An account of a day trip top Broxbourne to watch the Metronomes in action.
On Sunday the Metronomes, a cricket club who raise funds for charity and who I follow on twitter, were playing at Broxbourne and since that is close enough to me that I can get there and back in a day, even on the Sunday before a bank holiday Monday I decided to go and watch. This post describes the day from my point of view.
GETTING THERE
I arrived at King’s Lynn station in good time for the train I intended to catch, noting immediately that it was terminating at Ely, which meant a replacement bus service would be operating between Ely and Cambridge. Fortunately this did not materially affect the outward journey, and I arrived at Broxbourne at 13:16. The walk from the station to Broxbourne cricket club is short and scenic, much of it being within sight of the river Lea. Among the highlights were Canada Geese.
AT THE MATCH
I found a seat with a decent view of the action, and ate my lunch and drank my bottle of water. Later I bought a good but seriously overpriced pint of beer. The opposition, the Three Graces batted first, and they did not fare especially well. During the innings break Mark Puttick, a keen statistician and part of the Metronomes introduced himself. Later, during the Metronomes response, their founder, Bex Coleman, also introduced herself. Mark had expressed his belief that Metronomes could chase down the total without needing him to bat, and that proved to be the case – a superb opening stand set them up, and there only ever looked like being one outcome. I left shortly after the handshakes, to ensure that I could get home at a sensible time.
THE JOURNEY HOME
The train from Broxbourne to Cambridge stopped at every station along the way, and I had a bit of a wait for the onward bus connection to Ely, and then a substantial wait at Ely for the train to King’s Lynn (fortunately the weather was very pleasant – Ely is a nice station, but in bad weather it is a horrible place to have to wait – the wind can be vicious in East Anglia and Ely is very exposed. I got home just before eight o’clock.
A dual purpose post – a brief account of the Metronomes inaugural match and continuing my exploration of the all-time XI theme with a look at the letter K.
This is a two part post – I will begin with an account of yesterday’s match between Spen Victoria and The Metronomes to raise funds for the National Autistic Society and awareness of autism, before continuing my exploration of the all time XIs theme with a team of players whose surnames begin with the letter K.
METRONOMES’ DEBUT
The much anticipated ‘match for autism’ between Spen Victoria CC and The Metronomes took place yesterday. Spen Victoria’s scenic home ground was the venue. Most of the players involved were enthusiastic club cricketers, though the Metronomes had one overseas star, Roberta Moretti Avery, captain of Brazil.
Michael Coleman, one half of the couple whose idea this match was and who did so much to bring it to fruition, along with his wife Bex, took the new ball, with initially nine slips posted. 10 runs accrued of the first over. Mark Puttick who had done much to keep the occasion in people’s minds with a 100-day countdown featuring cricket statistics relating to each number opened the bowling at the other end and bowled a respectable first over. However, it was first change bowler Isaac Lockett who took the first wicket (actually he claimed the first three wickets taken by the Metronomes), while Moretti Avery had her first impact on the game with a wicket. There was a playing condition that anyone reaching 30 had to retire, and two Spen players reached that landmark, one of them very quickly indeed. In the end Spen tallied 175-8 from their 20 overs, a fine score.
It was soon apparent that Metronomes would struggle to chase this, they got away to very a slow start. The chief culprit was an opener by the name of Himsworth, who faced 19 dots out of his first 21 balls. Dugnutt, who had claimed a wicket with his spinners scored a spirited 26, while Moretti Avery completed a fine all round effort by becoming the third player in the match to reach 30. Ben Bonney holed out off the last scheduled delivery with Metronomes well adrift, but an extra over was bowled, which enabled WG Rumblepants, creator of several magnificent pictures of well known cricketers, to have a bat, and he managed a single. Metronomes ended up losing by 20 runs. We wait to find out how much money was raised.
PICTURES ONE: NEW STUFF
As a dividing line between the two segments of the post here are some pictures of my most recent purchases:
The first of two railway postcards.The other postcard (plus close up of the stamp)I handled the two sets of cigarette cards by selecting half a dozen of the best from each set and imaging both sides.
PART TWO: THE LETTER K
We now move on to the second part of the post, the continuation of my exploration of the theme of all time XIs. We look today at players whose surnames begin with K.
THE XI IN BATTING ORDER
Dimuth Karunaratne (Sri Lanka). Finding openers for this XI was not easy, but the gritty Sri Lankan left hander has a test average of almost 40 and has not always had a lot of support from down the order.
Majid Khan (Glamorgan, Pakistan). Had a similar average to that of his opening partner, but was otherwise very different, being a flamboyant right hander.
Rohan Kanhai (Warwickshire, West Indies). We have the word of CLR James who watched him in action that he was a genius with a bat in his hands, and the evidence of over 6,000 test runs at 47 to provide the hard fact that justifies his place in this side.
Virat Kohli (India). Though he has struggled recently, not scoring a century since November 2019 he remains India’s greatest batter of the post-Tendulkar era.
Jacques Kallis (Middlesex, South Africa). One of the two greatest ‘batters who bowl’ ever to play the game (his record reads similarly to that of Sir Garry Sobers, although he did not master as great a range of skills as the Barbadian).
*Imran Khan (Sussex, Pakistan). With a batting average of 37 and a bowling average of 22 he is firmly established as one of the greatest of all all rounders, and he was also an excellent captain, a role I have given him in this team.
+Syed Kirmani (India). This one will arouse controversy, but as you will see in the honourable mentions I felt it necessary to overlook the most obvious choice of keeper whose name begins with K. I went for Kirmani over his compatriot Budhi Kunderan because he was a much finer keeper than the latter, and this side is strong in batting.
Bart King (USA). He took over 400 wickets at 15 a piece, most of them for Philadelphian touring teams in England, and also averaged 20 with the bat. He was the original ‘king of swing’.
Rashid Khan (Afghanistan). Probably the best leg spinner currently playing the game.
Anil Kumble (India). One of only three bowlers ever to take all ten wickets in a test innings, and the fourth leading taker of test wickets in history with 619 scalps. He was a very different type of bowler from Rashid Khan, relying mainly on top spin and bowling at almost medium pace.
Charles Kortright (Essex). One of the fastest bowlers ever to play the game, and perpetrator of the harshest put down that the legendary WG Grace ever found himself on the end of: “Surely you’re not going already Doctor, there’s still one stump standing.”
This team has a contrasting pair of adequate if not great openers, a power packed 3-5, one of the greatest all rounders ever, a keeper who can bat, and four well varied bowlers, all of whom had some ability to bat – no order with Kumble at 10 can be considered shallow! The bowling with a pace trio of Kortright, King and Imran Khan, plus Kallis as fourth seamer, and two very different types of leg spinner in Kumble and Rashid Khan also possesses both depth and variety.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Before moving on to the standard honourable mentions two explanations are warranted:
EXPLANATION 1: YOUNIS KHAN
Many would have given this man the number three slot that I gave to Rohan Kanhai, but he is more needed for the letter Y, which is much tougher to fill than K, so I have held him back until then.
EXPLANATION 2: ALAN KNOTT
One of the greatest keepers ever to play the game and a fine middle order batter, he missed out because of his decision to go on the first rebel tour to apartheid South Africa. Regular readers of my posts will know that I take a very dim view of these rebel tours, and the one Knott signed up for, having told England that he was no longer willing to tour, was the first of them all, and carries extra opprobrium for that reason.
OTHER HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Two others I considered for the opening slots were Mohsin Khan of Pakistan, whose test average was similar to those of Karunaratne and Majid Khan, and Michael Klinger, who never managed to earn a baggy green cap. His FC average was on the wrong side of 40, so he missed out.
Probably the two best middle order batters I overlooked were Alvin Kallicharran and Vinod Kambli. JH King of Leicestershire and briefly England was a gritty left handed batter and a left arm medium fast bowler who would have brought extra variety to the bowling attack, but I had no way to accommodate him. Heather Knight has a remarkable test record, and her off spin would have given an extra bowling option, but I could only accommodate her by playing her as an opening batter, a role that as far as I am aware she has never performed.
Jim Kelly who kept for Australia around the turn of the 20th century was a fine performer in that role, but probably not the equal of Kirmani. Dinesh Karthik would have been in the mix for the gauntlets had I been picking a limited overs side, but unless otherwise stated I always have long form cricket in mind, though there might be room for him in the commentary box.
There were two other contenders for Kortright’s slot: JJ Kotze, South Africa’s first genuine express paced bowler and Neville Knox of Surrey and England. Both were of limited effectiveness at test level, and Knox only had two really good FC seasons before knee trouble got the better of him. Michael Kasprowicz was not a regular pick for Australia in his playing days. Aristides Karvelas, Sussex’s Greek international doesn’t yet have the weight of achievement to merit serious consideration, but he may enter the conversation in future. I would have liked the variation in the spin attack to be greater than between two admittedly different leggies, but Murali Kartik (SLA) did little at international level, Tom Kendall (SLA), first holder of the best bowling figures in test cricket (7-53 in the fourth innings of the inaugural test), played only two tests, and a mere nine FC matches in total, Zahir Khan (left arm wrist spin) doesn’t yet have the weight of achievement to force his way in.
PHOTOGRAPHS
The cricketing journey through the letter K is at an end, and it remains only to provide my usual sign off…
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