The Beamer

Starting cricket matches earlier could bring a financial boost to your club’s finances, a recent survey has found. According to a national player participation survey, starting, and subsequently finishing earlier has shown that players and supporters spend more in the bar afterwards as they are not in such a rush to go on to other events. The survey also showed that just over 50% of players want to play 45 over games whereas the rest favour 40 overs. With player numbers decreasing in recent years across the UK a national payer participation survey was issued to all affiliated clubs and the results show that most players (wherever they are in the UK) feel pretty much the same about the game. The survey found that: The game can be too long The ideal time to finish a game is around 6.30pm Players are struggling with cricket/other commitment balance Spirit of the game is as high as it’s ever been. Players do not have full confidence in the ability of umpires. ...

Kyle Quartermaine in action - highest score by individual in 2015 No idea who took the picture but it's a good one. Now that the award season is well underway, it’s only right that the winner year’s most valuable century is named.  It’s a bit unfair to call it the most valuable of course as all centuries are valuable to a team’s cause and also, who is to say that the person who’s century amounted to the highest percentage of his team’s score that day was in fact the most valuable in terms of the situation of the game? Anyway anyone who scores a century deserves some form of praise and of the 47 that were scored in Pembrokeshire league cricket this year, the person who had the highest percentage in terms of scoring his team’s runs was none other than Luke Murray of Pembroke Dock. His innings of 151 amounted to 76.65% of his team’s 197. It was a brutal innings and sadly I was on the other end of it. Spare a thought though for Nick Daley too. No slouch himself when it...

It had to happen, it was inevitable really given it happens every decade. The Pembrokeshire team that won the Association's Cup in 1995. Not all of these make the team of the decade but most do. In the 80’s they reminisced about the 60’s. In the 90’s it was the 70’s and so forth and so forth until now, some trendsetting hack up in whereversville decides to take us all back to the days when tied dyed clothing were all the rage before Britain became cool, or so the Labour party told us. The decade kicked in with a bang as the Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets and Happy Mondays all combined to make Manchester the in-place to be as they sought to banish the New Age Romantics among us and replaced them with baggy clothed wearing, joint smoking, acid taking goons. Then came the Ravers, with their sun hats, shades and whistles and love for all things lazer related and in-between we had Nirvana’s grunge as an alternative to it all. It’s easy to look back at life in past de...

Now that the season is over and the crazed appeals of Howzat have fallen silent cross the shire, the only cricket action to be had across the county comes in the shape of celebratory dinners and award ceremonies. With this in mind it’s only right that we have a crack at it here on the Pembs cricket blog so here goes. Team of the year Haverfordwest may have won the league but let’s face it, no other side has dominated the local cricket scene quite like Neyland. Duggie Morris, Harrison-Allen and Jubilee Cup, the county exec may as well just hand the same trophies over next year given the average age of the team is less than 30. They’ll dominate for the next ten years unless someone steps up to the plate. Best team ever? Some are suggesting it but Carew in the 80’s won’t agree. Batsman of the year Three players scored a hat-trick of centuries in a season that saw players raising their bats at will. Johnston had two in Daniel Sutton and Steve Mills Jnr whil...

Batting collapses have been with us since forever and every team has endured one. Neyland were once bowled out for 20 against Kilgetty, Lamphey were once bowled out for 24 against Llangwm while Neyland had Cresselly 39-8 in the Duggie Morris final a few weeks ago before they recovered to 85 all out despite having a first innings lead. On Saturday, Pembroke Dock had Crymych 12-5 as the Mountain men tried to overhaul the host’s modest 118 and with five men back in the hutch with less than a Baker’s dozen on the board then Luke Murray’s men would have been confident of gaining valuable points as they battle to avoid relegation. As for today’s collapse at the Oval, well the less said about that, the beter No-one knows the cause of batting collapses especially among sides that are known as good batting teams yet once they strike, there is no known cure as a variety of different methods are tried and inevitably fail in an attempt to overcome the situation. The brain plays tri...