Instead of moping around and being disappointed I said to myself - If this weekend is anything like most of the weekends this year and last for the team I play in, somewhere out there at 12.30 there's going to be a game starting with one of the teams short of at least 1 bloke, if not 2 or 3!
When you play in games like that the lack of that 1 player has a significant impact on the game, to the point that it must leave players thinking - Why do I do this every weekend losing game after game? It may also lead to people giving the game up or people looking at their clubs team-sheets and thinking - so and so isn't playing I'm not going to bother either and so there's a domino effect.
So if we assume that our team had all 11 players ready for a game Orsett and Thurrock may have had 6 or 7 blokes also ready too. Surely if those people really want to play like me, they could potentially do a bit of searching and find a team at short notice that they could make up the numbers for? There's so many games being played at the weekend with a player missing, potentially all of those blokes could have been accommodated?
I went over to my nearest ground... The Rec where Grays CC were playing Bow Green CC (From London) and found a team of West Indians (The Bow Green boys) already there at 11.45 and asked if they had a full team. They said they were fairly certain that they'd be a man short and said, come back at 12.30 ready to play and I reckon you'll get a game. I went home got my gear ready and drove back over at 12.30 and sure enough I was in. I reckon any team will be more than happy to have an extra player if they're short.
If these lads hadn't been short I could have driven to numerous grounds in the area and probably would have found a game in that hour between 11.30 and 12.30. I reckon you'd be guaranteed a game if you were prepared to drive a few miles for instance to Fairlop Waters and walk around these pitches below...
Surely if you want to play cricket there's a game somewhere you can slot into?
To the game...
Bow Green won the toss and decided to bat much to the dismay of some of their players. The Captain Bernard asked me where I normally batted and I said 10 or 11. There was some discussion with some of the other senior players and I was put in at No.5.
Wickets fell quickly at the start with Grays CC pace attack, but Bow Green were initially scoring at 5 an over. I found myself in quite quickly with a young bloke Rayon Younge he was pretty good. I did okay with the pace attack, but then they brought in the Spin bowlers and I was all at sea. I managed to fend off the leg-spinner, but a 2nd spinner who appeared to be bowling finger spin suddenly began turning the ball both ways. Grays set a very obvious trap that I fell for - a field with virtually no-one on the leg-side and I changed from playing with a straight bat to trying to swing across the line to strike the ball down the slope on the leg-side at The Rec. I was out straight away. Bow Green posted a total of 140.
Bernard even gave me a few overs that were quite expensive, but I bought them a wicket. Bernard cam on and took two crucial wickets at the very end of the game and almost got them home, but Grays got the winning runs with 2 wickets to spare.
It was hot and sunny and a lovely day for a game of cricket, so I was so glad to have been able to play and it was a very different game to ours. Bow Green are a very vocal team with a lot of differing opinions among the senior players!
What was good to see though was the fact that where Grays and Chadwell CC seemingly fizzled out for some reason having become Thurrock CC and then eventually merging with Orsett to become Orsett and Thurrock; Into that void has come Grays CC primarily made up of Asian players of probably Pakistan family origins. So within just a few years where seemingly a club associated with a town and area has disappeared, a whole new club has emerged which is brilliant to see especially when you hear so much bad news around cricket and its future.
Weirdly I'd just watched this video the day or so before (Click on image).
the essence of which is the fact that crickets future lies to some extent in the hands of South Asian players. The other point in this video is the demise of West Indian cricket clubs, so it was good to see a club that in this instance that was primarily West Indian players. I had a chat with some of them at the end and asked about whether they had young players coming through and unfortunately it was pretty much the same story at that depicted in the video above.
At the end of the day I exchanged numbers with Bernard and said that if in the future I was scratching around for a game I'd give him a call and see if he was short.
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