, like me he is a consummate professional with excellent interpersonal skills and we are probably playing the same game. That in itself tells me a huge amount about the man. They are intelligent eyes. And he is genuinely nice. And he has not answered my question as though I am a silly woman who cannot possible know anything about cricket. And he looked in my eyes not at my cleavage.

When the conversation ends I wish him luck for the summer and walk away.

Later I go back with Grant to ask for an autograph for Luke and to have my picture taken with him. I feel perhaps it is an imposition to approach him for the second time, but he plays ball. Looking at the camera he says laconically “You know he’d do a lot better if he opens the lens.”

Twenty20 Moods

A glorious summer evening – last Twenty20 home game of the season and The Rose Bowl is packed. For the first time this year. Perhaps news of our unbeaten home streak in this competition has got around, or maybe it’s the weather, or maybe the ICC Twenty20 World Cup did turn a few more people on to the game. Anyway, it doesn’t matter – the place is buzzing and I love it.

10 minutes before the start I leave Cricketing Girlfriend in her chosen seat close to the visitors’ dressing room (turncoat, just because it’s Kent…) and make my way back around the ground. Mambo No. 5 is blaring from the speakers and I feel like dancing and shimmying; in fact I do when I meet one of the security guards I know and we have a little hug. I feel completely alive with the sheer exuberance of the moment – I must have overdone it with the Lucozade…

People, music, sunshine and laughter. The Rose Bowl at its glorious best. And cricket to come, in a game Hampshire must win. We’ve won the toss, and we always win when we bat here first. What more could I ask for?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. We start off OK, taking the first over for 9, but in the second, one of my very favourite players, Jimmy Adams, is out for 5. Oh well, it happens. I can’t feel too deflated. Yet.

But my mood is like a tyre with a slow puncture as the wickets continue to fall. Carberry for 1 in the 4^th; Lumb, our Twenty20 hero, for 10 in the 5^th; Ervine for 2 in the 6^th; Dawson for 4 in the 8^th and Benham for 3 in the 9^th. And what was worse was, with the exception of Benham who came too far down the pitch and was stumped, they all plopped easy catches into the eager hands of the Kent fielders.

Pothas, Mascarenhas and Cork pull the score back to a half defendable 131, but the joy of the evening has past. The friendly crowds become noisy drunks; behaviour that felt sociable, and funny, now intimidating. The sun goes in and the evening is chill. Actually, I want to go home. But of course I don’t, I stick it out to the bitter end – and bitter it is, because despite having Kent at 30 for 3 in the 6^th over we take no further wickets. Chances are dropped; opportunities for run outs become costly overthrows. They reach our total with 12 balls to spare.

And afterwards I watch the cleaners make their start to clear the drifts of plastic cups, sweet papers and junk food wrappers that litter the concourse. Over by the dressing room steps the players dutifully sign autographs in the yellow glow of the floodlights. At this time of night I find The Rose Bowl becomes full of ghosts.

I get into my car, find Mambo No 5 on my iPod, and head off towards the motorway.

Me and Michael Vaughan

It is probably time to delve deeper into my obsession with cricket. Although it began when my father gave his only child a cricket bat when she was only three, it didn’t start to reach anything like its current intensity until a day at The Oval in 2001 or 2002. Husband and I were making our annual pilgrimage to watch a Test match, and there, fielding on the boundary, was the most gorgeous bum in whites I’ve ever seen. And it belonged to Michael Vaughan.

At this stage I would like to point out that I consider myself a serious cricket watcher. If Vaughan hadn’t been such a stylish batsman, and the most complete captain England has ever seen, I suspect my fascination with the game might never have developed further than a passing buttock fetish. But by the end of the 2004 home season, watching the England players parade the Wisden Trophy around The Oval having won seven Tests on the bounce, I was well and truly under Vaughan’s thrall. And under cricket’s thrall, too.

So I joined the messageboard that was to become cricket247.org and my virtual home, and later Hampshire Cricket Club, which very soon became my spiritual (and, in the summer, physical) one. Of course, I do have a soft spot for Yorkshire, but there was something about the beautiful Rose Bowl (Hampshire’s home ground) and something about the club itself, that sucked me in. In 2005 I would have been hard pushed to decide whether England winning The Ashes or Hampshire winning the C&G Trophy gave me more pleasure. In 2009 I can tell you I am far more worried about the County Championship than the national battle against Australia. In short, I have become a cricket geek.

But was today the day when my obsession with Vaughan went a step too far? Today was the day I parted with a four figure sum to purchase an original painting. By a cricketer. You see, over the winter Michael Vaughan has been ‘artballing’; by which he means he has been hitting and throwing painted cricket balls at blank canvasses. Seeing them in the papers and in the catalogue I was in two minds as to how good they were; seeing them in the flesh (as it were) convinced me.

My artball!

For a start, the use of colour is tremendous – and that’s no accident – you need to have an eye for it. And then, the way the seam on the ball leaves such an obvious print on the canvas should send shivers down the spine of any cricket fan. But the real cleverness of these pieces is the control over the ball that Vaughan must have to create them; they do not appear to have struck the canvas randomly, they have been placed to construct a particular image. There is genuine talent in the execution of concept onto canvas. Take the painting which recreates his score of 166 in the 2005 Ashes – there is real joy in the pink splash that represents the only six – but more than that, it is at the top of the painting and you can see the ball hit the canvas with some force – just as the shot itself would have done. When you start to view the pictures in these terms, the effect is awesome.

After a long lunch and a large glass of wine (to ease my credit card over the shock) my companion, Cricketing Girlfriend, and I decided to continue the arty theme and spend the afternoon at Tate Modern. Took me right back to my art student days and it was good to see some old favourites, like Picasso’s Three Dancers, as well as some startling new stuff. As we wandered around we started to discuss the nature of art, and whether a Vaughan original would look out of place there. For us, the most effective works were those to which we had an emotional response – they made us laugh, for example, or simply pleased the eye – but also made us want to read the label next to them, to find out what they were all about. One without the other, the emotional without the intellectual or vice versa, and the label of art just didn’t seem to fit.

Given these criteria a Vaughan artball would be at home at Tate Modern, but at the same time it is hard to imagine one hanging between the Mondrians and Braques. It’s also quite hard to imagine where I’m going to hang the bright little canvas in my own eighteenth century cottage, but a home for it I will. Maybe on the stairs, where every time I walk past the colours will make me smile; or maybe in my study, where I can occasionally ponder the accuracy of the throws that created it and the remember the times that I’ve seen low, flat trajectories from the same hand hit the stumps.