The Cricketers from Watton at Stone visited Harpenden to play against Bamville Cricket Club on Sunday and the weather was warm and close, as was the match that played out in the afternoon with an end that was equally close.
I cannot claim to be writing about the match from a cricketer’s standpoint, I simply try to record what I find of interest from what I can capture, and this is strongly biassed towards my capturing the bails in the air and the stumps ‘akimbo’! That is challenge enough; to capture a fielder catching the ball direct from the batsman requires a thorough recognition of the characteristics of the bowler, the batsman, considerable knowledge of the game and the relative skills of individual fielders – my knowledge of the above can be summed up as limited in the extreme, or more honestly as zilch!
Now that the cataract in my hitherto dominant right eye has been rectified, my skill lies with my eyes and reasonable reactions to what they see and anticipate from my observation of the play. I have a weighty but very steady tripod, so moving around is slightly restricted, and every so often the fielders share my chosen viewpoint thus I have to wait a while before I have a clear line of sight on the batsman, or if they seem rooted to the spot, I have to move and reset the tripod level again. When deciding to follow the action of a bowler, it is well nigh impossible to follow the entire run-up due to the proximity of the umpire, and the batsman at the crease, so that often results in less than tidy images.
If the bowler is powerful, this makes inclusion of the wicket keeper less easy due to the distance he will be from the stumps, so I tend to favour the batsmen as my favoured subjects, and some can be right-handed others left-, so as play within an over progresses, my viewpoint which had one of the batsmen facing me, can change when odd numbers of runs are achieved. I therefore tend to err on the photographic and photogenic aspects, such as from where is the light coming, the composition and any drama that occurs. Crisp shots of the bails in the air and the stumps re-arranged therefore seems like a good measure of whether my photos are a success – I missed two such occasions in this match due to my attempts at concentrating on the bowlers in both instances, but hopefully the batsmen’s play of the ball helps to tell the story of the afternoon alongside the record of their occasional demise due to accurate bowling. My apologies for the total absence of the record of great catches of which ironically I did actually witness two, with my number one eyeball!
Play was interrupted by a friendly Golden Retriever, and I manage to get a few shots of an overflying gull, just to add to the day’s action, and thank you Peter for some sustenance, the end of the day however was less successful and ultimately very costly, I managed to pick up a sharp flint from where I parked my car, and with the air in my tyre only lasting to the far side of Harpenden, my journey home was delayed waiting for the AA, because, the puncture could not be repaired and the rest of the journey was completed using a spacesaver tyre, and the day following necessitated a drive to Luton to replace the tyre, as the damage was right at the very edge of the tyre.
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