two vital wickets

By London Leprechaun
September 17 2013

London Leprechaun reports on a frustrating day at Headingly. In between bouts of cricket we get to hear about bus routes, get a tour of the cricket ground and Leeds street names. Not to mention world famous fish and chips.

Its grey, its cold, its drizzly but its the end of the season and the last cricket for 2013, so perseverance is the order for the day. First task find my bus stop. It’s just round the corner, I do like bus stops that tell you how long you have to freeze before your bus comes. Only four minutes. As there are no stop announcements on the bus I have to suss out other likely cricket watchers on the bus; anyone dressed in layers – lots of layers seems a likely bet. It is an easy enough ride and once in the ground it is no surprise to find we are bowling. Minor surprise that Tom Helm is playing but not a bad chance to see how he goes.

Next task: work out where we can go to watch that has easy access to coffee and warmth. The strikingly designed Carnegie stand seems an obvious bet. The top tier has a good view behind the wicket but no obvious facilities. When we ask about that a very pleasant lady steward says this place is reserved for Yorkshire Balcony Members only. So its off to the stand next door for the opening overs in really gloomy conditions. Well done to the umpires for getting play going but I am also really surprised that there are no floodlights here. There is a puzzling lack of consistency about floodlights at major grounds.

it looks a good decision to bat when Corey gets a wicket in his first over and when Jacques chases a wideish one from Murts its 1/2. This brings Williamson (another late season signing _ grrrrr) and Gale together. Never mind the gale blowing the weather through, Yorkshire's Gale always looks a class act. In between quite a lot of playing and missing, a few edges that did not carry and one top edge six behind the slips there were also some classic cover drives. Williamson was studiously determined to stay in and together they just saw off the opening bowlers.

Tom Helm's 1st ball in Championship cricket

Tom Helm came on after about an hour. His first three balls produced a mispulled hook just over Denly's head, a slice that did not quite carry to gully and Gale almost playing on. An interesting first over in the Championship.

By then it was too cold to sit out and I went in search of warmth By the time I had found the nice members area it had started raining in earnest and a warm coffee saw me through the early lunch. Soup would have been even better.

To great credit from the umpires we started promptly even though there was rain in the air. Yorkshire were positive as if, given the news from Durham, all they could hope for realistically were bonus points to secure 2nd place. But serious rain was not far off, and covers are soon on again. In this break there was time to have a proper look at this ground.(not by going outside!) It has changed hugely since I was last here many years ago but it looks unfinished. Even the futuristic Carnegie pavilion has what looks like old style seating on the bottom tier and there are odd little stands and big gaps dotted about. Not sure what to make of it. Though there is quite a smart members' area where I spend the next hour keeping an eye on the goings on at Durham and thinking what a points deduction there might do for us. But unlikely from the reports.

Next move here is play supposedly at 3.35 but the covers are still half off/half on at 3.15. Its definitely one of those days.  Fast forward to 4.10 and we are on again, but with umpires looking at the skies almost every over. There was just time for Yorkshire to get to 100 and for Gale to play a silly shot to Colly before we are finally off for the day.  At least we have one point for the day as long as Don can work his magic on the over rate.  We could have had more – some very accurate bowling deserved more. As did some enthusiastic fielding in spite of how cold it must have been; most of our fielders looked like Michelin men by the afternoon with their layers of sweaters. But this match is already heading nowhere given the wether forecast for the next few days.

But the final act of the day has to be fish and chips in the local restaurant with pictures of Gatt, Dickie Bird, CMJ and others. And then walk back to the hotel via Infirmary Street adjoining Wine Street. Seems appropriately surreal for a slightly odd day.