Posted by Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) They don’t have to rhyme.
Sam sent us the following absolutely ages ago…
One, two, three, four, five
Once we went on a very long drive
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten
To see a cricket match again
Why did we have to go?
Because our daddy told us so
Who are his favourite team?
The girls who play in black and green
Who is in charge tonight?
Well, usually it’s Heather Knight
But she’s on an England trip
So this time Sophie Luff is skip
Which side has won the toss?
Our batting is a load of dross
When can we eat our tea?
I need to do another wee
Stop kicking that man’s chair
No, the scoreboard’s over there
Oh dear, you’ve spilled your drink
Be quiet now, I need to think
Just ten runs to win
My patience is wearing pretty thin
Sit down and watch the game
Oh great now look here comes the rain
One, two, three, four, five
Let’s go home, it’s a very long drive
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten
I’ll never bring you here again.
Sublime. Best match report yet.
Seems to mention the cricket a bit too much, but on balance I will overlook that on this occasion
It’s an ode really.
I quite like the idea of the King Cricket Match Repode.
Is there a new rule that, in the case of a Match Repode, permits alluding to cricket or using cricket allegorically? There ought to be. The rule should be longer than most of the pieces that rely upon it.
It wouldn’t really be very on brand of us to have anything other than hard and fast rules that are not explicit but which can instead only be inferred.
Keatsian. Or is it Yeatsian? Could even be Betjemanian.
I am a little confused though. I assume from the opening that the narrator is a young child, as they say they are being taken to the cricket by their daddy. But later, the same person complains about someone spilling their drink, and they express frustration at their companion not being able to sit still.
Assuming that the daddy in question is you, Sam, and therefore that the narrator is your child, what’s going on? Can you not control yourself and pay attention? Just sit down and be quiet, for goodness sake. What is the older generation coming to, that’s what I want to know.
The blurred identity is clearly – CLEARLY – an allusion to how we unavoidably become our parents as we age and learn how massively annoying one’s own offspring can be.
Clearly.
Indeed I was moved by the clarity and sophistication of Sam’s piece. Much like cricket, that ode is a metaphor for life itself.
In a very real way, we are all counting up to ten. And as we all know, cricket has been going decimal ever since the ECB, in its near infinite wisdom, decreed that The Hundred should be the way forward.
An ode for our era. Well writ, Sam.