SMELLING VICTORY – THE MORNING BEFORE
It’s all very well them saying that, in this hot weather, if the temperature outside the house is higher than that inside, you should keep your doors and windows open – but trust me, when your black Labrador has eaten all the gooseberries in the back garden – again – you really need them open. 🐕💨
That said, Hector and I are both looking forward to the big match today. With the team just one game away from Finals Day, we can both smell victory – or, at least, I think we will be able to, once the air has cleared!
Because Somerset must surely be favourites to beat Yorkshire in the quarter-final of this year’s T20 cricket tournament.
And it was kind of the powers that be to bring the start time forward – presumably so as not to clash with the meeting I’m at this evening. Even so, it’s just as well that Glamorgan are out of the competition, as, speaking as I am in South Wales, had they still been involved, it might have affected attendance.
Come on Somerset!
Because it’s not coming home…it’s staying home…just where it’s been this past year!
THEY THOUGHT ‘TWAS ALL OVER, IT AIN’T YET – THE MORNING AFTER
Regular readers will remember how this time yesterday, Hector and I thought we were smelling victory. Well, despite it seeming for a moment that our olfactory senses may have been out of kilter – when Yorkshire appeared to be cruising to Finals Day – it appears we were right!
But the match that seemed lost as I entered the church that I was speaking at turned out to be an incredible and improbable win for Somerset – brought about, I should add, without a request being made for the divine intervention that seemed necessary.
Which means that one of us hopes to be heading to Edgbaston on Saturday. It would, of course, have been both of us, but Hector I’m afraid is no longer welcome at the ground – not after his fracas last year with a steward who threw him out of the Hollies Stand for not realising that the squirrel he chased and, uncharacteristically caught and ripped apart, was in fact some chap who had dressed up as a woodland creature for what was meant to be a laugh. Which, to be fair, it was for some – not least Hector, who still finds it funny now!
But Somerset’s epic triumph wasn’t the only reason that yesterday was so joyous. There was another reason too – one brought about by the fact that getting older causes you to think about things in ways you didn’t when you were younger.
Specifically, I have in mind the enormous pleasure that one approaching 60 is afforded by buying a brand new rotary washing line.
And no, it isn’t that I’d chosen it as a gift for my wife on our upcoming wedding anniversary – that, dear reader, will instead be the much cheaper spike that you have to buy separately in order to secure its position in your back garden!
But more unsettling than a belligerent Craig Overton in the eyes of a hapless Yorkshire death bowler are the thoughts that arise when you come to realise that, with our previous garment drying device lasting us over 30 years, this new one is likely to see us out!
Mind you, if on Saturday Somerset produce another heart-stopping performance like yesterday’s, I very much doubt I’ll make it through the weekend.
Unlike the unfinished box of Cornflakes in our kitchen cupboard – which will almost certainly see me out too.
To read ‘We Are Somerset -A Song For Finals Day’, click here
Other cricket related posts:
To read ‘With four day cricket in mind’, click here
To read ‘Ode to Brian’, click here
To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here
Cricketing blogs from 2025:
To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here
To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here
To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here
To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here
To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here
To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here
Cricketing blogs from 2024:
To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here
To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here
To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here
To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here
To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here
To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here
To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here
To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here
To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here
To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here
To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here
Cricketing blogs from 2023:
To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here
To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here
To read ‘Only a game’, click here
To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here
To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here
To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here
To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here
To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here
To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here
To read ‘Breaking News’, click here
To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here
To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here
To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here
To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here
To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here
To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here
To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here
To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here
To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here
Cricketing blogs from previous years:
To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here
To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here
To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here
To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here
To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here
To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here
To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here
To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here
To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here
To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here
To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here
To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here
To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here
To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here
To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here
To read ‘If Only’, click here
To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here
To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here
To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here
To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here
A Jack Leach Trilogy:
To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here
To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here
To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here
To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here
And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour
To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here
To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here
Some musings 