Moment of "glory"

I've not yet had the chance to play any cricket this season due to a combination of work and domestic commitments. As things stand, I will be unable to play until July, after my daughter's prize-giving and our family holiday, though I look forward to my first game with a great relish. As it is, I feel like one of the amateurs of old, only able to play in summer holidays due to "business commitments."

I've now, sadly, given up on my dream of playing - even if only once - for Derbyshire, having accepted that I'm now too old. That has sadly overtaken the previous reason, which was that I wasn't good enough. I still hope to play for another eight years, all being well, which would take me to my sixtieth birthday. At that point I will do the right thing and become an umpire, using my failing eyesight and hearing to upset anyone and everyone at the far end of the track. That was a joke, just in case you wondered...

Someone asked me recently about my greatest moment in playing cricket and I cast my mind back over forty years of runs here and there, useful wickets and the occasional catch of stunning brilliance (at least to me…)

Then I realised that there were two "feats" of which, for some reason, I was inordinately proud. The first was when I added 110 in ten overs of a twenty over bash for the first wicket, registering only singles as my partner scored a century at the other end. Showing brains, I called it. Nine balls faced, nine singles - doing it for the team.

The other was the night that I ran a three to the wicket keeper.

I should perhaps explain. It was another twenty over game (you'd think I'd love it, the amount I've played) and we were playing a match against the local Islamic community. It was an annual match, always hard fought and competitive, but this time we had excelled ourselves. We'd over 160 in 20 overs and on our track that was like Derbyshire scoring 400 at Headingley. There was one ball to go and tempers in the opposition were frayed. On a hot evening we'd hit the ball all over the place and we knew we already had too many for them.

The opening bowler ran in, bowled to my partner and it went down the leg side. Maybe the umpire would have called a wide, but in the ensuing melee he forgot. As the ball reached the wicket keeper he fumbled it and the ball ran several yards away. I was off, like Usain Bolt on a can of Red Bull. My partner, Vernon, was an affable West Indian from the local University and we had a good understanding. I just nodded and he started to run as well.

The wicket keeper, oblivious to this with our silence, sauntered to the ball and turned with it in his hands as the bowler started to shout something - presumably unpleasant, in his direction. He wasn't at all pleased, whipped off a glove and hurled the ball back at the bowler, hitting him on the knee, the ball rebounding several yards away as the bowler sank to the floor.

Vernon and I looked at one another and decided to go again, the rest of the field having scattered in the face of our earlier lusty blows. As we crossed, the bowler forgot his pain, got to his feet and hobbled to the ball, muttering under his breath. We made our ground just as he picked the ball up. At that point, the logical thing to do would have been to berate the wicket keeper, or walk up to him and smack him on the head with it - but no...

The bowler shouted something that seemed not at all polite and hurled it, as hard a he could, back at the wicket keeper but to his right hand, which was ungloved from the throw. Sensing the potential for injury, the keeper withdrew his hand and the ball whistled past him to deep fine leg. Another run, by which point Vernon and I were almost hysterical with laughter.

As defining moments go, it is perhaps not the same as a match-winning six or a hat-trick, but I don't think we've anyone in the current Derbyshire set up who has managed this feat. It could be useful if things get tight in the last over of the T20.

So maybe I shouldn’t give up on that dream JUST yet!