I kind of get Duckworth-Lewis, put together by far cleverer people than me, as applied to first class cricket. Virtually everyone in the pro game can bat well these days, the era of the Courtney Walshes and Jim Griffiths' well behind us. So targets and projected "could have been" totals are set high
But it baffles me sometimes when the same conditions are applied to league cricket games in which 20 amateur players are participating.
Enfield's uninterrupted 50-over innings, having been put in when stand-in skipper professional Jurie Snyman won the toss, wasn't a blazing run fest or exactly a triumph for the fielding side at Dill Hall Lane - Enfield lost just one batter, Lewis Wright for 78 (and yes, one tea-room wag asked the old chestnut:"who got all the wickets?") - but it never got much beyond four an over until about the 45-over mark when home pro Maduwartha began to unleash his dazzling array of ramps, reverses and wrists cuts. Alfie Cook carried his bat for 84.
It finished a shade short of five an over at 245 for one. Imposing but not quite monumental. All but 47 deliveries were faced by the amateur opening pair.
The way the three of them batted meant Enfield fully deserved the win but I just remain curious as to the factors which go into recalibrating the targets. No argument, the best side on the day clearly prevailed.
When we resumed after tea, ostensibly with a full complement to face, almost inevitably after a barren stretch for bowlers, we lost a wicket second ball. Then came the first rains of the afternoon.
Now I hadn't worked out what the target would have been from 38 had we not lost Jon and resumed after 40 minutes to have 37.4 overs remaining but the total required then became 222 - or a scoring rate of just under 5.9 an over.
Of course we all saw Jurie cut loose on the same ground nine days earlier for aT20 century and if he'd done similar he might have made light of Sunday's requirement but it"s a lot more straightforward for one guy to face the lion's share of a 120-ball allocation. Pointedly, Jacob Clarke had entered the field at the fall of the wicket as the first rains fell as number three so it wasn't even possible to promote Jurie to that slot on resumption and try to get the pro setting about it immediately.
As it transpired Jurie didn't get in until the latter part of the ninth over and when he was dismissed for just 13 the rate needed was towards eight per over. Game over effectively and so it proved, up to, including and even after a pretty baffling and pointless resumption at 7pm with 89 required from four overs! Even one of the umps had decided it was all over but a signal from the dressing rooms meant his signature on my book was slightly premature.
At least Emile Haratbar was able to add a few to his season's rather decent tally taking his score to 34 not out.
It had been a similar tale on Friday when Colne got rather too many and Jurie's quick 43 opening the innings was the bright spot of the reply other than a solid 30 from Jacob and a smattering of sixes in Emile's 25.
I was delighted to hear that some of the boys had taken Jurie to Lords during the week to watch the opening day of his nation's ascent to become Word Test Champions, his first visit to cricket's beautiful home. Made up for him too that South Africa won.
Unlike a lot, I don't really have the pathological hatred of Aussies which seems to infect otherwise rational cricket people with every Ashes series but I've mentioned before that PatTrimborn at East Lancs was an early South African hero and from the late 1960's onwards I've enjoyed following their cricketers, whether playing for the national side, counties or, too numerous to list around the leagues as pros or OAs. I even had Jonathan Trott's South African half-brother (This week's quiz, answer next week - name and who was he pro for?) as a next-door neighbour when I lived in Church. I'm chuffed they've at last won a big one.
Still say that 1970 Test side would have beaten most for a few years.
I hope Jurie and all his compatriots enjoyed the triumph. If you didn't fill up at the pictures of Bavuma with his son, you've a hard heart to melt.
I've been lucky enough to visit Lords many times with Lancs, one-day finals, with England for a Test Match opening day v Australia in 1993 (the Aussies lost two wickets all day, the first at 260. So not just Accy who have "who got all the wickets?" days) and random county games as well as the ground tour which I highly recommend.
It's the most wondrous place. I finally managed to get my wife Lesley to come with me a couple of years ago as a county game v Essex meandered to its conclusion. We could actually have missed out as when we boarded a bus in Paddington there were only three wickets remaining. Holman and Higgins put about 150 though on so we made it.
You could sit more or less where you wanted bar a couple of shut sections, although an eagle-eyed cashier refused to sell me an MCC watchstrap in the shop, so of course the eight-year-old in me insisted top of the highest new stand beside the Press spaceship was the order of the day.
I looked down and remembered my dad, 89 nearly now, and I sat on their grass below at the Nursery End at the 1972 Gillette Final, having arrived late following a burst tyre on the M1, Clive Lloyd drives whistling like tracer bullets to the rope off Bob Willis. What days and what memories! Oh my Lever and my Yozzer long ago.
But the weirdest experience I ever had was walking round St John's Wood with a pal at around 3am after hot summer night. I can't recall the exact lost-in-the-mist-of-time circumstances which placed us there at that time but in the still-warm small-hours silence it was almost possible to imagine ghosts of the past all around you and for a brief second I stood quietly and contemplatively drinking in history and imagined I saw crowds outside the ground of a bygone era queueing and rustling with conversation.
I've never experienced anything I'd describe as the supernatural (other than seeing Smokey Robinson sing live once) but that was the nearest I came to an out-of-body experience until I was in a coma for a few days during Covid in 2020. With the state I was in when I woke up in Royal Preston with things stuck in me in all kinds of places, I'd highly recommend eerie mornings at HQ or the live rendition of Tracks of My Tears if you fancy semi-mystic sensations.
Cherry Tree's weekend was mixed but hugely enjoyable. Baxenden, with Ben Gorton and Matt Schofield among their Accy Old Boys, won the Friday T20 backed by a raucous contingent of travelling supporters who howled their partisan slogans louder and more triumphantly as the night wore on.
Good lads though, they even kindly helped out with identifying catchers and bowlers for me in the gathering gloom as Bash hadn't got a scorer on the night and our usual Cherry Tree DJ and announcer duo Andi W and Dots were unavailable. Baxenden must also have the league's youngest chairman, lovely fella who kindly paid me without being asked. Top guy. I recognised a couple of former scorers among their barmy army and you can't begrudge them enjoying their night loudly instead of sat recording the events.
Saturday's derby of sorts away at Brinscall was another classic - like Accrington's two games the previous weekend every result was possible almost to the last ball bowled. Cherry Tree got home by one wicket with great contributions from Ziyad Bhada, newly sponsored by yours truly, and Joe Littler whose assured match-winning knock wouldn't have had you thinking you were watching a lad badly out of form so far this season.
As with many current cricketers, I played cricket with Joe's dad Mark, both for Church 2s and Blackburn Market in the Midweek League. I had nearly as many clubs in the Midweek League as Todd Kane has in the EFL. I was a ringer for the market whereas Mark's family had a butcher's stall on there and he celebrated Joe and the club he chairs' success by presenting me with a box of goodies to take home!
As on Friday night, the atmosphere at the game was a feature, but this time wholly generated on the field as two sets of players who know each other well and get on tremendously as a rule enjoyed some feisty needle as a tight game (one-wicket win in the end) upped the tensions as drama after drama unfolded. At one point Brinscall's scorer, new-ish to the job, asked: "Is this what they call sledging?" It was indeed, Annabelle, I replied, noting what a good title "It was indeed Annabelle," would maker for a Country and Western title.
It was a great game on a rare overcast 2025 Saturday we began thinking we would finally have a game totally washed out. I think I'll go to Brinscall again on Thursday as a 'specie" on a rare night off. The people there are lovely.
But at the end of the week we lost Brian Wilson the man whose music almost defines the term "Endless Summer" as universally as the very notion of the game of cricket does, all our games were played to a conclusion again .
That Lucky Old Sun, eh? Love and Mercy to you all.
**Last week's 'Mystery Captain" Quiz Answer - Paul Turner (East Lancs). Fair to say that in 2013 we were both wrong with our predictions
