Clog Blog

It is that time of year again. Cricket writers dust off their early-season cricket clichés, and I, for one, would love to join in on that action along with a healthy dose of unadulterated Aberdonian cynicism.

The tangy smell of linseed oil is rising through the air. Dust and cobwebs are being brushed off dirty pads and gloves, improbably moist with last season’s perspiration. The rhythmic thumping of leather on willow, as legions of devoted batsmen tend to their cricketing sweet spots, is being met with a cacophony of abuse from all those tortured relatives unfortunate enough to be within earshot. Mouldy whites are dug out of the darkest recesses of long-unopened cricket bags, releasing a rancid blend of eight-month-old cricketing odours, along with the occasional gangrenous sock.

The cricket season is upon us.

It has recently been brought to my attention that come September I shall be an uncle. A worrying thought indeed. An equally worrying thought, however, is that, by implication, my brother will become a father. Not that I doubt his ability to raise a child. I am sure he will take to the paternal role like any half-decent batsman does to my bowling. No, my concern, which I am sure is also the first thought occurring to all self-respecting cricket nuts (i.e. you), is how exactly parenthood is going to affect his availability to lounge about in a field every Saturday, dropping any red spherical object that may venture in his general direction, and occasionally, albeit generally rather briefly, attempting to prevent said object from rearranging three wooden stumps he has been charged with defending.

In short, will he still play cricket?

He assures me that he will, but I have heard similar expressions of confidence from many people I used to play cricket with. This raises an interesting dilemma that amateur cricketers like us face: how to convince our families, significant others, children etc. to let us, during the most pleasant months of the year, spend all Saturday, every Saturday, moseying about on a cricket pitch. Combine this with the almost compulsory post-game analysis (drinking), and the occasional Sunday Cup / Twenty20 / friendly match, and our nearest and dearest may consider themselves lucky if, on any given summer weekend, they happen to catch more than just a glimpse of us before we drag our noisome cricket bag out the door.

The ECB with its usual old-fart pomposity claims to have invented Twenty20 cricket. Not to be outdone, Lalit Modi and Co argue that they subsequently “reinvented” the format, creating the cricketing-acid-trip extravaganza that is the IPL. In which occasionally, between mid-over adverts, 90s pop anthems, dancing girls and commentary clichés, one might be lucky enough to discern cricket balls being dispatched to all parts of the subcontinent, owing largely to the fact that the wickets are about as lively as a mass funeral. Every self-respecting club cricketer will know, of course, that both Lalit Modi and the ECB are wrong. Twenty-over cricket - admittedly minus dancing girls and all the other jazzed-up surrounding fanfare - has been around at grassroots level for decades.

Aberdeenshire, which boasts more cricketers per capita than any other region in the UK (except possibly Yorkshire), is the site of a long-running 20-over league: the illustrious Aberdeen Evening Cricket League (AECL). Apart from the format, the AECL and the IPL share very few other similarities. The AECL is played predominantly on local council-owned pitches, where “rolling” is a verb associated with cigarettes, not wickets. Sightscreens are provided by the backdrop of public toilets, junkies, military fitness groups, cyclists and other assorted local Aberdonian flora, fauna and fungi. Covers… well, why anyone would need covers with our arid north-east climate is beyond me. Apparently the council shares that opinion.

Not that I am complaining. It’s not everywhere that a whole league can be run on cricket pitches that are basically used for free, and to be honest, all these factors just add to the charm of the AECL. The league is consequently traditionally won by the, shall I say, more “experienced” teams. The old (sorry, “experienced”) boys of Aberdonian cricket know how to play these wickets.

Let the faint-hearted beware. This is a tale of passion, intrigue, sweat and blood (plus some vomit). It will shock and awe, bring tears to the eyes of even the most rugged individual. Why, you may ask. Because, above all, this is a story of betrayal. The nature of this betrayal was the worst possible - no, not the type carried out by Brutus, Benedict Arnold, or even Boromir – worse than that: this tale recalls the betrayal of one cricket team by its opposition. I am, of course, referring to the use of a “ringer”.

Amsterdam, Saturday April 25, 2007: a day that shall live in infamy. It is the single most important day of my eldest brother’s life. Not his wedding, not the birth of his first-born, not even the day he scored his first hundred (although that would be a close second – were it to ever happen), but, as I am sure you will have realised by now, his stag do. Not content with the originality of organising a stag party in Amsterdam, we thought we would spice it up by throwing in a cricket game versus one of Netherlands’ most popular travelling cricket teams, the mighty Zamigos.

The morning after a pleasant evening of shopping, museum visits and lovely strolls along the canals (as one does when on an Amsterdam stag party), we made our way to the VRA cricket ground in Amstelveen, picking up team members along the way from various respectable coffee-serving establishments. Having been asked to field (most definitely not the preferred option), the "Van Poorshots" (a name we would later do proud), with yours truly opening the bowling, started the match with a bang.

Despite the long list of personally gratifying cricketing moments in my illustrious career (such as accepting a Man-of-the Match award from none other than CMJ – albeit on behalf of the absent actual Man of the Match), there is one that stands out in recent memory: winning the 2008 regional Scottish Under-18 Championship. This world-renowned tournament involves all of Scotland’s young talent, representing the three major regions of Scottish cricket - imaginatively called north, east, and west Scotland.

Now I know that the sharper among you may be thinking something along the lines of the following: what is a Dutch, self-confessed average club cricketer doing at an U-18 Scottish tournament? And, of course, you are right. I am not Scottish, was never a talented youth cricketer, and – probably most significantly – was definitely not under the age of 18 at the time. I was, in fact, at my fifth year of uni (I confess I had an interesting uni career that involved a few twists and [u]-turns).

I shall explain: a Scottish University Cricket representative XI had been invited along to the tournament to make up the numbers. This, presumably, was done with the assumption that the SUC XI had long been the UK’s biggest whipping boys and, before the famous victory against a semi-inebriated travelling MCC side in 2006 (which will be talked about for many years to come), hadn’t won a competitive match in decades. Having played with the SUC for a number of years - which in itself is a good measure of the team's standard - I think I am qualified to say that this was a pretty fair assumption: we were terrible.

As I see off the dreary working week, the exceedingly amateur cricketing bones in me start to vibrate with anticipation at the impending Highland Grudge Match with our main league rivals, Hogly* “the (one-) family town” Cricket Club. There is little love lost between the two teams and the Saturday-morning formalities bear more than a passing resemblance to a North East weather prediction: frosty and miserable.

“Win the toss, bowl ‘em out, smash the runs, Pint of Tennents by five” has been our team’s motto for years and today is no exception. With weather in the North East being what it is, the wicket is soft in the mornings. The moisture makes the ball do all sorts; the dew and wind in the air do no harm to swing bowlers either. Odds are the ground will harden up as the relentless Scottish sun does its work in the afternoon, making batting relatively easy (with strong emphasis on relatively; wickets in Scotland are about as unpredictable as curry-induced bowel movements**).

“Toss won, bowlers warm up” is the unsurprising announcement from our captain as he strolls merrily back to the pavilion knowing he can now make the first step in hangover recovery from his relatively tranquil vantage point at first slip. Slip catches are generally considered poor form in this neck of the woods and thus the cordon is a much desired fielding position.