Sunday 27 March 2011

Towpath Cricket

A friend introduced me to Towpath Cricket, invention of Times columnist Robert Crampton. This friend clearly mis-remembered it slightly, but in fact improved on the original.

Towpath Cricket (Oppenheimer Variation) is played thus: every pedestrian you overtake on a towpath scores you a run. Dogs are two, other cyclists four and a boat six. If you yourself are overtaken, you're out, lad.

My first erm match took place as I cycled to Barnes from Battersea with H, loyally clutching her toy lion Daddy Rara, in the seat on the back.

Our first innings was a scratchy 13, entirely composed of singles and twos, and brought to an end by a silver haired chap on a rusty hybrid. What can I say? I had luggage.

Our second innings was much more dashing. We started with a Sewagesque flourish, scoring a six off a small sailing boat tacking mid-stream, perhaps a degree off perpendicular and thus counting as an overtake. You have to make a few decisions about your rules in this game - stationary pedestrians for instance - but in this case, as with our subsequent boundary off a two year old on a Tweenies bike with stabilisers, I have to say, I'm all, like: read it in the book, pal; they all count.

Sadly, just as I was scoring freely on both sides of the wicket (Wandsworth Gardens) I was castled by a bloke on a Specialized that probably cost more than my car.

Back to the nets...



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