Panda's, albino's and the conundrum of the train's toilet door.

I had the privilege of attending New Road on the final day of our Championship game against Worcestershire.  Varun Chopra’s superb double century on Day 3 had set up the real possibility of overturning the 175 first innings deficit.

After an eerie first hour that saw Warwickshire wickets falling quicker than runs were going up on the board, it all came pretty good.  Chopra, Troughton, Clarke, Johnson and Woakes had all departed without troubling Worcester’s faltering scoreboard before Ant Botha’s contrasting knock of 28 off 31 balls.  This set up an attacking declaration from Troughton that got tongues wagging amongst the modest crowd.  The target of 288 at just over 3.5 an over gave Worcester a sniff but also displayed Troughton’s confidence that his bowlers could get the job done in the 75 or so remaining over’s.   A little more than five hours later Chris Woakes had figures of 6-49, Warwkishire had dispatched their local rivals and I had the most stupid sun tan you’re ever likely to see (think Panda - red face but bright white eyes where my Sunglasses had been all day).

You don't often get to spend 7 hours sat by yourself...  People watching, eavesdropping on conversations, a cool bag of fruit, wine and Taramasalata and Alfalfa Sandwiches plus a well thumbed news paper.  To my right was the most sun tanned man in the midlands whilst to my left an albino chap– a beautiful and amusing contrast.  At one point Chris Woakes’ Mum and friends were stood behind me (I learnt this through overhearing their conversation – I am not familiar with the family) and it was nice to hear how proud she was of his England debut and his brilliant start to this season.

Well played Chopra and Woakes and well declared Jim.

I took the train from Worcester Foregate Street back to Birmingham shortly after the finish.  After a beautiful English day on the banks of the River Severn beneath Worcester Cathedral watching a glorious day of English County Cricket, the train was packed with folk who’d been out celebrating the day of England’s Patron Saint.  Now I don’t want to come across as arrogant or superior but, like most of you, I can actually work a toilet door.  Open – Close – Lock…  Simple.  However, a number of the St George’s Day revelers found this to be like a mental Crystal Maze style conundrum.  One clever chap managed to press the emergency stop button rather than ‘Lock’ and the train had to wait 15 minutes between stations whilst it was re- set.  Oblivious, he then emerged from his incarceration accusing the Train Manager of locking him in the toilet.  A string of others either failed to lock, close or even get into the toilet in the first place.  Later on I narrowly avoided a brawl with the aforementioned emergency stop button moron who took offence when I politely asked his friend to turn off the (terrible) music he’d decided to inflict upon his fellow passengers.  Looking back he must have been fairly bemused to be on the brink of a scrap with a man who looked like a human panda bear.

You don’t get much time to reflect on glories as the next day Warwickshire opened their CB40 campaign with a performance that will be chalked up in the ‘Heroic Defeats’ column.  Chasing 274, we came up just 3 runs short.  In  my head the competition doesn’t really get underway until our first home game of the season this Sunday, a date that’s been in my diary since the fixtures came out many months ago (at least that's my excuse for why I was watching the American made-for-TV movie about 'Wills' and Kate rather than keeping properly in touch with the score).  It’s the kind of tournament where you can’t afford to lose too many early games with only one team guaranteed to progress from groups of 7.

The next destination in the Championship was Durham where Warwickshire have again excelled in the batting compared to last year with another 400+ total.  However that looks like it will soon be wiped out by Durham as we are yet to take a wicket on the 3^rd day at the time of writing.  Some of our frailties as a bowling unit  (compounded by the injury to Ant Botha) are being exposed by Di Venuto, Benkenstein and Blackwell.  Last year Imran Tahir took 8 wickets up at Durham in the corresponding fixture and I fear he will be the big miss this Summer.

Finally, as if I don’t feel old enough for asking someone to turn their music down on the train, I’ve been reading today about Yorkshire’s Barney Gibson who has become the youngest ever first class cricketer at the age of 15 years and 27 days.  He’s less than half my age and he’s currently keeping wicket for Yorkshire against Durham University!