Posted by Ed writes:
I went to the Scarborough Cricket Festival. Here’s nearly proof.
Yorkshire playing Durham in a top-of-table Div 1 encounter. Your proverbial 32-pointer.
We bought our tickets at the turnstiles.
At the same time, my Dad was at Trent Bridge. His ticket was more fancy.
We asked where we were allowed to sit.
“You can sit anywhere.” Pause. “But not the pavilion.”
Great ground, packed but with enough non-pavilion options to make it a nice-but-tricky decision.
As happens often in my life, I ended up at deep midwicket.
The sun shone.
We agreed there was nowhere else in the world we’d rather be than here. We wondered if Gary Ballance felt the same way.
We decided to do a circuit of the ground. You can do that in real places.
We started then got stopped: “You have to pay a pound to walk through here.” It was the members enclosure.
“Or you can walk anti-clockwise.”
We spurned the financial incentive and embraced the anti-clockwisdom.
Sat on the grass now, by the actual, real-life boundary rope, near a few hundred Yorkshire supporters, it was time for a beer.
We headed to the bar. They only sold the Scarborough Cricket Club Merlot by the glass – I wasn’t allowed a bottle as a keepsake.
We drank bitter.
Dad was worried he’d not get his money back for his third day Test ticket. Here is the small print.
Small print in Scarborough is bigger.
After a few more beers, we passed out.
Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.
That was really tickety-boo, Ed
Tickety-booze?
Superb piece of photo-journalism there, Ed. Well done.
It looks resplendent in this new-look hovel of ours, although I am under orders not to slag off the old hovel, so I’m sure it would have looked mighty fine in the old hovel too.
Make no mistake, the pictures would have been more appropriately sized in the old hovel.
Superb.
There does seem to be a few anomalies with the tickets, though. Colin Adamson gets his name on the pass out ticket, but not on the main ticket, which seems strange. And while you were the 420th person allowed in, you were the 2721st person allowed out. People being allowed to leave more than eight times more often than they enter doesn’t feel like the best business plan, especially in times of austerity (aka Yorkshire).
Also, the word “bloody” is missing from the refunds statement.
How much does it cost to go to cricket matches in England? I ask because the Warne-Tendulkar exhibition matches were finally announced and tickets are on sale, but the cheapest is $50, and anywhere with any sort of decent view is upwards of $150. Is that as ridiculous as it sounds?
My next question is: if I somehow can afford to get a ticket, and then drive the five hours to New York and then take a train to Queens, would the matches be considered “amateur” or “professional” for the purposes of a match report for this site?
The Test ticket above is £85, so $130. You can probably get County Championship tickets for a tenner. Twenty20 maybe £20. Comedy exhibition matches with loads of old bastards – no idea.
Drive for 48 hours to LA and i’ll give you a ticket
I’ve been offered 2 tickets for the 14th Nov game at Dodgers Stadium for $700, I think that is about £10,000. Not too bad until you realise a pint of beer is 16oz and costs more than a decent bottle of Ged’s wine
In other news, Somersetshire have signed Bucky ‘McLucky’ ‘Chris’ Rogers for the whole of next season. It seems likely he’ll partner Trescothick at the top of the order while young Tom ‘Very’ Abell moves down to 3. This being the case, can any readers remember a more geriatric opening pair?
Brian Close and John Edrich is the combination that springs instantly to mind.
Some brief research shows you’re right – a combined age of at least 86. Anyway, it won’t come to pass because Somerset have said Rogers will bat at 3 – presumably they only have the one mobility scooter available, although what they’ll do if Tres is first fall isn’t yet clear.
Thanks all. Top numbers analysis Bert – hadn’t spotted that inconsistency.
Price of this ticket was £16, with decent concessions. Worth every penny.
I see that Pakistan A are 192-12 off 87.5 overs in their first innings in Sharjah, and Misbah hasn’t even batted yet. I doubt we’ll ever bowl them out at this rate.