Saturday, 9 August 2025

The Hundred and Jimmy Anderson

 

Max spotted us in the crown on TV and
managed to grab a screen shot

Arthur is getting quite interested in cricket. Margaret has wondered about taking him to a T20, but Sam beat us to it and booked tickets for The Hundred at the Oval.

So, Arthur was with us a couple of weeks ago and watched the daily highlights of the England v India test. He enjoyed the highlights, but he kept asking who had won. I told him the match lasted five days and no-one had won yet. He couldn’t understand that play could go on all day and no-one had won. Test cricket can be quite hard to fathom and it requires pain, age and experience to appreciate properly.

The Hundred is supposed to address those issues and make cricket accessible to younger, less knowledgeable viewers.

The match was against Manchester and there’s a women’s match followed by the men. Each team faces 100 balls and there are fielding restrictions for the first 25 balls in order to encourage the batsmen to hit over the protective ring for a more spectacular show. It started at 11am and both matches were done by 4.30pm.

The format has had its critics, but I enjoyed it and so did Arthur and Saoirse. Arthur won’t remember, but he did get to see the great Jimmy Anderson, the finest test bowler England has produced and taker of more than 700 test wickets. He came out to bat 11 for Manchester and got a massive reception. He didn’t take a wicket and got knocked around by some lucky shots and poor fielding. I saw him on his Test debut against Zimbabwe at Lord’s with Margaret and Max and he took five wickets (his first five) so great to see him one more time.

No comments:

Post a Comment