Howzat, for an English summer?

Matt Limb OBE looks at that most iconic of summer pastimes, cricket, a sport that is seeing growth in Lincolnshire with the younger generations.

The crack of leather on willow – there is no sound that better typifies an English summer, even if it is followed by the echoing shout of “Howzat”, then a round of applause. Cricket: be it your local village team in a county league or one of the international tests as nation takes on nation, nothing is more English on a summer’s day.

It is a game that requires strong individual skills with bat and ball, but at the same time you need to be a determined team member, backed up with tactics that can challenge your mind. It is no surprise that the Duke of Wellington is claimed to have said ‘The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.’ I do have to ask, what would a summer be without cricket and maybe strawberries and cream?

I recently had the good fortune to visit Lord’s Cricket Ground, that mecca and hallowed turf that rightly claims to be The Home of Cricket, sitting in its current location of St John’s Wood, North London since 1811. Often just known as Lord’s, it has been witness to many punctuation marks in cricket’s history. In 1814, William Ward is recorded as scoring the first century in cricket history at Lord’s; then in 1884 one of the first Test Matches between England and Australia was played there, which found the tourists in trouble after being reduced to ninety-three for six by the left-arm spinner, Yorkshireman, Ted Peate.

Arriving in good time for a walk around Lord’s, I had time to take in and savour the history that appeared around every corner before settling down, opposite the iconic and famous Old Father Time weathervane, to watch two T20 Matches. Often referred to as ‘white ball cricket’, the new formats of T20 and the One-Day Internationals follow the same basic laws as the traditional Test Matches – proving that an old and traditional but established sport can adapt to modern times. Plus we should also remember The Hundred, which was created just a few of seasons ago.

Cricket can be entertaining in so many ways, but I will never forget watching an international test match on television, while trying to explain to an American the basic laws of the game and how it is played. The fundamental principle – that the team that is not in is trying to get the team that is in, out – I fear was totally lost. If I remember, we agreed to settle on it being a very posh form of baseball, played by smartly dressed gentleman who stop to have tea.

While Lord’s may be the pinnacle of the sport, a place where many a cricketer can only dream of walking out with his bat under his arm, cricket is busy and active across the country, including Lincolnshire, with a wealth of busy village cricket clubs.

I was never a great athlete at school, to the point of a near dislike of football. But I could enjoy cricket, even if my average as a batsman was one, at best two runs, before I saw the middle stump fly past the wicket-keeper, to the delight of the grinning bowler. But it could have been so different, had the current

England and Wales Cricket Board programme for junior cricket training been around in my day.
The England and Wales Cricket Board, often simply referred to as ECB, is the national governing body across all the cricket disciplines and is currently actively and positively engaging with young people to bring them into the sport. This is done locally, in cricket clubs up and down the country, through the ECB Dynamos and All Stars Cricket initiatives. These are aimed at 5-11 year-olds, with the goal of developing individual and team skills along with the spirit of cricket and a respect for others.

All Stars cricket has been created for 5-8 year-olds. Its success can be seen in the more than 2,000 clubs and organisations that have adopted and are now running the eight-week course. On joining, there is a personalised t-shirt for each youngster, with a programme designed to support a wide range of abilities, disabilities and different learning needs and parents actively encouraged to take part.

Dynamos Cricket is the natural follow-on, for 8-11 year-olds. This is still about having fun, but now provides development in the elementary skills needed to play cricket and the fostering of being a team member.

As someone who strongly believes it can only be a good thing to get children out and active in sport for their own social wellbeing and personal development – especially when so many can be glued to the latest digital device and see little daylight – I decided to have a look at the Dynamos and All Stars Cricket initiatives.

My search did not take long, I soon found myself on an early evening at Ancaster Cricket Club. The smell of recently mown grass lingered in the damp air as the groundsman, Neill, was doing the final preparation of the wicket for a match in the coming days. Chatting, I soon found out that Neill really is a cricket all-rounder and a true stalwart of the club, as he often turns his hand to playing, scoring plus being the team’s manager, in addition to his busy groundsman duties.

Against the background noise of Neill’s lawnmower hovering over the pitch, a mass of colourful cones, bats and balls were being spread out by Chris Randall ready for the arrival of the children. Chris is the club’s lead for both the Dynamos and All Stars Cricket – this follows his lifelong interest in cricket and playing for Ancaster Cricket Club since soon after the pandemic.

Now in the third year, the number of training programmes at Ancaster started with little more than a dozen participants, but have seen colossal growth – this season reaching 60 registered applications, with a high number actively taking part every week, some travelling a significant distance for the hour’s dedicated training.

Then it happened, a convoy of family cars dropping of children, all excited at the evening’s training that lay ahead. Many parents soon disappeared, waving goodbye, saying they would be back in an hour. Others stayed, willing to help make the evening the success it has become; and some simply sat on the boundary watching while enjoying a drink from the club’s bar.

Soon the two groups started training, the younger All Stars in their light blue T-shirts practising throwing a tennis ball at wickets, then throwing a ball to a fellow All Star. But if, given your young age, you have trouble catching a ball, a bright coloured bean bag is at hand. As Chris commented, this is very much about play rather than the harder cricket skills, but there is batting, throwing and catching which is good for their hand-eye coordination – and it underpins what Chris thinks are the core skills they can learn at this age: teamwork and communication, all in the true spirit of cricket.

Chris is an ECB qualified coach and a cricket umpire, which sees him adjudicating matches a couple of days a week in the season, but he is especially proud of the growth in children’s cricket training at the club. He further added that you can see some of the older Dynamos group, who came up through the younger All Stars group, really coming on and showing great potential.

With the excitement and noise of the All Stars still ringing in my ears, I stood and watched the older Dynamos. Here you could see coaching rather than play, first bowling then batting and fielding, but again fostering the essential team spirit. And while there is a training syllabus, it is not regimented. One of the Dynamos asked if they could practise more batting; Chris was soon able to put in a simple routine that found them all batting and taking it in turn to field and then bowl.

Given the age group, I think the ECB has been especially clever in driving the training forward with a dedicated smartphone app linked to Dynamos cricket sessions. It is full of unlockable challenges, demonstrations and quizzes that encourage participants to be active and get involved. Equally, Chris can keep parents updated with a dedicated messaging group should rain prevent an evening’s training, and it allows for swift updates about all training activities.

Driving back from Ancaster that evening, the biggest thought on my mind was the enormous opportunity that this cricket training offers to any child. Yes, it would be great if they went on and started playing cricket for the village, but even if they don’t there are vital life skills, in teamwork and communication plus respect for others, that is gently brought into the training curriculum. It would be a long journey from Ancaster to Lord’s, but as we know, every journey starts with a single first step and there could be no better start for any son, or daughter, interested in cricket.

Whether it is the crack of leather on willow with professional cricket players in whites playing red ball cricket at a Lord’s Test, the excited voices of children on the village green playing knock-about cricket, or being active with Dynamos and All Stars cricket training, it all delivers what an English summer is about.

So it is good to see the likes of Chris, and his colleagues, investing in our future summers and helping preserve a very British summer pastime.

You can follow Ancaster Cricket Club on Facebook

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