Cricket is the most individual team game ever devised but clubs are communities

PAUL EDWARDS: No one can face a fast bowler for you – but club members, like those at good counties, pool their talents to deal with their difficulties. We club together. The clue is in the word

My cricket club looked as fine as I ever expect to see it last Saturday. The outfield was freshly mown and smoother than for many summers. The pitch offered true bounce and excellent carry, which was not surprising given Lancashire had played on the same surface just over two years previously.

The match was not especially close, nor was it vital to either team’s season, but it was played in a good spirit and was eventually watched by over 70 spectators, some doing so out of loyalty, others because they wanted to enjoy the first XI’s final game of the year. The weather on the third weekend in September was perfect, warm but never humid, and the sky was blue beyond doubt or threat.

As I write these words, five days later and some 230 miles away in south-west London, the outdoor nets have probably been taken down but most of those doing so will have remembered this was the season we thought we’d never put them up. When I went past the ground on the train last Monday afternoon Colin Maxwell, our outstanding groundsman, was already hard at work on the square.

The next few weeks will be vital for him, just as they will be for thousands of his colleagues across the land. To watch him going about his tasks is to place a quiet wager that there will be other seasons to enjoy, even as dusk drops early and we brush six months’ dust off our quilted coats.

Other cricketers will be making that wager in different ways. The kit may already be in the loft or cupboard but the shirt and flannels will have been washed and the boots given a final clean. (Perhaps romanticism is getting the better of reality here.) Many officials will be thinking about their aims for next year and how those aims might be achieved.

At my own club, Jonny Lea ran the Lisbon half-marathon last October to raise money for new junior covers. He was supported by a small team tasked with keeping him hydrated but I fear that by the end of the day the team were more in need of hydration than Jonny.

Nonetheless, when April arrived the covers had been bought and were ready to protect the pitches used by the Under-11s or whoever in their early season games. And then were no early season games.

There are already problems that require attention but we will face them together. That’s the point, I think. Cricket is the most individual team game ever devised – no one can face a fast bowler for you – but club members, like those at good counties, pool their talents to deal with their difficulties. We club together. The clue is in the word. There are hundreds of cricket people across England who will tell you that.

^{Luke Wells is one of several players leaving their county at the end of the season}

Does any of this have a connection to the professional game, where livelihoods are at stake and the game is sometimes brutal in its intensity? I think so but that claim is made without once overlooking the stony realities cricket faces in these Covidian times.

September may be the month of leave-taking but by no means all the farewells are the fond au revoirs described at the beginning of this piece.

Some reporters watching the first day of the final of the Bob Willis Trophy at Lord’s on Wednesday were saddened to hear that Sussex would not be offering new contracts to either Luke Wells or Harry Finch and that similar regrets had been expressed by Warwickshire in respect of Liam Banks.

We may be sure that other players will be released before many weeks have passed and that there will also be redundancies among the counties’ coaching and administrative staffs.

Good cricketers and other conscientious employees will suddenly find their services, though valued, are no longer required and their subsequent job searches will be made more difficult by uncertainty about Covid-19. What can be done about it?

Well, perhaps we can all take our lead from the Professional Cricketers’ Association. A few weeks ago I mentioned that PCA members had taken a voluntary pay cut of up to 20% until the end of July with the aim of protecting the jobs of as many members as possible.

Explaining the policy, the Worcestershire batsman and PCA chairman, Daryl Mitchell issued this statement: “This has not been an easy decision and causes a great deal of disruption to many of our members. However, the PCA Players' Committee ultimately agreed this is the right thing to do.

“Working collaboratively through this crisis has always been one of our top priorities and I appreciate the collective spirit of these discussions with the first-class counties, particularly at this most challenging of times.”

^{Amateur cricket clubs are often reliant on their volunteers}

Collaboratively. Collective. Looking out for each other. I wear a mask not so much because it protects me but because it protects you.

Such behaviour need not be viewed as the expression of a political philosophy, much less of any party allegiance. There are many times when individual enterprise should be allowed to flourish. The American Dream is the most international of reveries. But there are also occasions when sharing the burden, as the PCA did earlier this season, seems exactly the thing to do.

The so far unstated assumption of this and very many of these columns over the past six months is that most readers are, or have been, associated with cricket clubs. For some the attachment may be loose and could consist of nothing more than the armchair support of a county. Others will pay for membership and attend as many first-class games as possible.

But there are still thousands of men and women who combine their support for a county with a similar loyalty to the recreational game. Others are professional cricketers who still return to their clubs regularly. Many do so when they are out of form and need the help of the old coach who still knows their game best.

Then they might play a few games for their clubs and will enjoy the pressure of becoming their amateur opponents’ main target. It is a practice of which we should be proud. Can you imagine a football club allowing one of their players to turn out for a game on the local rec?

Such connections – and I have outlined only a few of them – will surely help our game in the months to come. They were strong well before the ECB dreamt up slogans and soundbites to publicise them.

They may well help players like Wells and Banks as they come to terms with an uncertain future, although one imagines the PCA will offer even more valuable assistance.

Just as it is a mistake to ignore the iron laws of sport’s economy, so it is to underestimate the extent to which we can share the load and benefit in ways beyond our imagination. If it hadn’t been for my club I wouldn’t be covering the Bob Willis final at Lord’s.

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