Cricket is a pain

I ask you straightaway to forgive any typing or grammatical errors in this week's blog entry. I'm trying to finish quickly as sitting at my computer is extremely painful. Want to know why?

England has enjoyed an unseasonally hot and dry April. This makes watching and playing cricket extremely pleasurable. However, there are drawbacks for players. The ground is very hard and unforgiving as I found to my cost early on in this week's match. I was at mid-on and dived to save a ball passing swiftly to my right. I got nowhere near it and the ball sped to the boundary. As I emerged from my dive with sideways roll flourish (having registered a 4 on the Richter Scale) my right arm screamed with pain. I had an angry looking graze running from elbow to wrist. Very sore. Very painful. It got worse.

Next over, back came the ball again and I had to dive forwards on to my knees. This time I managed to stop the ball but both of my knees exploded with pain. It took a while to get up and walking became very difficult. It also didn't help that I was carrying an Achilles tendon injury which felt as if someone was hacking at my heel with a razor blade.

Then I began to bowl.

It was only the second game of the season so few of us are as supple as we should be. The guys that went to nets look OK. I'm afraid you can see my version of nets in my photo at the top of this blog.

So, with a sore heel, swollen knees and a grazed and bleeding arm, I trundled in. After the first over I had difficulty turning my head owing to the fact I pulled a neck muscle with my fourth delivery. Mobility was becoming a real issue.

Somehow I managed to take my first wicket of the season and I can be for forgiven jumping with delight. Problem was, it put my back out. Now I genuinely couldn't bend down to pick the ball off the floor.

It was at this point that I noticed a sharp stabbing pain from my foot. I was wearing new cricket boots and they had taken all the skin off my left little toe. Believe it or not, this became the most painful of all these injuries.

I managed to get through the match and we won, but my sorry tale doesn't end there.

I went straight from the match to a rock concert at a very small venue. The toilets (mens and ladies) could only be reached via a narrow staircase. I gave way to a lady and she complimented me on being a gentleman. I just didn't have the heart to tell her I could only wincingly negotiate the staircase by gripping the hand rails on either side.

My wife is getting pretty cheesed off that I spend most Sundays now groaning and unable to move. She says she's going to write a note for the captain next week. She isn't joking.

Just imagine in next week's dressing room as Skip reads it out to the rest of the team. "Dear Skip, Please can David be excused cricket as he has a bad heel/toe/knees/back/neck..".

That sort of humiliation would be the most painful of all.

A new season and a new hero

At last!

The Cricket World Cup has finally thrown up a hero for all amateur cricketers to worship.

Those of us who stumble about the cricket fields of England believing we are finely tuned athletes have finally found the international role model we mostly resemble. This portly Adonis is called Dwayne Leverock and he plays for Bermuda.

The supple, speedy and springy antics of Collingwood, Clark, Ponting and Gibbs are so last year. Leverock is our rock. From now on, Dwayne reigns.

The 2007 season started for the mighty Penn Fourths away at Cannock & Rugeley. We got off to a bit of a bad start before the match when the caretaker did not turn up to unlock the changing rooms. This meant peeling off our clothes pitchside and revealing our Leverock-esque figures to the local residents whose houses overlooked the grounds. I was sure I spotted a camcorder poking out between a pair of twitching curtains.

I spent most of Sunday morning searching the internet for 'tubbycricketersinthealtogether.com' just to see if any of us had made it as 'Mr. April'.

And to all those mothers/wives/girlfriends in their cars who pretended to turn away as we changed - I know you were using your wing mirrors.