Making The Most of Those Cherry Red Balls (Sports Miscellaneous)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Sports Miscellaneous
Date:	04/06/02 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See op

Disadvantages: It might rain

One of the days in the calendar I love the most is Test Match Saturday. Once a year, like a Muslim to Mecca, I undertake a pilgrimage to Edgbaston to watch the third day of the Test against whoever happens to be the opposition that year. I’ve just been on this year’s outing against Sri Lanka and what a wonderful day it was. I’ve written this with a view to enticing a few non-cricket fans to stop and consider what you are missing as it’s such an enjoyable occasion and thoroughly recommended to people from all walks of life, both genders and any age group.

---History and Basics---
Cricket goes back centuries. Written and pictorial records of cricket may exist from the Plantagenet period, although it is impossible to distinguish between what may be cricket and its brothers, cat and dog, stool-ball, rounders etc., and even at times, hockey and golf.

The firmest pictorial evidence of cricket is an illustration of a man demonstrating a stroke with a stump to a boy holding a straight club and a ball in a Decretal of Pope Gregory IX that was illuminated in England; while in the Wardrobe Accounts of the Royal Household for the year 1300 the sums of 100 shillings and 6 pounds are mentioned as being spent on "creag" and other sports of Prince Edward (the grandfather of the Black Prince).

In the Tudor period there are references to boys playing "creckett" and in the 17th century there are many references such as that by Sir William Dugdale that Oliver Cromwell played cricket in his youth, while in 1653 Sir Thomas Urquhart even makes Gargantua play cricket in his translation of Rabelais.

At the end of this century cricket makes its appearance in the newspapers, a trend that grows rapidly in the 18th century.
The earliest known Laws of Cricket, the "Code of 1744". According to the "Code of 1744" "Ye Stumps must be 22 inches long, and ye Bail 6 inches".

>Today’s game stems from these roots with the idea of the game essentially a duel between the bowler and the batsmen. The bowler’s challenge is to hit the stumps by bowling the ball (as opposed to throwing) and the batsman’s challenge is to strike the ball far enough to allow him and the batsman at the other end to run to each other’s end of the strip in the middle. Thus a run is scored and the team that wins is generally the one to score the most runs. Batsmen can get out in a number of different ways but you can get the latest rules and regulations from a number of sources including cricinfo.com or from Wisden, the almanac of cricket.

---Time to go---
OK, it’s match day and we’re off and running. Edgbaston is a suburb of Birmingham, not far from the city centre and easy to get to:
By car: exit junction 6, M1 and follow the A38 into the city centre. Once onto the Bristol Road you’ll pick up signs for the ground on the other side of the City. There is off-street parking although the locals cash in by charging visitors and £5 is probably the average although some charge more. Also, car parking is available at Cannon Hill Park, entrance off Pershore Road, and Edgbaston College, entrance off Bristol Road just before the traffic lights below the Prior Hospital, cost is £10. Further limited parking at the ground is priced £7.
By train: Get off at New St. station, which leaves you in the middle of Birmingham. There are plenty of taxis willing to take you to the ground and it should only cost about £5. Alternatively, there are local buses that go that way which leave from close by to the main taxi rank adjacent to New St. The bus fare is approximately £1.
This year I struck lucky as my good lady took me and my friend all the way to right outside the ground as she tied in a family visit with the trip but we usually go by train (although she did charge me the equivalent of the cab fare as we got out!). The j
ourney from Northampton was only an hour and we found ourselves outside the Member’s gates at 10.15am, plenty of time to meet up with my brother and his friend.
Tickets are all different prices. This year prices ranged from £15 to £40 depending on where you wanted to sit and which day you decided to go. Test matches are meant to last 5 days so most folks will choose which day to go on. Saturday is always very popular with the first 3 days usually being well attended. A lot of matches won’t last the 5 days so you will find that prices are often reduced for the last day to attract spectators. This year it was only £5 in on the Sunday but this may have been something to do with the little matter of England playing Sweden in the World Cup on the same day!

---Amenities and Features---
Edgbaston is a wonderful venue for cricket. The seats you choose are important as it influences the view you get of the action. Commonly accepted as the best are those behind the bowler’s run up or “arm”. The reason is that the more side on you are, the less you can see the ball when it’s bowled. From behind you can see the flight up to the shot of the batsman but from the side it’s something of a blur. Of course, you’ll pay more for the better seats. We went in the R E S Wyatt stand which is behind the bowler’s arm although our seats were a little further round so we got a view at an angle to the run up. You can get an idea of the kind of view you’ll get from the web site thebears.co.uk (which is Warwickshire cricket club’s official site as they are the county side that usually plays there).
Play get’s underway at the traditional start time of 11am and will encompass 3 sessions barring rain breaks.

Cricket is an open-air sport so rain can seriously dampen the value for money if the heavens open. The sessions include: Morning 11am - 1pm, Afternoon 1.40pm - 3.40pm and after tea 4pm -6pm. Alt
ernatively, 90 overs should be bowled in a day to give the spectator value for money so the finish could go beyond 6pm and often does. On this particular day, play went on until gone 7pm although, due to rain breaks from previous days, lost overs were being made up on the Saturday.

There are all sorts of things to spend your money on but a good idea is a seat cushion. You can hire them for about £3.50 and bearing in mind you could be sitting on a plastic seat for over 8 hours, they are a good idea! The hospitality around the ground is phenomenal although it is the club’s biggest draw of the year so it does it best to cash in. All sorts of sponsors are present with the average customer having a potentially higher demographic profile than your average footie punter although the boundaries are much more blurred than they used to be. Bollinger usually have a champagne tent there, there are no shortage of bookies, Scrumpy Jack feature giving away free samples via lovely ladies wandering about with a supply of the gold nectar strapped to their back, Nando’s have been known to give free samples of their chicken away before now and there are numerous bars selling lager and bitter at, generally, £2.70 a pint.

Not forgetting to eat (as if you would?), there are all sorts of food vans present selling everything from hot curry to baguettes although you do pay through the nose with a typical baguette setting you back £3.50. Much more exciting is too take a cool box packed to the rafters with food which is what we always do and you can just please yourself throughout the day.

---Do’s and don’ts---
 Take care when trying to take cans of beer in. This is frowned upon by the club and security was tighter than ever this year with bag searches outside the entrance.

 Don’t forget to drink water. It’s a long day and if the sun is out then you can de-hydrate quickly. A couple of bottles of water w
ill keep you topped up.

 Take sun tan lotion and/or a hat. You can end up sitting in the sun for hours and one year my good friend Pete went home looking like a beetroot that had spent too long under the sunlamp!

 Maybe take sunglasses and binoculars are common place to give that close up view of the action (if you have a wise guy in your party like my bro’ he’ll probably keep cracking jokes about spotting upper crested bustards).

 Pace yourself drinking! The bars shut regularly during the day for set times to try to reduce people’s drinking but it really doesn’t work. Folks always seem to get carried away with the cricket and loutish behaviour does creep in towards the end of play. It was only last year that my erstwhile friend got completely swept along with everything managing to down 3 pints in the first 30 minutes. Needless to say, he went on to clock up a big score of his own but you won’t really enjoy what’s going on and he did manage to upset a couple of people influenced by his..erm...hyper state. In our case, the ticket’s cost £30 each so I’m blowed if the day’s going to end up a blur just because there are so many bars too hand.

 Many people go in fancy dress and this is up to you. I haven’t got the bottle but you see all sorts of sights at the ground. A few rows from us were a dozen burly blokes dressed as nuns all adding to the colour and humour of the occasion. Before now, I’ve ended up with inflatable sheep landing in my lap and being totally turned off by fellas dressed as St Trinians avec hairy arms and beards!

 Don’t start shouting obscenities. Sorry if it sounds obvious but cricket is not the same as footie and you’ll stand out a mile if you start applying the same invective reserved for a footie referee to the umpires. By all means curse but be discreet!

If you are thinking of
going then hopefully these tips will have helped. This year’s test brought some wonderful moments including Graham Thorpe’s century as England piled up 545 all out. The 10th wicket partnership between Thorpe and Hoggard was a new 10th wicket partnership record against Sri Lanka. We had a great laugh between us betting on what Hoggard would finish with as he took 94 balls to crawl to 17. It was funny at the time as the fast bowler turned blocker extraordinair gave invaluable support to the stylish Thorpe. MH then went on to take a couple of quick wickets as Sri Lanka were left reeling on the ropes.

---Reasons to go---
 Cricket is making more and more efforts to draw in families. Children can generally get in for half price and see their heroes close up if you turn up early as you can catch them warming up in the practice nets before the start of play.

 It’s a whole day out and when the sun is shining there really is nothing better than sitting back with a beer in one hand and a sandwich in the other taking in the day’s play.

 It is a carnival atmosphere with folks turning up in everything from cave men outfits to nuns. It’s generally trouble free as there simply isn’t the tribalism that you get at the football. If I take a 360-degree view from my seat I’ll usually see children, women and men from all kinds of backgrounds and all types of different cultures. Cricket really does cut across the cultural divide.

 You can chose how long you want to stay, arriving when you want and leaving when you want to.

 Facilities are great as mentioned above including respectable toilets, which hasn’t always been the case with footie.

OK, I’ll draw this to a close now and hope I’ve done enough to convince you. All I can say is try it, maybe starting with one of the Sunday fixtures at your local County ground. Day/night games ar
e all the rage just now starting at around 4pm and finishing at 10pm. The evening session will be under floodlights but it’s much more conducive for those that have to work during the day. Whether you think you like cricket or not, I’m confident that once you’ve tried a day out you’ll want to go again. Besides, it’s the cricket World Cup from South Africa in 2003!

Thanks for reading.

Marandina

Notes: You should be able to book online for most venues paying by credit card
You can book tickets by phone or in person. Edgbaston ticket office is 0121 446 5506

Associated web sites:
http://thebears.co.uk
http://cricinfo.com
http://wisden.co.uk
http://CricketZone.com
http://abcofcricket.com

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