Seniors Cricket | sportslaureate

Goodbye, it is, to most of that – most of that cricket, in any event. Age, infirmity and *life choices* have pointed me towards part-time work, but “my god” (as Sean Kelly might say) it hasn’t felt like that.

Selection sessions, winter nets then a belter of a summer on junior pathways: seeking ‘extras’ here and there to top up the dollars supply. Still loving it and still feeling like I can relate (and make a meaningful contribution) despite the swathe of geological time between me and The Lads – and it has mostly been lads. Overnighters at Brecon and Aber – the latter still amongst my favourite sporting gambols – and tremendously disparate match days or squad days from April to late August.

Objective A, as always, to make these wee humans fall in love with the idea (the need!) to move, commit, to ‘look after their mates.’ Objectives B-Z around feeding their sense that this charging about is fabulous and natural and must be an enriching, evolving, lifelong way of being. So in this cricket-thing, be a better bowler – I hope I can help; I have questions. And be a better batter (I hope I can help, but show me what you got). And be quicker and more attentive and more agile in the field – this will help with everything. Being active helps with everything.

Not sure if I’ve chosen to be the guy who is friendly and daft, who works at or close to the entry-level for hard-ball cricket, or if that niche chose me. (Every year I coach various age-groups but overwhelmingly the earthlings in front of me are 10 or 11). Am neither frustrated nor intimidated by the idea that *therefore* maybe I don’t work in Performance Sport. (Partly because maybe I do?) And, despite being mid-spectrum between clown and instructor I am deeply conscious of the responsibility coaches at this stage hold, towards supporting confidence in those who may often be shit-scared of the ball. I’ve had a fifty-year love affair with the feel of a new cricket ball but few juniors aged 10 remain unintimidated by that sacred nut. They know it hurts – or can do. And that fear (of course) makes getting hurt a whole lot more likely.

But in my entire coaching career – I dunno, thirty-odd years, now? – I have only seen two or three players genuinely hurt by the ball. One, perhaps inevitably, got an ‘egg’ above his temple; another an extreeeemely sore shin. No broken fingers or hands. Plenty scuffed or grazed elbows and knees… but ver-ry few injuries down to the pill itself. Loads of theatrical falls-after-the-event – and this maaay bee increasing, for which I blame Premier League footballers. It may well be politically incorrect to talk of ‘drama queens’, these days, but we are seeing some of that, for sure.

Kids are great though, eh? Still mad; still frantic or wonderfully free; still eating crap and listening less than you’d like.

Feeble digression – because it meant quite a lot. A young female coach recently told a small group of us coaches at a particular festival that she’d never seen kids listen like my group listened to me. I was touched by that. Hope it’s because I’m keeping it simple enough, appropriate enough: suspect it’s also because there’s always a joke – a giggle – in the pipeline. But yeh. I was touched by that.

Kids are great. Be honest, you want to run on and punch them when they get The Wildest of Run-outs *after wickets have been tumbling* but it happens. When the universe is screaming JUST HOLD and the coach is preaching calm and concentration. It happens because 10 year-olds are particularly (though not exclusively) vulnerable to Psychotic Contagion and they do ridicu-stuff when stressed. It’s bloody frustrating but also fabulously fascinating how often young players march out there, often too quickly, bat in hand, before succumbing to The Most Reckless Shot in Living Memory – a shot they’ve resolutely put away through 14 weeks of winter training then two spookily encouraging squad days. But the moment comes and they kinda want it over, one way or another*. They swish. And it is over.

(*Apologies to regular readers. Have repeatedly described this moment in the same or similar way. But it does fascinate me. And it does feel like they want it over).

The frequency of this event is startling and rich. That volume speaks to the power of the scrambled mind – across sports, across life. I love that one of the jobs for any coach/mentor/teacher (different roles, I appreciate) is to reconcile that sensational and cruel interface between a moment’s anxiety and the expression or execution of a skill.

It’s theoretically possible for a coach to be life-changing around this; by being sensitive to a player’s frailty (or otherwise) and providing a lead, a word and/or an environment which mitigates against ‘mind-less failure’ and towards confident execution. Mostly, in my experience, we fail, in the sense that our players continue to get out, with nerves being central to the dismissal. But supporting the player, building the environment, reinforcing the necessary skills can and does impact upon this – positively. ‘Grown-up’ players often reflect on how enjoyable and supportive their early experiences in the game are… and how important a particular coach was, in a) instilling or inspiring confidence and b) (therefore) kickstarting a journey they now know will be decades long. So go find me a job that’s more rewarding than that.

When not coaching I’ve been playing or travelling to play. Hilarious, given my age. But Seniors Sport – Seniors Cricket – *really is* a thing and I’m privileged and proud to have fallen into it.

I had almost no adult playing career because football, family life and work obscured that possibility. So I’ve been playing catch-up for the last three seasons, often alongside really good players who have had (I kid you not) half a century of Proper Cricket. I loved bowling as a kid and I still do: I’ve come back to it. Part of me still thinks I’m John Snow – or maybe Mike Hendrick, a less combative sort, from memory. I ‘run in’, or more exactly perhaps, I have failed so far to capitulate to bowling the leg-spin I know (actually) I could bowl. Because I love the feeling of a new cricket ball in my hand. I like and maybe even want the challenge of bowling the first over.

Mostly I’ve done okay, for mighty Llanrhian CC and for Wales 60s 3s and 4s. Unsurprisingly, I’m kinda play-cricket averse (us old guys know when we’ve bowled ok, yes?) so I’m not gonna quote stats at you. There have been highs and lows, including scrambling the winning run off the last ball of a 45 over semi-final game for Wales and then losing in the last over the following week(!) (Took three wickets in that final but was disappointed to concede significantly more runs than I would have liked. But hey, that’s sport. Kent were good and it really could have gone either way).

Enjoy my club cricket at an especially idyllic, mad-rural club but have found the camaraderie (and yeh, the craic) with Wales Seniors to be a revelation. So much so that at some stage I will surely write about it. Said it many times to many people over the last year or two but I’ve played a lot of sport: never enjoyed any of it as much as I’ve enjoyed the games with our posse of Superannuated Taffs. It’s a brotherhood I’m proud and privileged to belong to.

Know what’s great? Sport.

I shouldn’t need any reminders but I just had one, so without breaching too many confidences, here’s another personal gambit.

In a week where I attended a rather depressing BBC cricket writing thing – on Zoom, all about cramming things down, writing one-sentence paragraphs and therefore, inevitably falling in line with the murderous, soulless brevity of Online Reality – an actual game of cricket was like a quiet marvel. It was slow; it was warm; it was generous. It smelt of humans, not algorithms.

The game was a competitive friendly, between Mainly Good 40-odd Year-olds and Us. (Us being Mainly Good 60 Year-olds). I was the newcomer and – as it turned out – The Impostor. Mad keen but less agile and less able than I’d hoped. Kindof expecting to be able to wing it, through energy and effort but unable to claw my way back up to the level of these skilled, experienced guys. Plus crocked: I didn’t realised how crocked ’til now.

It’s only after I started calculating the Waltonian cricket absence – twelve years since my last competitive game, I reckon – that I begin to cut myself some slack, on what felt like a poor performance. I used to be okaaay. I used to be able to really bowl, at some pace, leg-cutters a speciality. (*Coughs*). You wouldn’t have known, I fear.

I’ve done some nets with stars (and I do mean that, in every sense) of the local Seniors scene but of course there’s nothing like playing. All those unique movements. All that adjustment for bounce, turf, speed, quality of roll. All that running and bending down. And bowling. Wonderful, balletic, deathly movements. I’ve been yomping the Coast Path for years, coaching for years, even (recently) enjoying some practice with my son, in the hope and knowledge that the day must come. But there’s nothing like playing.

Now that I’m still hobbling badly, two full days later, with a proper hospital-sized concern about my right achilles, as well as a decent crop of entirely predictable and indeed appropriate aches and pains, things have landed. Of course I should have bowled off about four paces not sixteen. Of course I should have stopped bowling when *that wee twinge* announced itself, gently at first, in my second over. Of course I should have gone round against their left-hander but…

Calculations suggest it may be 12 years since I played a proper game. So I’m not going to change anything, once I’ve marked out that run. No sir. Just kee-ping it sim-ple. And ignoring that ankle (and yaknow, everything).

Everybody’s hurting, fer chrisssakes. Push on, boyo. Bowl, you gret wazzuck. What’s that one compelling truism in the pile of platitudinous crap? (WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING!!)

Try. Look how hard all these magnificent, stupid old buggers are trying!

*Lump-in-throat moment* Blimey, yeh, look at ’em. We’ve barely met yet we’re a team. A bloody team! There’s no choice – crack on, mun.

We lost… and it didn’t matter. I only knew, when I pitched up, about four of our players… and it didn’t matter. Game-wise the sunny ambience/honourably competitive combo-thing was humming in the air; balanced; beautiful; idyllic and ideal. It was a real welcome. I got battered but was encouraged, throughout, by patently better men and players. We held our own, enough, as a side, because some of our lads took us within 30-odd of their 242. (40 overs).

In the bar it felt good. We had a few laughs and the unspoken awareness that we had ju-ust begun to morph into another ridicubrotherhood – though in defeat – bounced or spread agreeably round the room. Strangers brought together: that corny, wonderful, sporting cobblers.

But when and how, exactly, did that start? (There’s another post on that!) Could be we felt it on the outfield from the first lumber. It *really can* transmit subconsciously, eh – or somehow? From the first ball – before then? – there was something. Body-language. Verbals. Team Humour.

Maybe it passed or blossomed in the friendly exchanges over our modest consumption of alcohol. (This was no riot). Maybe with the quiz card, or during the Few Words from captain and visiting stalwart – who knows? It was quiet, undeniable magic, with the Pembrokeshire sunshine and the open doors and the guys all ‘suffering’ or recovering: blokes who can really play being good to those who possibly can’t.

I got an award – an allegedly cuddly duck, in take-no-prisoners yellow. I hadn’t batted, on merit, but had probably made the telling contributions in our defeat. So fair cop. We go again, god-willing, on Thursday.