It has been a long, actually quite a long gap between this and my last blog. The reason for that has been the ever so long, depressive and sad year that 2020 turned out to be.
Sadly, many of our cricket colleagues saw this pandemic take away their livelihood and some even lost their battle against it. Over 3 million people got the virus and our whole lifestyle had to adjust accordingly.
There was little cricket if we look at the timeline it was played between (August & mid-September). By God, the month and half was crammed with so much cricket that no one could have guessed. The weather also turned out rather good for once. There were several great performances and some that a few of us would blame on COVID – and why not 🤭
There were no promotions or relegations this year for any club. All the games were played as a friendly tournament. It was very heartening to see the players coming out in their whites. There were no teas, some didn’t even get to play on home pitches and there was lots of sanitising for everyone to do, with regular 6 over breaks. For grassroots teams, remembering the balls each over is often a task without confirmation of square leg 😂, so well done to all who remembered the 6 over breaks. For senior passengers like me, those breaks were very welcome rest for our depleted stamina. Sadly, most of us did not translate that into big scores. Again, why wait so long when you can get out in style, playing a God knows what shot.🤭🤭
While write about last year, how can we miss that Elbow touches replaced the gentlemens handshake. Looks like this trend will continue in 2021 for safety too. Some chose to do aerial high fives, but nothing beats an elbow shake!We must also thank NatWest for their generosity, in how they helped grassroots clubs by providing sanitisers for players. There would be no shaking anything and no cricket without their magic liquid.
Above everything, what I saw this past year was the humanity and compassion resonating from the spirit of the game, no matter where it was played. People coming together, supporting each other, helping out with planning, logistics, health and safety, sharing resources and I must add, clapping for the NHS. This reaffirmed my faith in this beautiful game of cricket, as a gentlemens game. I stopped playing and started watching (cricket that is!). Cricket in South Wales put a strong show against Covid19 and blew it for sixes.
Our club rolled out three sides last year, due to the sheer interest of players. I would like to welcome Tom, Priyesh, Ankit, Harnoor, Michael, Nikhil, Karan, Sandeep and Vamsi. I hope you all have a glorious 2021, with a bounty of runs and wickets. The club will continue its 2 team structure and play the 3rd team as a friendly XI, picking up cancelled league fixtures, provided the availability looks as good as last year.
2021 is the 5th year for our little club. I have enormous amount of memories to look back on, including back to back promotions, winning our divisions being runners up, winning indoor leagues. I wish there was money in cricket like football – we could have all had a team curry for free 🤣. On a serious note, I would like to thank all founding members, most whom are still with the club in some capacity, for 5 glorious years. From a hard to forget naming ceremony in a frozen Llandaff Field park, to the lengthy discussions in the cafe, we sat, deliberated and here we are. I would like to raise a hand for Mike Dowers, Zubair Iqbal, Avinash, Taj, Sandy, Mubashir, Rabbi, Piyar, Ash, Kaleem and Abdul, for giving their service to the club. You will all have your well deserved *5 year medals* given to you at the next club gathering.
💡 The club did not have any Annual Awards or Club Evening, due to the pandemic and lockdowns. We do however look forward to a better year ahead and ofcourse, if life returns to normal, a Curry Day!
With all the progress made against fighting the pandemic, it’s looking more and more hopeful for this year to be better. We don’t know what it would be. We don’t know if same rule may apply for sanitising as last year, we don’t know how things would be in May. But we know one thing.. we love cricket and we will be out as soon as it’s safer to do so. We have hope and hope means to be able to see the light despite of being surrounded by darkness.
I wish you all a happy new year and may you all have your best cricket stats in 2021. Whatever you do, don’t lose hope ❤️.
Skippy
Bay Dragons Cricket Club 