© ‘ The Cricket Match’ … Pen & Wash – WHB – March 2017
CRICKET
Roll up, Roll up
And buy your ticket
Rejoice and thrill
At the game of CRICKET
Bowlers bowl
Fielders field
Batsmen bat
Never yield
Keepers keep
And catchers catch
All this happens
In a cricket match
Strikers strike
And hitters hit
Sloggers slog
Lickety-split
Floaters float
Beamers beam
Chuckers chuck
While seamers seam
Umpires umpire
Scorers score
Strikers strike
Can’t ask for more
Spinners spin
Sledgers sledge
Captains captain
At the cutting edge
Drivers drive
And blockers block
Bouncers bounce
Eye on the clock
Grafters graft
And Hackers hack
Hookers hook
Better stand back
Openers open
Swingers swing
Sweepers sweep
‘Cos that’s their thing
Oft played upon
A sticky wicket
Best sport of all
The game of CRICKET
As in all sports, cricket has over its long history built up a long list of specialist vocabulary, or jargon. I have attempted to incorporate some of this specialist language in my verses.
My pen and wash painting is of a scene at the Heathcoat Cricket Club in Mid-Devon.
The game of cricket has been played on this ground since the late 19th Century.
The ground itself is one of the few to be found actually within the grounds of a National Trust property – that of Knightshayes Court , in the village of Bolham, near Tiverton.
Roland's Ragbag 
Sloggers and beamers and sledgers…oh my.
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Another foreign language? Thank you, Jerry.
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Brilliant ! and I’m not a fan. Move over McGough !
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OK, Nigel, you can stop the sledging now!
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No tease Roland, these latest pieces are, in my opinion, every bit as good as some published in the same style.
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I appreciate your comment, Nigel
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On holiday in North Devon in my sixties I turned out for the eponymous team for about half an hour while they waited for two lost players
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Hope they’ve found them by now.Thanks for responding, Derrick.
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I agree with Nigel, this is a classic piece of poetry Roland and should be hung in the halls of the MCC. Love the painting. Point of order though, isn’t that a no ball? I’m asking for Hawkeye.
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Correct, I think I just heard the umpire call it! Actually I got the perspective wrong – the pitch hardly looks 22 yards does it!? … would have looked worse if I’d moved the batting crease further forward!
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I think you must have been watching me bowl Roland. The perspective of the picture works as it goes well with the atmosphere you have created in the poem.
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… well, that would have been better than you watching me bat, Davy!
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Maybe we need to recreate those moments Roland.
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… I spend my life re-creating moments, Davy. Might just be easier for me to re-draw the popping crease!
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I’m not so sure about the ‘batsmen bat / never yield’, especially after following the Eng / SA series, just ended. You are part of a long tradition of cricket verse now, though, along with ‘those two spinning friends of mine / Ramadin and Valentine’!!!
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I agree … expressed with just a touch of hyperbole! Thanks for commenting, Roger.
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Win the toss, win the game, or so it seemed. I do miss my cricket!
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Yes, Roger. There’s plenty of luck in cricket – in all sports – as in life.
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Life sometimes bowls you a ‘right googly’ too.
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Tell that to the ‘Chinaman’!
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Oh dear: we received a notice at work (my former place of employment) that they were going to set up a ‘spin clinic’. I replied and said “Oh good, perhaps someone will be able to explain the difference between a Googly and a Chinaman.” My inbox was flooded with accusations of racism and I had to be rescued by my colleagues from Pakistan and India … but I see that the term ‘Chinaman’ has come under scrutiny in cricketing circles recently. Dennis, the Brylcream Boy, is turning in his grave.
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… it’s just Not Cricket is it? … not as the Comptons and Huttons would recognise it. Doesn’t a Googly have something to do with a Search Engine?
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Only if it turns the other way from the way you expect … then every batsman needs a search engine! “You were bowled, Dennis. Was it the googly that deceived you?” “Oh no, I was caught in two minds: I couldn’t decide whether to hit it for a six or a four …”
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Call for a Hawk-Eye review. Hope that’s not some ethnic tribe I’m defaming.
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Wonderful, Roland…..and a cricket crazy nation, we too are 🙂
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I thank you for your appreciative comment, Vidur.
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My pleasure always, Roland.
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