By Rob Sawyer
It’s been a funny old start to the cricket season; the hoped-for return to pre-Covid cricket has not quite arrived, with most teams choosing not to provide the traditional cricket tea, a shame in our opinion, but something of an inevitably.
Young Oscar Harman has again been among the wickets. Another year older, his ability to put some serious revs on a cricket ball has improved further and your correspondent can confirm, keeping wicket to Oscar borders on the dangerous; once the ball pitches it is anyone’s guess what happens next. Happily, the batters are as clueless as the wicket keeper.
George Fisher bagged five wickets and three catches against a touring side from Essex, a game played in a superb spirit on and off the field. They brought quite a few supporters with them, most of whom started drinking at 10.30am and kept an impressive pace throughout the day, introducing a new concoction to most of us in the shape of Prosecco and Orange J20.
However, the most impressive performance of the year thus far came from 2nd XI Captain Tony Andrews who destroyed opponents Lewis Priory in a one person batting blitzkrieg, scoring an impressive 148 not out. It would have meant less had we not won the game, but victory was duly achieved with the evergreen Neil Crickmore taking four wickets.
The latest round of matches brought some lovely weather but a mixed bag of results; The 2nd XI beat Lingfield so convincingly they turned up en masse to watch the start of the 3rd XI Innings at Ardingly, a game that unfortunately ended in defeat but featured some great performances from youngsters Oli Thatcher, Diarmuid Ganpatsingh, Ed Warner and JoJo Swift who scored an impressive 24 not out.
When my brother-in-law Chris Wright arrived from Australia, he thought he was coming for a restful time in the English summer; instead, he was press ganged into action, registered as an overseas player with Hurst CC and charmed everyone with his Aussie wit, positive attitude and extraordinary beer drinking abilities. Oh, and he scored some runs and took some wickets despite not picking up a bat for over ten years! He is now back in Australia, nursing a pulled hamstring and loved every minute of his brief time with Hurst CC. Here he is about to open the batting for the 3rd XI with your Hurst Life cricket correspondent.