I watched the second innings of a cricket match yesterday. The cricket grounds in some villages are hidden away down some track, but at Hartley Wintney the ground takes centre stage… like the jewel in a pendant. The ground is huge. One of the batsmen gave the ball a mighty hit over square leg, only to see it stop before it reached the boundary. He called his partner to run; in the time it took for a rather tubby fielder to retrieve the ball and throw it back to the keeper, the batsmen had run four.
There were plenty of spectators. If they weren’t all watching the cricket very intently, the game at least supplied a good excuse for lolling around in deck chairs, sharing village gossip and drinking a glass or two of prosecco. I bought a beer in the clubhouse, and watched Hartley Wintney Second XI notch up a good win: scoring the required 231 runs with seven overs to spare...
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