We played 3 games, losing 2 and winning 1, which wasn’t good enough to get us through to the next round but since we must surely have been the team there with the least match experience (since we have virtally none), it wasn’t too bad a display.

Indeed, we didn’t get destroyed by any team and we generally fielded and bowled well, so it’s a promising start to Cotford St Luke Cricket Club for this season.

There was a decent turn out (for us) too with 7 seniors (out of 9) and 4 juniors turning up to play. We still need more players but – painfully slowly – we’re building a squad.

It was a surprising day in that, even though there was a cool wind and intermittently overcast weather, we all seemed to get a bit frazzled by the sun. I was quite sore the next day and had some bizarre stripes where my shades had been. My wife took some snaps and I’ve included a selection of those here (click on a picture to see a bigger version):

Rules as follows:

Competition rules

• Entry fee of £30 per team.
• 5 overs per innings (maximum of 1 over per bowler).
• Batsmen retire on 30 and can return during the innings should all other wickets fall.
• Any wides – two runs and no extra ball (except in final over).
• Any no-balls – two runs plus any runs scored off the ball (no extra ball – except in final over).
• The team with the most runs wins the game. Should it be a tie, the team to lose the least wickets wins.

Competition format:

• 10 am welcome and briefing, 10.30 am start.
• To save time during innings, two games will run simultaneously (ie. When the first innings of a match ends, a second match will begin its first innings to save ‘changeover’ time. After that, the respective second innings will be played).
• Round robin group stage (4 teams per group) leading to semi-finals and then finals.
• The two bottom placed teams to play each other for the wooden spoon.
• Minimum of 3 games per team.
• Unlimited amount of squad members per team, however only six playing at a time.
• Match fee includes cricket tea (served from midday onwards).
• Barbeque available in the evening.
• Fully stocked bar.
• Lots of fun, a great setting and hopefully some good cricket!

Given that we can have any number of players on the squad and we get a minimum of 3 matches, we’ll try to give everyone who turns up a game. We’ll canvas for interest a bit closer to the date.

They’re going to charge us £10 a time to use the nets, which is extremely reasonable indeed and works out at about £1 a head given the number of people who’ve been turning up to practice sessions recently. Please try to remember to bring £1 along to sessions.

We have also written to the Borough and Parish Councils to ask them whether it’s possible to allocate some space in Cotford St Luke so that we can have our own nets. We pointed out that the petanque/boules pitch is rarely (if ever) used and seems to be a bit of a waste of space at the moment but would be ideal for a couple of cricket nets.

We’ll try to continue practicing at the Bishops Lydeard Cricket Club nets. We have permission from the groundsman to do so, although we may have to make a small contribution to use them (£1 per person was suggested). Unfortunately due to an act of vandalism up there the gates to Bishops Lydeard Cricket Club are now locked, so we can only practice when there’s a key-holder from the club there (and we’ll just have to hope someone will be on Tuesdays).

We’re going to attempt to get the cricket club into shape a bit, including getting our own nets in Cotford St Luke if we can (it is yet to be determined whether this is possible). We’re also moving forward with getting a club bank account opened and we’ll think about organising a few (friendly) games in a few weeks time.

We need more people though, so please pass the word around (and bring them by force if necessary!).

Last season we practised up at the Bishops Lydeard Cricket Club nets by kind permission of the groundsman there – I’ll investigate whether it’s possible to continue doing that this season.