Oh ye Gates

I declare these gates....gates

Fantasy Bob was disappointed that illness* forced him to miss the grand ceremony to inaugurate go ahead Edinburgh cricket club Carlton's most recent improvement.

FB welcomes the new floodgates. He is sure that they will save many lives in the years to come.

The new floodgates' worth was immediately obvious to all attending the ceremony. Despite a night and day of torrential rain which epitomises cricket weather in Scotland at its finest, the whereabouts of all Carlton juniors could be fully accounted for. Previous years had seen the small cricketers increasingly at risk of being swept away in any kind of rainfall at the ground.

FB cannot be sure, but he thinks that these gates were foreseen in Biblical times. The words of Psalm 24 in particular - Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Words inspiringly set by Handel in Messiah and presented on this link.

As the Psalm goes on - Who is the King of Glory - what number does he bat?  A subject cricketers everywhere continue to discuss.

*FB would like to make it clear to his handful of worldwide readers that there is no truth in the rumour that his febrile condition was caused by winning three tosses in succession in the opening games of the season.

Rutherford

Test cricket in the frozen northlands resumes with the first of the 2 match series between England and New Zealand getting underway at Lords.  This is bad news for cricket lovers for it means Fantasy Bob has to resume his unmatchable commentaries on Test events.


These have been legendary in sowing seeds of confusion and doubt in cricket fans across the world.  Marriages have split apart over disagreements about the finer points of FB's analysis.  Share prices in international markets have tumbled. There have been calls for a referendum on EU membership.  So with 7 Tests including the Ashes and a whole lot of unnecessary ODIing and T20ing also to fit in the danger signs are clear.   Cricket fans will be looking to FB for guidance. Insurance premiums for everything seem likely to soar.

FB has no idea why England are playing New Zealand now.  (See this is the kind of punditry that gets them talking - usually about something else).  Not that he has anything against New Zealand but the sides last met in March which is so recent that even FB remembers it.  England of course went to NZ on the back of a convincing thrashing of India and, complacently denying that they were complacent, complacently underestimated their opponents and got away with a drawn series by the skin of their teeth.

Hamish Rutherford's Test debut

The first match throws up an interesting set of questions - how will England cope without Kevin Pietersen still nursing his bruised knee bone.  Will Swann's elbow operation restore the magic.  The same for Bresnan.  Can Compton deliver at home?  Is Root as good as he looks?  Will NZ play without a front line spinner?  All very good questions, to which FB most certainly has no answer.

FB is looking forward to seeing how NZ opener Hamish Rutherford performs.  A man could barely make up a more Scottish name. There must be Border Riever genes there and Rutherford has had a few seasons in his real homeland having done stints at Scottish clubs Stenhousemuir and Ayr.

Rutherford burst onto the Test scene in March with 171 on debut against England. Hamish's father Ken, a former NZ skipper, had a more measured start to his test career.  It took him 17 innings to accumulate the number of runs that his son managed in one visit.  The younger generation you see - not prepared to wait.

Rutherford takes the field with no fewer than 4 other players who have similarly made a century on their Test debut.  FB is sure that this is a record, even if it is only for Test at Lords in May.

Rutherford's team mate Kane Williamson made 131 at Ahmedabad in November 2010 to mark his arrival.   And there three maiden centurions in England's ranks - Jonathan Trott - 119 against Australia at the Oval in August 2009, Matt Prior - 126* against the West Indies at Lords in May 2007 and Alistair Cook - 104* at Nagpur in March 2006.



Ernest Rutherford

England might do well to remind themselves that Kiwi Rutherfords coming to England have a history of doing well for themselves.In 1894 Ernest Rutherford, son of a Scottish father, arrived from his sheep farming background to take up scholarship to Cambridge University.  In 1908, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, an achievement on a par with scoring a century in your first test innings . In 1914, he was knighted. He then went on to make essential discoveries which lead to controlled nuclear reaction and was the founding father of nuclear physics.  He was awarded a peerage in 1931 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1997, the 'rutherford', a unit of radioactivity, was named in his honour.  He is most probably the most historically significant New Zealander ever.

Although FB has been unable to trace any familial relation between Ernest and Hamish - that is the legacy of the fine Scottish name that Hamish has to live up to.

FB wishes him well.

Continental Style

As Edinburgh's city fathers contemplate controversial plans to revitalise Princes Street, the planning authorities at go ahead Edinburgh cricket club Carlton yesterday issued their own plans to revitalise their prestigious Grange Loan HQ with continental style cafes and restaurants.

Continental Style Grange Loan - artist's impression

The authorities have been concerned that the iconic venue has lost its place as the premier shopping venue in the City.

'Increasingly we are finding that our shopping offer is not drawing people.  They seem to come here to watch cricket not to shop.  This is not continental enough.'

The club's planners think that the provision of continental style facilities will address this.

'Many a shopper at Grange Loan has trudged to the top of the famous hill only to find no continental style pavement cafe where they can rest and recover in the continental style.  What they need is a choice of continental style pavement cafes serving continental style fare where they can sit and shiver in the non-continental style wind.'

Other improvements being considered are continental style street theatre where continental style actors pose perfectly still, until they are animated by a coin dropped in their hat.

The club has been training hard during fielding practice for this development.

'Fantasy Bob has mastered standing perfectly still, but is struggling with the having to move bit.'

Proposals come before the club's Council shortly and are expected to attract continental style debate.

Brahms

Had he not died in 1897, Johannes Brahms would have been 180 years old today, 7 May 2013. A fair old age you might think.

Brahms at the age of 20

Had Brahms reached his 180th birthday and had he taken an interest in cricket, it is likely that he would be found on the side of those defending the integrity of Test cricket against the tide of T20, ODI and all the rest. For the 19th century musical world was dominated by an aesthetic dispute - the so called The War of the Romantics where there was disagreement about all manner of things - musical structure, the limits of chromatic harmony, programme versus absolute music and the wearing of coloured clothing during matches. 

Brahms took the side of the conservatives revering Beethoven as the highest pinnacle of achievement rather than a force setting off new progressive trends in music. 

But Brahms has not lived to be 180 and his views on the respective merits of Test and shorter form cricket have to be inferred since they are not known.

Indeed it is difficult to find much by way of interest to the cricketer in his work. But there is a flash of something in his German Requiem. This great work was first heard in 1866, the year in which WG Grace at the age of 18 scored 224* which stood for many years as the highest first class score in cricket. Was this an influence on Brahms? Conventional accounts suggest that the work was written in memory of his mother who died in the previous year.

Whatever the stimulus to composition the German Requiem is a great work. It sets a number of texts from the Lutheran Bible and are chosen for the comfort they give to the mourning. Its second movement would seem specially composed to comfort Doughty Groundsmen facing major challenges in preparing playing surfaces. The text is taken from the first Book of Peter - in German it goes

Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen wie des Grases Blumen. Das Gras ist verdorret und die Blume abgefallen.

In English, it is less resonant but still powerful

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falleth away.

Many a time has FB come across a Doughty Groundsman slumped over the scarifier with the words 'Das Gras ist verdorret' on his lips.  When that happens only a dose of Brahms will help.

FB's old vinyl recording of this work featured the Edinburgh Festival Chorus - the Morningside accents of the choir clearly articulating the text.  No Morningside accents are on this rendition conducted by the German maestro Otto Klemperer in 1961.  This is how to build a climax.

It is likely that Otto Klemperer, who was reknowned for his fondness for slow tempi, would have sided with Test cricket against T20 and stuff.  But we shall never know.

The Old Man and the Sea

Fantasy Bob discovers that it is 60 years to the day that Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.  This novel was Hemingway's last major piece of fiction to be published in his lifetime.  He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

The novel tells the tale of Santiago an aging fisherman who has gone many long days without a catch - 84 in fact.  He is dubbed unlucky by his fellow villagers and no one will sail with him.  He sets out alone and hooks a giant fish which he takes days to subdue.  Eventually he is able to lash it to the side of his boat but as he makes his way back to base sharks circle the boat and bit by bit chew up the fish so that when he lands only the skeleton is left.

There have been many critical readings of this work.  It is suggested that it is a meditation on Hemingway's own mortality - he died in 1961.  It is an existentialist allegory.  It is about faith, religion and redemption.  And so on.

It is easy to see why the critics have been mislead into these fanciful interpretations.  Cricket was not a prominent feature of Hemingway's work up until this point.  Bull fights and boxing tended to crowd out the macho possibilities of  depicting leather on willow.

However it is obvious to Fantasy Bob that The Old Man and the Sea is a great cricketing novel.  For Fantasy Bob has been in Santiago's position many times.  He is an aging cricketer. He has bowled 84 overs without the hint of a wicket.  His colleagues dub him unlucky, they leave him alone at deep fine leg.  One day,  he is brought on to bowl when all alternatives have run out. Miraculously, he is on song, his length and line return and there is that hint of late swing so tricky for lower league batsmen.  A wicket is within his grasp, surely.  But he is denied by the circling sharks of dropped catches and perverse umpiring decisions.

Does a cricketer give up?  Will Fantasy Bob?  Not a chance.  For Hemingway captured the cricketer's attitude precisely:

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.” he wrote in the Old Man and the Sea and, further on,

“It's silly not to hope. It's a sin he thought.”

Test Match Quality. Pulitzer Prize Quality. And well worth the Nobel Prize for Cricket too.

Spikes

Something must have got into the water.

Not only has Fantasy Bob done some fielding practice in advance of the new season, he has also reviewed his kit.

Good to bat in?

Mrs FB expressed concern that the funds set aside for jewellery purchase might take a hit following this extensive exercise.  But FB was able to inform her that a new pair of batting gloves were the only major investment required for the season ahead.  He assured her that they could be purchased for less than a 4 figure sum.  She noted the point but observed that FB had also purchased a new pair of skiing gloves this season.  She wondered whether this glove thing might be getting out of hand (as it were).  Returning to the subject a little later she inquired of FB whether he was sure that the could not wear the new skiing gloves for batting and thus protect the jewellery fund from further draw down.  FB thought this an interesting proposition - particularly given the sub-zero temperatures which have prevailed in recent weeks and seem destined to last for the first part of the season.  The additional protection against frostbite that they offer might be advantageous.  However in the end, his resolve held and a new pair of batting gloves were acquired.

Despite temptations all around,  FB resisted the lure of a new bat.  His present blade is after all only one season old.  It has plenty of runs still in it.  It must have, because it did not give up very many last season. Nevertheless, FB cleaned it assiduously.  Of course he took particular care not to remove the big red marks on the middle - all two of them.

But it was then that whatever has been put in the water had its effect and things went a bit wrong.  FB reviewed his cricket shoes.  Remarkably they looked good for another season of pounding up the hill against the wind.  But the spikes were another story.  Ground down to the base by the Doughty Groundsman's pristine hard surfaces, they needed replacement.  FB duly purchased a set of gleaming new spikes and set aside half an hour to screw them in.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Three hours later, he had managed to remove just over half of the old ones.  His hand was bleeding.  His shoulder ached more than it ever did when he bowled 25 overs on the bounce.  Sweat beaded his brow.  He was covered in WD40, bits of grass and sand.  Another 2 hours and 3 spikes still resisted his efforts.  Surely the spike key was an instrument of torture devised by the Spanish Inquisition?

He was on the point of phoning the Samaritans.

Mrs FB looked at his exhausted frame.  She sighed at this further evidence of the futility of male endeavour.  She tried to be helpful.  As she moved towards the door and a night out with her girlfriends, she quietly said

'I always thought you should have bought a new pair................................'

Nobody expects the cricket spike key..........

Scandal Rocks Edinburgh Council

It is not often that a lower league player such as Fantasy Bob gets invited to the splendour of the Edinburgh City Chambers.  Indeed it is not often that FB gets invited anywhere.

Edinburgh City Chambers

But this was different.  For the last few weeks FB's mantelpiece had proudly borne a card of a serious and official demeanour telling him that The Lord Provost and Council of the City of Edinburgh request the honour of his presence at a Reception on the City Chambers.  No less.

The far more significant honour of Mrs FB's presence was also requested.

To celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Carlton Cricket Club.

For not only is the go ahead club go ahead, it is venerable.  Not as venerable as the City Chambers perhaps, which started life in 1760 as the Royal Exchange, before the Council took it over in 1811 as the City Chambers.  1811 is also the year in which the lease on the original Lords Old Ground expired and the MCC found themselves following Doughty Groundsman Thomas Lord to his new Middle Ground for the next three years.   FB is uncertain whether there is a link between the two events.   

Faced with such a summons, Fantasy Bob could leave nothing to chance.  Even without significant prompting from Mrs FB, he found a tie. He had combed what remains of his hair.  He had ensured that his socks matched. He was as presentable in polite company as he is ever likely to be.

The glitterati of the Carlton community had all scrubbed up well and thronged the reception room to listen as earnest speeches of congratulations were made by Council dignitaries.  The applause rang out when attention was drawn to the sumptuous buffet.

It was then that FB was overcome.  He turned white.  He could not speak. Colleagues suspected he had been overcome with the majesty of the occasion.  Or perhaps it was that standing, chatting and sipping wine all at the same time was at least one task too many for his limited powers of concentration.

Doughty Groundsmen and former club officials turned to his assistance.  A seat was proffered.  FB waved it away.  Still unable to speak he pointed at the buffet, shaking his head. Slowly he managed to form the words to spell out the awful truth.

'Where..........................are.............................the ................................empire ..................................biscuits?'

A hush fell over the room.  Slowly it dawned on the company.  While the buffet table groaned with canapes and sandwiches, FB's staple foodstuff, which has become synonymous with the go ahead and venerable cricket club, was nowhere to be seen.  Of empire biscuits there were none.  Not even a photograph of them. It was only with some effort that the attendants quelled the incipient riot.

FB understands that a full inquiry will be launched by the Lord Provost's office into how such an oversight could have occurred.

His worldwide readership will be comforted to know that FB recovered quickly from his trauma.  However it is not certain whether he will ever be able to enter the City Chambers again without a sense of deep dark dread.  It will be like going out to bat knowing that there is a leg spinner bowling.

Conspicuous by their absence at the City Chambers