English county cricket: Monday musings

Durham’s Mitchell Claydon (Getty Images)

“You’re leaving when”? said Mrs P as I outlined the details of my trip down to God’s own county this week.

It’s a chance to see how my folks are getting on before winter sets in, do a few jobs for them, go out for a meal and pull in a couple of days at the cricket. Lovely….

When I told her I planned to be on the road before six on Wednesday, she shook her head, but smiled. It was a nice smile, one of the ‘he’s slightly mad, but I love him variety”, as opposed to the “I really must get this bloke seen by a doctor” variant that it could have been – not that I often see that one, you understand.

Mrs P is staying home this time, as our daughter is at school, while our son’s work commitments rule him out of the trip. So it will be just me and my aural companions – a bit of Zep, some Rush, classic country, Roy Orbison, Dylan, The Beatles – yeah, that should do nicely…

I’ll not make the start of our game against Durham (pesky 10.30 starts…) but I should see some pre-lunch play and the rest of the day thereafter. It will be good to catch up with a few people and to see the smiling faces of the backroom team and the gate personnel. They’re a wonderfully friendly bunch these days, but ’twas not always so. My Dad had a theory that Simon Wiesenthal could have found the odd Nazi war criminal among the gate staff at one time and he had a run in with them on more than one occasion.

Not now though. He’s not up to the games these days but enjoys following the scores at home as much as ever. The staff there today are friendly and approachable though, their welcoming ” ‘ey up, mi duck” a sure sign that I am home.

No news yet on the two teams, but thanks for your comments and please keep them coming. Opinion is divided on the opening berth, with some of you favouring the retention of Paul Borrington and others keen to see the reinstatement of Chesney Hughes – assuming he’s back from seeing baby Ches, of course.

I can see merit in both. Ben Slater is a certainty to play after his Taunton heroics, but I’m less sure than some of you that Chesney will walk back into the side. Don’t get me wrong, I think the lad oozes talent, but he’s had a mixed championship summer. Indeed, since his mammoth unbeaten 270 at Headingley he has only 342 in 19 innings, somewhat belying the comment of one correspondent that he was a ‘match-winner’. Given that he’s presumably not spent the last two weeks in the nets and may be jet-lagged, it’s far from a formality that he will be straight into the team. I’m sure that Karl Krikken and Dave Houghton will know at this stage and at the end of the day it is their decision that counts.

We’ll doubtless see the squad announced tomorrow and the excitement will start to build ahead of this game, the first of what Wayne Madsen has rightly called our ‘cup finals’. After years of largely irrelevant cricket from August onwards, we’ve had two successive sensational Septembers, which has much more going for it than sibilance…

See you tomorrow night – then hopefully on Wednesday for real…