So county cricket is difficult

I wrote last night that I'd given up the cricket club captaincy after a nine-year stint and during the course of a fair bit of driving today it crossed my mind that as an experience, captaining a village cricket club has as many trials and tribulations as anything higher up the cricketing food chain.

For example, I bet Chris Rogers and John Morris have never decided their batting order by dint of who got to the ground earliest to ensure that there was a track for the game. The difficulty of that being, of course, that sod's law ensured that the willing groundsmen were the two worst batsmen in the club, both of them good at staying in, but not scoring runs. So it was no surprise when we reached the tenth over of a twenty over game at 14-0, with the captain trying to get a message to our umpire to give one of them out, obstructing the interests of the club...

Then there's ensuring that everyone goes home having done something, even if that means that with two overs to go and 20 to win you give the club's "cafeteria" bowler an over to the upturning of eighteen eyes. Then, you bask in the pleasure of acknowledged genius when he takes three wickets as the opposition batsmen submit, one after another to the catching talents of your cunningly placed deep mid wicket.

There's times when I've opened the bowling with the bloke who's wife has supplied a very nice tea (have to keep them sweet, after all)and times when I've had to put a poor batsman in early as his eyesight is dodgy when the light fades. One time a team mate asked if he could bat at four "so I can get home before it gets dark". Another wanted to bat early so he could go and make up with his partner after a row. You can't say no, can you?

Captaincy is quite complicated at this level. Besides the above, your batting order can be dictated by the bottom five being your bowlers, but you also need to factor in a couple of them being better batsmen and the need to get runs on the board.

Then there's setting a field. It's fairly logical to hide a slow and immobile fielder down at third man, or fine leg, but what do you do when one of them is too slow to do it at both ends? It's a case of working out who is the least likely of the two bowlers to be hit straight and then hope. And what do you do when you have five slow and immobile fielders, as we did at one stage.

There's the balancing act between having your best catcher close where he'll swallow the chances, or deep because he's the only one can get it into the keeper from the distant boundary. That can work both ways though. I once recruited an Aussie to the club who was not especially mobile but had a fast, flat throw like the best of professionals. The opposition only twigged after he'd run out both opening batsmen!

Don't get the idea that we're all poor players though. This year, for the first time and in a limited campaign we had three batsmen pass 500 runs. I didn't, but then its hard to do so when you only bat thrice (sounds like a Bond film...) I did finish third in the bowling though, testimony to my undiminished wiles (or as my team mates might put it, coming on when the batsmen are out...)

We've a great bunch of lads, above all, which makes match days and evenings a joy. There's no stars, certainly no professional (though we did buy Scottish international Glenn Rogers a couple of pints when he guested for us in a few games) and there's no one especially precious that they must do this or that. I was amused last night to find that my three innings still got me a mid table position in the batting rankings, and even more so (like everyone else) to find that a team mate wanted to sponsor a new trophy for the "Best Six Hitter". There was considerable mirth around the room when the end of season stats revealed he would win his own trophy and he'll struggle to live that down.

I've enjoyed my stint immensely, but I'll look forward to next year when I can resume batting again, something I gave up when I realised we only had five bowlers, including me, who could justifiably expect to get people out or at least bowl inexpensively.

Returning to Derbyshire, my Dad and I had a "fantasy discussion" the other night about who, if money was no object, we'd recruit for the second overseas role at Derbyshire this year in the Twenty/20. Now I was impressed by this as my Dad really dislikes the format but at least acknowledges it as a cash cow for clubs. After we agreed that the only countries players likely to be available were West Indians, South Africans and New Zealanders, we came up with this short list, in no particular order:

Chris Gayle
Jacques Kallis
Albie Morkel
Dwayne Bravo
AB de Villiers

With four of them all rounders and the fifth (de Villiers) possibly the best fielder in the world, we agreed we'd be pleased if we got any of that line up. Having said that, so would most counties and it was interesting to read Steve Rhodes of Worcestershire bemoaning the fact that his recruitment plans were awry as players were getting paid so much at some counties. Logic suggests that if any of those players were available and John Morris got one, he should be mentioned in terms of New Year's honours. Of course, I wouldn't say no to Brendan McCullum and the likelihood is that our horizons will have to be adjusted, but Dad and I reckon that we've got it sussed and all we need to do now is win the lottery to fund it.

See you soon