Honour to hit ball straight into Thames

I LOVE cricket! I used to love watching others playing it as much as I loved playing it myself. I was an all-rounder, hopeless at scoring many runs and regretting never being asked to bowl by a disbelieving captain!

My twin brother was also an allrounder scoring thousands of runs and bowling leg breaks that baffled even the best batsmen.

One of the highlights of my early childhood was to find myself watching the Duke of Edinburgh watching cricket. In those days we watched our cricket at a fantastic club ground, the home of East Molesey Cricket Club, adjacent to the River Thames and not far from Hampton Court Palace.

East Molesey was a class above most cricket teams and the environment next to the Thames was, and still is, unbeatable.

I remember attending early coaching sessions there and being thrilled beyond belief by the quality of the club and its players.

East Molesey played touring sides including Australia and sometimes added visiting English cricketers to its playing squad.

The Molesey Cricket Ground was big enough to provide a great challenge to visiting batsmen and it was always considered as a great honour to hit a ball straight into the Thames. I was never good enough to become a full East Molesey team member and I was deeply envious of those who were.

My own home team, Ashford-on-Thames, played its home fixtures at their very well-equipped ground not far from East Molesey. I confess to pretending that the Ashford ground was actually the same as East Molesey, especially on the rare occasion when I scored a few runs. Frequently, I blamed the ground when I again scored single figures and didn’t bowl.

It is hard to explain to Australians how different it is to play on a club ground in the UK rather than Australia. There are many excellent grounds in Australian towns and countryside but few, if any, generate the sense of belonging felt when playing in places like Molesey.

I don’t really know what it is but I suspect there is a special nostalgia associated with those English cricket clubs despite the fact that most club grounds attract only small audiences and lots of rain.

My wife started scoring at a local team long before she should have been burdened with that responsibility, but I’m told she did well and rarely got the numbers wrong! I have observed that she watches the local school team playing on the adjacent field with a glint in her eye as the local teacher tries to keep a record of who is batting or even fielding!

My love of cricket comes directly from my parents. My mum literally watched every match we played in between the ages of nine and nineteen. She often got wet and rarely remembered who we beat.

My dad was the best greenkeeper in the world and prepared immaculate tracks for Laleham Cricket Club, the team my brother and I often played for.

His biggest regret was that, even in England, there were weekends when it did not rain. This meant that his brilliantly prepared pitches were spoilt by those of us who played on them. He much preferred that no-one should spoil the pitch so that passersby could rejoice in seeing an immaculate twenty-two yards long strip of grass.

A well-prepared wicket was more important than the use to which it was put. Ideally, people would pay money to come into the ground, actually to see the cricket but also to rejoice in the excellence of the strip they would have played on had it been a dry sunny day.

Come what may, players valued his efforts and spent hours telling visitors about them, and the role they played in his leisure time.