Time to get the party started

Second week of May, we’re about to start our fourth league fixture and yet it feels as though the season has yet to move out of first gear.

Last weekend aside the weather hasn’t helped and neither has the fact that the football and rugby seasons seem to be never ending leading to fixture clashes and player unavailability.

If the Welsh Rugby Union have their way this will happen more often as plans are afoot to move the junior rugby season from a winter to summer sport in the belief it will encourage more people to play the game.

If it did move, and the talk is that in Pembrokeshire this will definitely happen, it will have a huge impact on our summer game.

The fear is such that high ranking Cricket Wales officials have already met with Welsh Rugby Union bigwigs including former Grand Slam winning skipper and all-round Welsh hero Ryan Jones to try and thrash out some form of agreement.

I’m not sure what the outcome of those talks were but it seemed constructive enough with Cricket Wales Area Manager Keri Chahal tweeting:

Thanks to @RyanJonesOnline @chris_ower for a constructive collaboration meeting. Working together to ensure all our children get the opportunity to play all our sports. More details to follow after our next meeting #StrongerTogether .

Time will tell on that front.

At a higher level, the performances of Cresselly giant Jack Murphy have gone largely unnoticed for Glamorgan as all the talk at the top end of the game has been centered around the ECB’s idea that a new form of cricket is needed because the current format is not popular enough, that players are leaving in droves and that we need to engage more women and kids.

It’s all tosh of course and they are quickly making fools of themselves with their 100 ball proposals and the idea of bowling the first 50 balls from one end to make the game move quicker.

Nonsense.

Let’s just do away with it and call the game Baseball.

Back to Murphy. He recently raised hit bat for his maiden half century after carrying his in the innings before and all of this after a previous game in which he scored 47.

Early season wickets are never easy to bat on but he’s digging in, doing well, learning from an Ashes hero (an Australian one) and really making a name for himself.

Good for him and Andrew Salter too.

Glamorgan are rebuilding with more Welsh players in their team and it’s nice to see two Pembrokeshire boys play starring roles.

If Simon Holliday was twenty years younger no doubt he’d make it three. How good has he been early doors?

Two tons, one innings of 90 and a few wickets to boot. He’s some player and just because he doesn’t hail from these shores it doesn’t mean he can’t be classed as a true Pembrokeshire great.

The junior coaches association certainly think him as one as he’s been invited to winter junior training sessions in the past to impart his knowledge on how to build an innings; a great move and one which will really inspire our future players.

Unsurprisingly, Holliday makes the first team of the week:

1. Simon Holliday 124 Haverfordwest v Lawrenny
2. Daniel Sutton 117 Cresselly v Johnston
3. Sam Franklin 110 and 2-31 Saundersfoot v Pembroke
4. Paul Murray 94 not out Neyland v Burton
5. Sunjay Gurang 82 not out Haverfordwest 2nds v Stackpole
6. Steve Campbell 81 Lawrenny 2nds v Llechryd 2nds
7. James Venables 74 not out and 5-33 Llangwm v Whitland
8. Davy Johns 50 and 5-26 Narberth seconds v Herbrandston
9. Johnny White 6-18 Haverfordwest v Lawrenny
10. Cris Arundel 5-7 Llanrhian v Haverfordwest 3rdds
11. George Smith 5-59 Stackpole v Haverfordwest 2nds