Author: James French

Ninety-two years ago, and to a limited audience, ‘The Man with the Flower in His Mouth’ became the first piece of televised drama.  This three-character, Italian drama, set in a railway bar was the start of the narrative arc that ends in another three-character drama set near a bar, but without any Italians. Nearly thirty-two years…

Unadorned, but resplendent, she sits in the golden summer light. She may have travelled a long way, but she arrived and now waits to record triumphs and adversity for years to come.  She has no name, but she is our new scorebox.   Cricketers have a strange affinity for physical objects – anthropomorphism in action.  As we can…

Winter, for cricketers, is a curious season. By the end of the Summer, thoughts of turning out for another game in the increasingly bitter September winds are tough to overcome.  The dark months of December and January are punctuated by news of another capitulation of the England middle order, causing a lurking suspicion in every Club…

Cricket is a game of margins.  The thin white line of the crease marking, the barest nick off the edge of the bat, the run chase down to the final ball in the final over – these all contribute to love of the game.  Between jubilation and defeat is a barely distinct, but just perceptible, line. And…

For those looking out from the Pavilion at Garboldisham on that late-August evening, waiting for their turn to bat, it was clear that the end of the season beckoned. Somewhere in the gloom was a game of cricket that was coming to an end, harbingering the end of another season – the first ‘real’ one…

For the wise and the elderly sat on the high bench in front of the old, ramshackle pavilion, caked in the patina of the years, nothing is more delightful to the eye than to see the energy of youth playing out before them on the square.  We are lucky, therefore, that the next generation of cricketers…

Unsurprisingly the damp weather we have all experienced in May and June, despite being good for a lush outfield, has curtailed a few fixtures for all levels at the Cricket Club. Our youngest players in All Stars and Dynamos have seen a few Friday sessions washed out, but when we have managed to dodge the…

The traditional smell of willow and leather, freshly mown grass, and the enticement of a Vitoria Sponge at tea is now mixed with that of Aloe Vera hand sanitiser and anti-bacterial wipes for the ball.  Batsmen must now run in ‘socially-distanced’ lanes and swing bowlers will lament the lack of sweat on a ball desperately in…