<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Glamorgan have signed Sam Northeast on a three-year deal ✍️<br><br>The 31-year-old has 10,839 runs and 25 centuries to his name in first-class cricket. <a href="https://t.co/xUvOHWn8Pq">pic.twitter.com/xUvOHWn8Pq</a></p>— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) <a href="
Shame, though SNE has definitely lost his way, Glamorgan not being the sort of country either challenging for trophies or enhance his chances of England recognition
The cricket season of 2021 was a strange one. The county championship was divided into three parts, like Caesar’s Gaul, and Kent emerged as Division Three champions. Who knows, we may be the only ever holders of that title, because at the time of writing next season’s championship format has not been settled. More to the point, we won the Vitality Blast T20 with a dominating performance at Edgbaston and throughout the season; our women’s team won their league title (the tenth time they have finished on top) and our Over-60s were national champions too. Add to that the success of Tunbridge Wells CC in winning the national club championship, triumphing over Barnard Castle (who left Dominic Cummings out of the final eleven as his eyesight was not up to it), and it seems that despite everything, Kent had a good year on the cricket pitch.
It was also a fascinating year for the history of the game in Kent and in 50 years’ time our grandchildren may look back on 2021 as a time when cricket changed more than for many a long year. Let’s look at the evidence.
On a national scale, it was the year that The Hundred was finally launched. Like it or loathe it, it happened. Kent’s men squad lost over the course of this new tournament no fewer than eleven players, a complete team, several of whom just sat on a bench all summer. While all this was going on, the Royal London One Day Cup was being played, largely by reserves in the darkest corners of the fixture list. If I was the Royal London sponsorship director, I would tell the ECB exactly where they could stuff their cup and ask for my money back. Not that the cricket in the RL Cup was bad – except in Kent where we really lost the plot – but who outside Wales remembers who won the final – played on a Thursday!
The Test matches were unsuccessful from an English point of view, and from a Kentish one, too. Zak Crawley lost his Test place (temporarily, we hope and assume) and Sam Billings spent much of the summer in the Test bubble, netting a lot but not actually getting onto the field of play. A summer of frustration for him and for his Kent supporters.
The success of The Hundred was in bringing women’s cricket to the fore (which would, of course, also have happened if the televised tournament had been the T20 rather than the stunted gaudy Rumpelstiltskin born of the unholy coupling of ECB greed and supreme marketing tastelessness, which will steal the life and soul of county cricket). That success has even meant that MCC have authorised the change in terminology from ‘batsman’ to ‘batter’. I am old enough to remember the term ‘fieldsman’ being widely used, but ‘fielder’ seems to have taken over without much fuss, and I suspect that ‘batter’ will do the same. It reminds me of a schoolfriend’s Aunt Dorothy, who was always known as Dot. She had married a chap named Arthur Ball, so was thus Dot Ball. She would have loved being name-checked so often in The Hundred, especially as that format seems to have abolished the equally feminine concept of maidens.
For the Heritage Trust, though, it has been a productive summer. We have added a number of interesting new items to the collections, ranging from the T20 Blast winners’ cap and T-shirt to a letter from Les Ames to Mike Denness confirming his starting salary back in the 60s. We have archived material relating to the Covid championship match against Sussex, and the astonishing partnership between Darren Stevens (190) and Miguel Cummins (1) in the game against Glamorgan. We have seen the capping of 50 past and present women cricketers and are beginning to build a proper collection relating to women’s cricket in Kent. We have also had a little time to think about where we go from here.
Kent's makeshift team comprising mainly second XI players pose for a photo during Kent CCC vs Sussex CCC, LV Insurance County Championship Group 3 Cricket at The Spitfire Ground on 14th July 2021
The refurbishment of the Woolley Stand, which is planned for this winter, means that we have to take all items stored at the top of the stand out of harm’s way and put them somewhere else. The storage area at the top of the Woolley has been used for too long as our main storage area for those items in the club’s collection that are not on display, but it is unsatisfactory in many ways. It is not possible to control the heat or humidity properly; there is no fire escape, which means that nobody work permanently there; and the security is primitive at best. So to take everything out while the work on the Woolley is completed, and then to put it straight back again would be foolish. The opportunity has arisen for us to find a new store for the collection, and ideally that would be one which could be combined with a display area/museum and a library/research centre. We have not yet found an answer to the problem, but time is pressing and we have to find a proper solution before too long.
Maybe next season we will have a facility that everybody can make use of and enjoy. I hope so.
Comments
2021 Spitfire Kent Cricket Awards winners in full:
Men’s awards winners:
Women’s awards winners:
At Shithurst.
What a combination
😁😁😁
Phew! I feel better now 🤣🤣
Shameful
God is not infallible.
He is definitely a naughty boy for inflicting that outfit on his son.
EDIT: The headgear is fine but the top? That's a shocker.
Or we need to stop being a rubbish L1 side, 2 divisions below Palace as it's doing us massive harm in capturing the next generation of youngsters
We've been trained like on Celebrity SAS
https://www.kentcricket.co.uk/news/singh-signs-rookie-contract/?fbclid=IwAR0XN7jo0gWRUh9QXjgVe6vcQsDJhFt9ikFBxUBlJ_eoZNFAiyHwvR4L-ok
Here's hoping he has a great future.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Glamorgan have signed Sam Northeast on a three-year deal ✍️<br><br>The 31-year-old has 10,839 runs and 25 centuries to his name in first-class cricket. <a href="https://t.co/xUvOHWn8Pq">pic.twitter.com/xUvOHWn8Pq</a></p>— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) <a href="
New post on Kent Cricket Heritage Trust
THE HERITAGE OF 2021
by afms379The cricket season of 2021 was a strange one. The county championship was divided into three parts, like Caesar’s Gaul, and Kent emerged as Division Three champions. Who knows, we may be the only ever holders of that title, because at the time of writing next season’s championship format has not been settled. More to the point, we won the Vitality Blast T20 with a dominating performance at Edgbaston and throughout the season; our women’s team won their league title (the tenth time they have finished on top) and our Over-60s were national champions too. Add to that the success of Tunbridge Wells CC in winning the national club championship, triumphing over Barnard Castle (who left Dominic Cummings out of the final eleven as his eyesight was not up to it), and it seems that despite everything, Kent had a good year on the cricket pitch.
It was also a fascinating year for the history of the game in Kent and in 50 years’ time our grandchildren may look back on 2021 as a time when cricket changed more than for many a long year. Let’s look at the evidence.
On a national scale, it was the year that The Hundred was finally launched. Like it or loathe it, it happened. Kent’s men squad lost over the course of this new tournament no fewer than eleven players, a complete team, several of whom just sat on a bench all summer. While all this was going on, the Royal London One Day Cup was being played, largely by reserves in the darkest corners of the fixture list. If I was the Royal London sponsorship director, I would tell the ECB exactly where they could stuff their cup and ask for my money back. Not that the cricket in the RL Cup was bad – except in Kent where we really lost the plot – but who outside Wales remembers who won the final – played on a Thursday!
The Test matches were unsuccessful from an English point of view, and from a Kentish one, too. Zak Crawley lost his Test place (temporarily, we hope and assume) and Sam Billings spent much of the summer in the Test bubble, netting a lot but not actually getting onto the field of play. A summer of frustration for him and for his Kent supporters.
The success of The Hundred was in bringing women’s cricket to the fore (which would, of course, also have happened if the televised tournament had been the T20 rather than the stunted gaudy Rumpelstiltskin born of the unholy coupling of ECB greed and supreme marketing tastelessness, which will steal the life and soul of county cricket). That success has even meant that MCC have authorised the change in terminology from ‘batsman’ to ‘batter’. I am old enough to remember the term ‘fieldsman’ being widely used, but ‘fielder’ seems to have taken over without much fuss, and I suspect that ‘batter’ will do the same. It reminds me of a schoolfriend’s Aunt Dorothy, who was always known as Dot. She had married a chap named Arthur Ball, so was thus Dot Ball. She would have loved being name-checked so often in The Hundred, especially as that format seems to have abolished the equally feminine concept of maidens.
For the Heritage Trust, though, it has been a productive summer. We have added a number of interesting new items to the collections, ranging from the T20 Blast winners’ cap and T-shirt to a letter from Les Ames to Mike Denness confirming his starting salary back in the 60s. We have archived material relating to the Covid championship match against Sussex, and the astonishing partnership between Darren Stevens (190) and Miguel Cummins (1) in the game against Glamorgan. We have seen the capping of 50 past and present women cricketers and are beginning to build a proper collection relating to women’s cricket in Kent. We have also had a little time to think about where we go from here.
The refurbishment of the Woolley Stand, which is planned for this winter, means that we have to take all items stored at the top of the stand out of harm’s way and put them somewhere else. The storage area at the top of the Woolley has been used for too long as our main storage area for those items in the club’s collection that are not on display, but it is unsatisfactory in many ways. It is not possible to control the heat or humidity properly; there is no fire escape, which means that nobody work permanently there; and the security is primitive at best. So to take everything out while the work on the Woolley is completed, and then to put it straight back again would be foolish. The opportunity has arisen for us to find a new store for the collection, and ideally that would be one which could be combined with a display area/museum and a library/research centre. We have not yet found an answer to the problem, but time is pressing and we have to find a proper solution before too long.
Maybe next season we will have a facility that everybody can make use of and enjoy. I hope so.
https://www.kentcricket.co.uk/news/lv-insurance-county-championship-returns-to-two-division-in-2022/?fbclid=IwAR3EbNi__VVBVUr0RwQ64WfSY82TdCktDGkWAlCbhNSeNVUeFNEV-IJ_t5k