The Scorers

This is an important part of a cricket match that rarely gets observed or acknowledged as much as it should. No game can take place without two scorers to record every ball and ensure that all the batting and bowling figures tally correctly. Scoring is quite an art. I've seen some scorers use coloured pens to distinguish each batsman and bowler and the resulting entries truly are a work of art. Over the last few years it's increasingly common to find the traditional score book (right) being usurped by the laptop (left), running scoring software. With a wireless connection it's now possible to publish live scores to the internet. I think I would have loved this technology if I'd grown up with it but having learned the traditional methods I must admit that I still love the sight of a hand-crafted scorecard.

As a kid I used to score entire test matches, watching on the television with the sound turned down and listening to the commentary on BBC radio. My scorebook pages were pretty much works of art, immaculately filled in with a sharp soft pencil, the record of each innings a testimony to my love of the game. I still have them. They speak of a different era of cricket, where run rates were nothing like what they are now. They seem plastered with 'M's, where an over is bowled for no runs, six dot balls with those dots joined up to signify a maiden. I don't ever remember being bored by a far more defensive mind-set than we see nowadays.

I watched the firsts play at home today against Ilkley. I arrived just a few minutes late and was horrified to see that we'd already lost two wickets before scoring a single run. We then went even deeper into trouble at 8-3 before a brilliant partnership between Robbie and Red took us into three figures. We then suffered another mini collapse before Forrest and Alex rallied to put on over sixty for the eight wicket, a reprise of their big partnership against the same opponents in the cup which won the match. I don't think I've ever seen Forrest play better. He batted with restraint early on, picking up regular singles, increasing the tempo gradually until the last few overs when he went on the attack. He was run out for 49 off the very last ball of the innings trying to get his fifty.

We posted what seemed like a competitive total of 190 but sadly for the lads it wasn't enough. We bowled well without much luck and although Ilkley were always behind the rate they had enough wickets in hand to raise the tempo in the last ten overs to secure a fairly comfortable win. I felt really sorry for the lads. They played well enough to have got a lot more from that game today. The seconds also lost their game, so no party here tonight - which, personally, might be just as well as I've got a very long way to cycle tomorrow. Time to carbo-load and prepare my machine! And get an early night!!