I Spy…The County Championship In Cliches

Posted on April 3, 2017 by Matt H in First Class, Opinion

Apparently it’s April already.  This is a shock to people who can’t comprehend that we’re closer to 2040 than we are to the release of Parklife. Yes time is an absolute bugger of a bitch, and the imminent arrival of yet another summer of cricket doesn’t help. Some of us have only just taken out the Christmas tree, whilst Editor Steve still walks around in a scarf and Harrington jacket going to football matches, rather than, say, wearing a panama and strolling along a sun-kissed promenade to Hove. Of course, the cricket season actually started last week. Not that the University matches really count, unless you take delight in Samit Patel being dismissed by a student from Cambridge.

With the season starting properly on Friday, we thought we should do some kind of preview.  But then we thought the preview would be pretty much identical to every County Championship preview we have ever written, but with fewer mentions of Graham Napier.  Instead, we have devised a little game for you to play. We suggest it will become essential some time around tea on Friday, when you realise that you’re not actually going to listen to every over of your team’s season via the BBC website, and that you can only refresh twitter so many times before surfing for cat gifs instead.

Here then, is 51allout’s ‘I Spy the County Championship Cliches’ game.  Remember to keep track of your scores in an appropriate place, such as the back of that fixtures wallchart you never actually put up.

• A newspaper article endorsing the gentle rhythms of a County Championship match…1 point
• Bitter Durham fans slagging off the ECB…2 points
• A newspaper article endorsing the gentle rhythms of a County Championship match that doesn’t mention scotch eggs, cress sandwiches, thermos flasks or pints of cider…20 points
• Smug Hampshire fans praising the ECB…2 points
• Fielders wearing at least two jumpers…5 points
• An ironic tweet suggesting that Marcus Trescothick is one to watch…1 point
• Chris Read / Ryan Sidebottom / Darren Stevens being described as evergreen…2 points
• Any mention of a long-bulldozed outground…5 points
• Ian Botham saying something inflammatory…5 points
• A suggestion that whoever scores a couple of centuries in their first two matches may score 1,000 runs before the end of May…10 points
• A glowing review of Wisden…1 point
• A glowing review of Wisden that isn’t a rejigged version of last year’s review of Wisden…20 points
• BBC Sport retweeting someone listening whilst they should be working…2 points
• Ravi Bopara scoring a Championship century…50 points
• Eoin Morgan scoring a Championship run…100 points