Some of the cricket kit Project Front Foot have provided for refugee teams in Normandy
This week, a van from Project Front Foot arrived in Caen and mes’ garage was filled by loads of cricket kit, equipment and clothing, for the refugee cricket teams in Caen and Avranches: bats, pads, gloves, helmets, boxes, lots of cricket clothing including cable-knit sweaters, all donated by various bodies and people in the UK. There are even some junior/Kwik Cricket bats and other bits and pieces.
It all arrived on Thursday and this morning mes and Julia, the social worker for the refugees, have gone through it all, making inventories and dividing it into two equal parts for the two groups.
They are keeping back some extra-warm stuff for refugees who arrive this coming winter and also a bag full of brand new tops which will be prizes in the cricket tournament they’re going to be organising this summer.
Mes and Julia with just some of the kitThis photo is from Thursday evening, before everything was sorted through
Today, the kit began to be distributed. If you want to see what a happy refugee looks like, see the next photograph.
With all the shit going on all over, and my faith in humanity being sorely tested, this story has kept me together in recent times and I have the utmost respect for everyone involved, from mes and Julia to the donors in the UK, the players in Normandy and elsewhere, but especially for Front Foot Forward, who have been doing this stuff for fifteen years.
They started off in the slums of Mumbai (or Bombay, as Ravi would have said) and this next picture is of them doing just that:
I hope this doesn’t ‘autoplay’ as if it does I may have to change it. This is, I think, a great pop record and one of the best of its time, released in 1981 when I had transitioned out of punk into blues and soul etc. Written by her brother and father (Marty) and produced by her brother.
I did warn everyone there would be an onslaught of Under-19 World Cup.
It’s all free to watch on icc.tv at https://www.icc-cricket.com/videos (they’ve changed it and it might take time to log in), and at friendly times for people in Europe. Games start at 07.45 in the UK and Ireland, 08.45 in France and Austria and 09.45 here, which suits me fine.
Here we go, starting on Friday in South Africa, 16 sides (the 12 full members plus four associates). New Zealand had to qualify because they pulled out of the last one and UAE, who came ninth last time, didn’t qualify. (Not quite how it should be but…). The associates are Scotland, USA, Namibia, and my top tip for the title: Nepal.
There are four groups of four and the top three in each go forward to the next league stage, two groups where teams play two more games – against sides who didn’t end up in their position in the group tables so top of group A doesn’t play top of group D etc. and the sides maintain their points and NRR from the group stage. Top two of each second stage group into semi-finals.
There are at least two games every day in the group stage, then a day off and the second bit starts. The whole thing ends on Sunday 11 February. Here are the fixtures:
And here are the boys who will captain the sixteen sides:
It’s always difficult when this day comes but there’s still a place to do the talking about cricket between counties, talk about cricket in general, make the jokes, post the rewritten lyrics, ponder life and death and everything else in between.
This new page is designed to be used principally for the tournament Mes is organising/involved in in France and Tuesday’s get-together at the Oval to celebrate the life, the existence, of Ravi.
Tomorrow at 10.15 local time (9.15 in the UK and Ireland) the mayor of Avranches, a town of just over 10.000 inhabitants in the west of Normandy, will bowl (perhaps throw) the ceremonial first ball of a tournament between what is hoped will be four teams, two from Avranches (‘Blue’ and ‘Red’) one from Argentan (where the last tournament was held) and one from Caen (with spare players from Avranches and Argentan making up numbers).
They have an umpire and, one hopes, a scorer.
This next bit is written by the umpire:
First sight of the ground in Avranches for Saturday.
I’ve suggested having the pitch about 50m from the buildings, but we only bowl from one end, so they bat away from them.
I’m told it will be a proper, real pitch. And the town hall will cut the grass very short and will also lay out all the markings to size…
Never had this before in France! And there are 60 (yes, sixty) real cricket balls.
As such, I’ve just written to all the organisers to insist that teams all come with helmets. Batters, wickie and close fielders.
I’ve just asked if we have any scorers…
4 or 5 teams due.
Should be good!
And the local mayor is coming to bowl a ceremonial first ball!
Back to me now.
The ground is part of the René Fenouillière municipal sports complex, home of Union Sportive Avranches who play in the third tier of French football, and which should be in the middle of this:
René Fenouillière was a footballer at the beginning of the last century, for US Avranches, then in Catalonia (Spain, if you must) for RCD Espanyol and FC Barcelona, and later for the French national side at the 1908 Olympics. He was killed in WW1 in 1916, at the age of 34.
More pictures of the ground:
The plan is to bowl from one end only, to save the neighbours getting their windows smashed although most of the buildings around the ground are municipal property and there are fences, hedges, walls and so on to stop balls doing too much damage.
The format is T6 (six overs a side) and the four teams play round robin then first plays fourth, second plays third, then there’s a final. If there’s a third-fourth play-off (not sure if there is) that would be ten matches each of a total of twelve overs, 120 overs all in.
It’s organised by a charity called Itinérance Sud Manche, led by Martine Lavallette who seems to me to be a total hero. She’s even, on advice from the umpire, bought helmets for batters, keeper etc. because it’s all going to played on turf (cut very short and marked out by the council) but the pitch will ‘offer uneven bounce’, as they say.
This is real community cricket, supported by a small town and its volunteers and council, and with people from a community that is marginalised if not vilified by a number of people in some places not too far away. I think it’s just great.
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The other part of this page, which takes shape on Tuesday at Surrey’s game against TMN at the Oval, aims to let people share their photos, stories, anything they like about Ravi Nair, palfreyman, and the get-together of a cricket community to celebrate the life of one of their own and mourn his passing.
Anyone can send me a photo from the Oval and I’ll save it and post it on the Guardian. Tanya can’t post images people send her without a URL (not sure if she can even do so with a URL) but I can give images a URL and then post them as comments. So if you’re there, take photos, write a caption or as much or little as you want and I’ll do the rest. I hope that’s clear and if it’s not, please tell me. The address is at the very top of each page.
Ben Aitchison, a tall fast bowler who can hold a bat, according to CricInfo, and Luis Reece model the 2022 One-Day Cup outfit Derbyshire are still selling for £34.99 to £44.99 depending how fat you are.
A page for people to recreate the experience of the Guardian’s CCLive! BTL during the One Day Cup.
This blog was created (eight years ago – maybe I mentioned) for people who spend much of their life posting comments (or reading comments) on the County Championship but don’t hold out much hope for a live blog with comments open at the Graun about the Whoever The Sponsor Is This Year Cup.
It’ll run all the way through the competition and will in fact run for ever (unless/until I die), as do all pages on here. You can still post a comment on a page from 2015 if you really want to: not many people will see it, but I will, and so will anyone else who has a new comment email alert thing set up.
The Cup begins on Tuesday and Derbyshire are playing Gloucestershire at Cheltenham starting at 11.00 UK time.
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