Bats, Pads and Cider

“Sleep when you’re dead, play cricket while you’re awake” are the words of advice eagerly followed from Taunton’s County Ground to the many a twenty-two yards treasured down a country lane. A cider or two in the Three Ferrets can help make sense of a Somerset summer where the green stains on whites are not just from grass but also from the moulds of damp. In the villages there are those who play in the Shrubbery and those who don’t; and where amid the moos of protest from cow corner there are accusations of creating crop circles while ball rummaging in farmers’ meadows. Call it perverse, but while incredulous tales are told of the valiant knights Sir Beefy and Sir Viv playing hippy cricket, among the counties of Saint George other good men, and women, of Somerset continue to wield willow in defence of a dragon beast flying from a pole. A county where for lesser mortals a Wurzels ring tone from silly mid on can distract a batter from a beamer and Shep the sheepdog helps stop the runs at third man. Compiled during the vintage season of 2010, here are vaulted stories and little histories of cricketing characters both famous and, perhaps, not so much, to charm and to wince at between innings, dredged from a cricket mad soggy county that the author loves to his apple core.