Well, how did my first retirement season go? My first season of free summer Saturdays and leisurely hour long boundary circumnavigation watching my ex-team mates continue their flannelled efforts for Penn CC?
In truth, it didn't go as planned.
The season was only four or five games old before the thirds were short and asked if I'd mind helping them out for just one game...
This led to an odd early/mid-season team hopping exercise between the thirds and the fourths which in all honesty I didn't really enjoy. This was nothing to do with my always excellent team mates, but more to do with the fact that I'd not done any pre-season work at all, and mentally I'd not prepared to even take the field. All of that combined to result in a series of pretty poor personal performances harshly reminding me of why I retired in the first place.
It all turned around for me around halfway through the season when I started regularly playing in the fifths. I'd had a series of matches under my belt and I started to feel how I should have felt at the start of the season - relaxed and better prepared.
The personal performances improved a little and unbelievably I hit form with the bat! My final two innings of the season were 21 not out, and 18 not out which doesn't sound much, but compared to the four consecutive ducks at the start of the season, it was little short of miraculous.
I still think the cricketing gods are toying with me. They let me get those runs at the end of the season to make me believe I could continue the hot streak at the start of next season...
I've enjoyed being in the fifths enormously. We have a great mix of old heads and young 'up and coming' players and we had some great results finally finishing fourth in the league.
All of which probably means that maybe I'll have to think again about tearing up those whites for dusters.
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