The Secret Cricketer: A rite of passage in Taunton

Moving towards the end of the season always triggers cricketers for several reasons. Firstly, it marks the end of summer, which is bad enough, but it also means a six-month break in relationships between team-mates.

With this in mind, rather than simply agree to meet up through the winter and keep in touch, multiple social events are hastily arranged in a clumsy attempt at making up for this impending bereavement.

One of these is the annual trip to Taunton to see proper cricket. This used to be a rite of passage trip for many a young cricketer, where they were introduced to alcohol, ribald tales of womanising, gambling and being away from their parents for the first time.

Times have definitely changed with no-one having cash for the traditional sweepstake on first innings runs and fizzy orange being the drink of choice. No one drunkenly got on the wrong train, waking in Edinburgh and no one stayed in Taunton after meeting a like-minded female cricket fan.

Most of the chat was about the bats in the shop or the merits of individual batsmen.

The older players told apocryphal tales of local cricketers like ‘Leapy Lee’ who learned to bowl in his granny’s backyard. This entailed stepping over a bucket, through a narrow gate, under the washing line and finally leaping across a drain cover.

Therefore, his action was unchanged, embedded in his muscle memory and he continued to bowl as if the obstacles were still in place. Another bowler had one leg and skipped in a circle before bowling at terrifying pace and appealing ferociously on alternate deliveries. After the game he would place his leg on the bar until he drank 15 pints out of it. I suspect this was somewhat embellished!

In the league we had to play the top team who have a battery of fast bowlers, which led to a raft of mysterious holidays and weddings, so availability was sparse. This week we have multiple injuries to fingers and ribs.

One of our more portly players was hit on the stomach and complained to the umpire that the delivery should be called a no-ball being above the waist. His grave error was to show the umpire the red mark where it hit his lower stomach, at which point the gelatinous area in question flopped below his black belt, demonstrating the umpire had indeed called it correctly.

The away umpire, being one of those who takes it very seriously, (wearing the darkest shade of black pressed trousers normally reserved for parish priests) took great delight in dryly informing him ‘under normal circumstances you’d be right’.

The next few overs were spent counselling my team-mate out of making a formal complaint that the umpire had ‘body shamed me’.

After the barrage from the league leaders, Steve, of the more diminutive build, took the brunt of it, being closer to the ground than the rest of us. He said his wife thinks he’s a lion tamer on Saturdays given the state he returns home in every week.

The hardest job in cricket is that of second team captain. Our captain, Ken, isn’t actually the key decision-maker at times. His wife has a strong presence shall we say. If they are going out on the Saturday night we must bat first.

This usually results in an early finish, given our batting line up. When Ken was going on holiday, we batted second and he opened the batting ‘to get us off to a quick start’. The fact that he was driving out of the ground with his wife in the passenger seat pulling their caravan instigated an inquest about the veracity of his decision-making and whether it is entirely in the team’s best interest.

George, being on the spectrum, sees nothing wrong in genuinely asking ‘what does your wife think we should do if we win the toss Ken?’

We are fortunate to have him with us really because he always talks about the awkward elephant in the room.

I’m hoping he might say something soon like ‘why don’t we all meet up regularly in winter like normal people might?’