It's been some week/weekend for cricket with Monday's bonus half-hour of Test number five a magnificent example of why cricket is the highest form of human endeavour and achievement, narrowly pipping the pyramids, Sistine Chapel and live Springsteen but I can't tell you how glad I was to be around to enjoy it after last Wednesday's experience.
Some of you will recall my early-season motoring adventures but after concluding my umpiring duties for the season in the picturesque surrounds of Chipping I felt confident I could find my way back to the relative urban sprawl of Longridge, main roads and petrol stations without too much bother. Just back the way you came right?
No problem. Of course I'll have a soft drink and some splendid supper back at Tilly's in the village with their boys and the Preston Royals lads.
But how different things look in the dark. After twenty minutes trying to retrace the way I got there I was palpably lost, unable to see any road signs, indeed unable to see any road half the time and in the absence of any working internet, had to ring Mrs Wilky to see if she could locate me on her phone and guide me civilisation-wards.
Anyone who's seen the "Pine Barrens" episode of The Sopranos will recognise the deepening sense of panic and impending doom as any sign of human settlement eluded my dim view and the 'mileage remaining' indicator hurtled towards 20.
Happily I eventually found myself somewhere recognisable and familiar at Edisford Bridge, quite the wrong direction and some distance from where I intended to be but happily within range of fuel in Clitheroe and a late night drive along the A59 homewards.
I love doing games at Chipping but I think I'll book myself and Mrs W in for B&B next time and wait until it comes light with a navigator before setting off back.
I managed to find my way to Walkden okay for my second visit with Cherry Tree. Just not programming "Walsden" into Google Maps is a start and I negotiated the route along the M61 and through the sprawl of Bolton districts well enough.
Walkden itself boasts surely Europe's largest unpopulated shopping precinct, bigger than Blackburn's but almost entirely unoccupied. Walking through it is a little bit eerie, almost a Chernobyl or Pompeii-like sense of ghostly desertion and desolation
Even the three or four charity shops I found last time have gone, although I did locate one and got a book on the 1966 England football World Cup triumph by the excellent Duncan Hamilton who has written several fine cricket books as well as biographies of Brian Clough and Jonny Bairstow.
I found the Walkden cricket ground much improved since my last visit early in the 2023 season with some smart landscaping at one end where crumbling terracing and broken benches once lay, a much-needed new scoreboard and improvements to the pavilion and clubhouse.
The view from the box is pretty poor however particularly for the away scorer (when will clubs learn that scorers could do with being able to see more than half of the cricket field?) and I managed at one point, nobody's fault but my own, to gash my arm on a metal catch on the brand new PVC window frame.
The game was terrific with a tumultuous and surely record-breaking denouement.
Former Accrington professional and complete gent Ockert Erasmus was sub-pro'ing for Cherry Tree in the absence of Min Bhada whose brother/teammate Ziyad Bhada was getting married.
Ocky had no joy with the bat, nor did anyone else for Cherry Tree early doors and at 56 for seven I had texted Lesley to say I might get an early dart.
But stalwart servant Michael Timmis and former Immanuel skipper Kurt Smithson dug in with a stand of 73 and when the latter and last man, another one-time Oswaldtwistle captain Andreas Sudnik came together, they added a further 23 (same pair had posted an unbroken 10th wicket stand of 33 a week earlier), Smithson last out for a fine 42 to the final delivery of the innings.
That 152 all out looked to be more than enough with Walkden reduced to 68 for seven as spinners Mark Hadfield and Erasmus delivered miserly spells picking up six wickets between them. Another potential early dart text to Mrs W was foolishly dashed off.
Not uncharacteristically though, Walkden's lower order, which won them a similar earlier game at Cherry Tree, fared much better than the guys up top with Salman Younis and Mo Saiyed taking the score to 114 off the seamers with the slow men bowled out
After losing their ninth wicket with 36 still needed though Cherry Tree were firm favourites but what happened next was quite extraordinary.
Last man, wicket keeper Mahmednadeen Patel, with just one previous appearance (when he made 1) and whom neither scorer could initially locate on the PlayCricket database, although he is perfectly correctly registered, faced the first ball of the 41st over delivered by Sudnik with 33 required off five.
Now Andreas has played a lot of cricket and is experienced and phlegmatic enough to know that one week he'll bowl indifferently and pick up four or five wickets but this was his Ben Stokes to Carlos Brathwaite moment.
Patel hit 4,4,4, 6, 6, off a no ball, 6 and a final match-winning 6 somewhere in the direction of the desolate shopping precinct. 37 off the over. Breathtaking.
Only one of the fours was a rather streaky "peeing dog shot" as Roger Watson used to describe it (approximately) down to fine leg and none of the seven deliveries could be described as poor ones.
This was just a bloke with a single to his name somehow seeing it like a beach ball tanning the leather off it.
I thought Graeme Sneddon's 30 off an over in the T20 earlier this year was spectacular but that was just incredible.
I had a sneaky peek on a new ground for me, Blackrod, on the way home and had to find some more oil when a warning light came on so finished up arriving back pretty late after all.
Sunday at Accrington was extremely nostalgic and poignant for me.
Accrington v East Lancs would be a fixture I first attended with my dad, Jim senior now 88, and late grandad Matt in the late 1960s. They were both East Lancs fanatics. I can remember seeing Accy pros like David Bailey and Bruce Francis there back in my salad years.
When I became keen over a period of a few weeks in 1968 you had to have a proposer and seconder to even join as a social member at The Meadows, as if you were applying for a playing membership at Royal Birkdale. My uncle Joe, a bobby, got the journalist Ron Kennedy to sort it for us.
I grew up listening to the wits and wags my dad stood with at the Grammar School end watching pros like Graeme Watson, Kerry O'Keefe, Neil Hawke and Trevor Chappell.
I dreamt of playing for East Lancs but wasn't really good or keen enough and certainly didn't belong to the rather elevated social strata from which a lot of the players then emerged.
I lived just a few yards from Cherry Tree and in retrospect would have been better off rolling up and having a go there (I actually played my first organised game of club cricket for Cherry at Salesbury for the Under 15s or 13s. They never asked me again!) than trailing up to The Meadows which often involved buses and a precipitous hike up Montague Street and Dukes Brow to practice. I'd be knackered on arrival.
I played a bit of Under 15s and 18s for East Lancs, was a regular in the thirds for a season or two and scored for the Two's in 1973 and 1974 - that required an interview with secretary Clarence Fairhurst who picked me from three applicants and gave the other two applicants Stan Miller and, no kidding, a lad called Alan Knott - his cricketing name alone ought to have secured the top gig for him - the consolation of the "tin lads" (actually large rollers) job.
I still have a wooden Number 11 from the pre-digitised box thanks to Joe Timmis who sorted it for me. Number 11 was of course traditionally the pro's number and I had hoped to get my all-time idol Allan Border to sign it sometime.
These days East Lancs don't have a pro although overseas amateur Hudson Walshaw follows a long and distinguished line of Aussies to play for them.
My dad educated me on the history and his boyhood idol was Bruce Dooland whose incredible record for East Lancs and then Notts make fascinating reading and causes you to wonder who was it that limited his Test appearances to just three.
I was delighted to have a chat with Hudson, like Dooland from South Australia, after and see him put his funky. slant on wearing the once-obligatory club blazer and tie. Lovely lad and bearing up to unexpectedly being handed the burden of captaincy early in the season too.
Demographics and passing time mean East Lancs is a very different club threes days. They are bottom of the league and all the old spectators we knew are either like my dad, past the stage of being able to go or no longer with us.
Desperately needing to win a second league game - the first meeting in Blackburn was the only previous success - Accrington put their fellow strugglers in and eventually wore the visitors down.
Walshaw's dismissal caught by Nathaniel in the deep after a decent third-wicket stand with the patient Sohail Mohammed was the key moment.
From 67 for two wickets fell regularly with nobody out of the top four making double figures.
Jurie took four wickets, Sohail ran himself out going for the second which would have given him the 50 he deserved and for the second time this season at the iMEP a visiting batsman was given out, a touch harshly I felt, "obstructing the field."
There was a direct hit by Jurie to end the innings with a second run out and Jon Hayhurst, awaiting a phone call on imminent news of the birth of his first child, took a fabulous catch on the boundary.
Oliver Lowe and Mohammed Asad Khan helped polish the innings off at an eminently gettable 133.
At 17 for three it didn't look as gettable as it had twenty minutes previously but Jurie and Jacob Clarke came together in the kind of partnership so often absent in our middle order and while 60 were still required when Jacob holed out for 27, including six boundaries, Jurie was well. set and ready to launch into one of his imperious phases, going to his 50 then ending the game with 28 more off the last 11 balls he faced.
The 16 he bashed from the final, 20th over to seal a 12-point victory was comparatively sedate stuff compared to Walkden 24 hours earlier but the relief was palpable and while my heart sighs a little to see East Lancs struggle so (Dad: "Was there anyone there from East Lancs?" My reply; "Not that you'd know these days, dad.") I stayed a little while after happy to see the boys - and Alice - enjoy the moment.
Let's hope there are a few more happy moments before the season, with the end sadly in sight now, finishes. I'm on double-header duty with Cherry this week then on holiday the week after but I'll try to keep up and wish everyone every success.
Last week's quiz answer - Joe Scuderi was the man with a solitary sub-pro’ing appearance for Accrington.
This week's quiz. I've mentioned Ockert Erasmus in the column. On his Accrington debut v Ramsbottom in 2014 the team was... Ocky, Simon Hanson, Graeme Sneddon, Jacob Clarke, Stuart Crabtree, Graham Lloyd, Bryn Hargreaves Matt Wilson, Jimmy Hayhurst, Dave Ormerod....and which other amateur whose surname also begins with 'E'?
