The Field of Play

Sometimes it's necessary to cut the grass.

A day at the cricket club. The lads are playing unmissable cricket at the moment. They took on local rivals Addingham and scored their third successive win in another hard-fought and exciting game. It was the second successive weekend of a Rhydding opening batsman scoring a classy century, this time the turn of Sam. It was so well deserved. Forrest contributed an elegant 20 before having a rush of blood and getting stumped coming down the wicket. The game looked to be going away from us as the runs required started steadily coming down with the seventh wicket pair well set. The captain then made an inspired change and turned to the mercurial Henry, an Addingham boy himself, who got the key man out. He then proceeded to demolish the stumps of numbers 10 and 11 with his next two balls to claim an astonishing hat-trick against his former teammates. I was standing with his dad, also a former Addingham player, a great stalwart of the village club who loves his cricket with a passion. He was a bundle of mixed-up emotions! 

It was a day of amazing cloudage too. There were too many places I wanted to be today, but I made the right choice.