No wargames-related blogging today...

It's the first day of the cricket season, so....

Me:

James: 9 not out, a run out and 4-0-14-3 opening the bowling in a 14 run win.

A very pleasant evening.

RIP Richie Benaud 6 October 1930 – 10 April 2015

Apologies for the non-wargames content, but...

As many of you will know, I am a cricket fan: today marks the passing of one of the voices of cricket, behind only perhaps the gravelly Hampshire tones of John Arlott, and the dry, laconic Yorkshire wit of Jim Laker:. I refer, of course to the great Australian leg spinner and commentator, Richie Benaud.

Those three were the voices I grew up with, from the BBC's Sunday League coverage (watched with my grandfather) to Test Matches up and down the country. Benaud's commentary was always incisive, observant and well-informed, as befitted a former Australian test player and captain, and his delivery and accent just gave you that sense that you were in good hands. He was also a man of principle, calling time on his British commentary career when Test cricket went to Sky, as he felt that cricket should be free to air. (And for all that I have a Sky Sports subscription, I agree with him.)

Richie Benaud was a part of the soundtrack of my life. He will be missed.

A relatively productive day...

No photos, as I'm tired, but...

• A whole pile of 15mm figures based and undercoated
• All the scenery tiles undercoated

Almost a serious planning failure on the latter - I sat down at the workbench to do a few small mods to the trench system on three of the tiles, then moved over to the big decorating/pasting table to start applying emulsion to all the tiles, and carefully laying them flat on the floor. That done, I went to pick up my glasses, to find they were the wrong side of five wet scenery tiles :D

Got a bit more time than anticipated, as James' cricket match was cancelled - that's eight out of eight since the start of the season, for various combinations of we couldn't raise a team, they couldn't raise a team, BOTH of us couldn't raise a team, rain, and tonight's, which was cancelled in glorious sunshine because the groundsman wouldn't let us use the pitch, I assume due to yesterday's rain.

It's not shaping up to be a very productive season!

Cricketers in Wartime - Ken Farnes

Apologies to any Aussies reading, but...

Oh, come on. What am I saying. After that painful two decades when the Aussies won everything? I'm not feeling at all sorry for them :D 3-0!


Ken Farnes was a fast bowler for Essex during the thirties, who also bowled for England, in the same side as our last wartime cricketer, Hedley Verity, in fact.

By all accounts, and somewhat unlike his contemporaries, he was built much more like the fast bowlers of today, tall and muscular. Unusually for the era, he was an amateur, at a time when quick bowling was largely the preserve of the professionals. He's probably, oddly, most famous for being reduced to tears during an Essex game against Yorkshire in which the Yorkshire pair of Sutcliffe and Leyland took him apart for 75 runs in four overs. You can hardly blame him.

With a Test average of under 30, and a first-class average of 21, he was a pretty decent bowler, and a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1939. He had an autobiography, Tours And Tests, published in 1940, shortly after which he signed up with the RAFVR and like many at the time, did his basic training in Canada. He was killed in a training accident shortly after returning to England.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, Farnes and Verity were the only two England players killed in the armed forces in WW2. While Farnes' tragic death wasn't on active service, this does make him worth a mention.

Next up, though, we move on to English Test players who survived the war.

Cricketers in Wartime - Hedley Verity

Image: IWM/BBC

If you're English, it's probably not escaped your notice that we're currently 2-0 up in the Ashes series against what, to be honest, is one of the more dismal Aussie sides since Kim Hughes' tour of the West Indies in 1984. Being a lifelong cricket fan, and sometime technical architect for  CricInfo.com and CricketArchive, I'm rather enjoying this.

If you're an Aussie... sorry :D

If you're American, you're probably still bemused about cricket. This'll help...

Heh. Ok. Actually it won't. This will, though.

Come what may, you're probably wondering what this has to do with wargaming. Well: my eye was caught by an article in the BBC site today marking the passing of Yorkshire and England spinner Hedley Verity almost exactly 70 years ago.

He was a Captain in the Green Howards, alongside several others from the Yorkshire side, and was wounded and captured during the Allied invasion of Sicily. He died a few days later, on July 31 1943, from complications after a surgery to remove part of a rib pressing on his lung (under just a local!). The Guardian also has an excellent article on him.

As a cricketer, he was reckoned to be the best spinner in England in the immediate pre-war era:  he took all ten wickets in an innings in a county match twice, including the stunning figures of 19.4-16-10-10 against Notts in 1932, and 15 Australian wickets during the Lords' Ashes Test of 1934.

If you want to read about him in much more detail, the book to chase down is Hedley Verity: Portrait of a Cricketer, which I may well treat myself to sometime.