A Summer of Cricket – Following a Junior Cricket Club Season

The sound of leather on wood, tall poplar trees with cawing rooks nesting in the high branches, warm gentle summer breeze blows across the fields and gently caressing the grasses makes them dance and flutter.

Cucumber sandwiches, orange juice and crisps in the Pavilion, with the sound of spikes tapping the floor as the fielding side goes out, clad in their whites, clapping and encouraging each other on, followed by the slower footfall of the two batsmen; padded and helmeted up, as they go to face the onslaught; Cricket season is here again!

My son joined Mistley Cricket Club last season and was picked for their Under 11 Tour of the various Village Clubs around North and East Essex. Each and every single Club Ground is idyllic – beautiful green fields, lovely pavilions and club houses, exquisite batting pitches, surrounded by trees and countryside. Mistley’s CC is especially lovely, with the spire of St. Michael’s and St. Mary’s Church overlooking the green fields.

The team traveled to small villages such as Little Bentley and also to the seaside town of Frinton-on-Sea to play Tendring Cricket Club at their annual Cricket festival. Tendring are a large club with their under 11’s having a good few talented players who have been selected to play for Essex County Cricket Club – it was very satisfying to see little Mistley beat them at their home ground at their festival; but sportingly they were gracious and agreed to come to Mistley to play a match, which they did.

County Cricket is the Professional league, with talent from across the world coming to play here. The biggest Clubs are those such as Yorkshire, Surrey, Lancashire and Middlesex. Essex are a bit smaller but moderately successful. I was born in Hackney in East London, but lived in Walthamstow which used to be part of the County of Essex.

Essex and Middlesex are neighbours, with Middlesex being swallowed up by London the counties were traditionally divided by the River Lea which flows West from it’s source in Leagrave in Bedfordshire then South down past St. Albans and Waltham Abbey cutting through Epping Forest and The Boroughs of Haringey, Waltham Forest and Hackney until it meets the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf which is directly opposite North Greenwich on the South bank of the Thames.

Middlesex is my team though, as they more or less represent London and play at Lords in St. Johns Wood – the “Home of Cricket”.

Mistley won all of their games apart from one, they were then invited to play at the home of Essex County Cricket Club in Chelmsford, to play a Kwik Cricket Tournament against other chosen sides from London and Essex. This was tough as there were sides from London, who have a huge reservoir of talent, needless to say a London side won (Chingford) with Mistley losing to the eventual winners.

For friends across the channel and across the pond, Cricket is one of the oldest games in the world, originating in around 1597, a game played with eleven players on each side. The two sides take turns ‘batting’ and ‘bowling/fielding’. (Or pitching). It’s played with a hard cricket ball which is made of cork and leather, and a bat typically made of willow.

The batting and bowling takes place on a piece of the field called the batting pitch or wicket. It has a set of wooden stakes or stumps on each side 22 yards apart. This portion is also known as the wicket.

The objective is to score as many runs as possible (runs = points) outscore the opponent. Scoring is made by hitting the ball – a player hits and then he can run to the opposite set of stumps to score a run. He is scored out of the bowler hits the stumps while bowling and thus has a ‘wicket’. That word ‘wicket’ is very common and refers to a few things.

The game is played on this level over a number of ‘overs’ , with one over being six ‘deliveries’ or bowls. Anyway it’s not complicated and sounds more than it is. It’s an enjoyable game of skill, technique, bravery, tactics and especially strategy.

I like it, more so than soccer or Rugby or any other field based game. Players don’t dress in shorts and stockings like children, but often in a white shirt and trousers with white shoes – very gentlemanly and the whole game is based around sportsmanship rather than foul play, cheating, diving and feigning injuries as in kicky ball. Many Junior teams wear their Team shirts in different colours, as do Professional and International Teams who wear coloured suits when playing Limited Over Cricket Tournaments.

I documented the Season with a selection of cameras; the Kodak Z950, Olympus E1 and my super fast tiny Super Zoom Casio Exilim ZR-800.

It helped that the games were played in fine sunny summer weather which makes colours pop, this was apart from the game at Essex county cricket club which was riddled with foul inclement weather and played under floodlights.

The Season ended with a BBQ and presentations all round; to the best players in each age and gender category.

I used all three cameras – the Casio was excellent for long zoom shots of the action, the drama and the players. The Casio is very quick – almost instant focus and exposure – it can also be set to a determined focus distance and fired off immediately. Brilliant camera. Great for action and you’ll be hard pressed finding anything similar for the combination of price, zoom range, size, speed and ease of use with very good results.

I also shot a few games of Kwik Cricket which is a version for children played with a soft ball and plastic bats.

There’s so much fun watching kids play cricket – especially the hard ball main variety where they have to wear pads gloves and helmets and face the dangerous ball. I remember at school we played with pads and gloves but no helmets- safety standards being quite different and I remember seeing a fair few cheek bones and noses of friends broken when batting against fast bowlers who pitched the ball short to make it whizz up towards the head – dangerous times but what a challenge it was.

My favourite cricketer of all time is Vivian Richard’s – the West Indies Great, he never wore a helmet and used to knock fast bowlers out of the park. I recommend ‘Fire in Babylon’ – the West Indies tour of Australia (Australia being the best at cricket over the decades).

I introduced cricket to the neighbourhood kids in Chimbote, a city in Peru. They immediacy got a hold of the rules and played every day, with some being naturally gifted. A shame it’s not played in more countries as it is in the sub continent.

Anyway if you haven’t watched cricket or haven’t played it – have a read about it on the net and don’t get put off – as it’s the best sport on the world.

I write this post on the 6th of March, sat on a bench. Being my son’s first training session of the 2025 Summer cricket season. He’s now in under 13’s, cricket season has begun again! Hurray! Here’s to a summer of success!

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