The Beamer

Now that the season is done and dusted, the league is sorted out and disciplinary hearings have taken place it’s time to discuss who did what during the season and dish out a few awards. Who was the player of the season? Who makes the team of the year? Who hit the biggest six and which was the best game? Wonder no more as the answer to those questions are here (or not as is probably the case). Curtain raiser of the year award There’s many a fine ground in Pembrokeshire yet it was a makeshift ground that provided the best backdrop to 2017 as a load of U9 cricketers did battle at Pembroke Castle in a pre-season festival. Eight teams came together to joust on the Castle grounds making for a wonderful scene fit for any gladiatorial battle that may have gone on when the Castle was occupied by royalty. The kids loved it, the parents loved it and the Castle loved it too. Hopefully it will be an annual event. It should be. Player of the season A simple one to start off, it...

I wondered in the summer whether the rivalry between Carew and Cresselly was as intense as it once was, there is afterall reason to believe it isn’t. In recent years more players have moved between the clubs. Cresselly players play for the Rooks in football (seperate from the cricket but still Carew) and along with many from Lawrenny, a lot live in the same estate in Sageston so they’re all neighbours. In fact, that estate could lay a claim to having the strongest team in the county. After the debacle of the final game of the season it’s fair to say that intensity has been renewed although it pales into insignificance to what many Carew players will feel towards the County Executive Committee after the verdict of Tuesday’s disciplinary hearing was announced. Carew have been charged with ‘Acting in a manner calculated to prejudice the good name and interests of Pembroke County Club' while Brian Hall has been charged with ‘Not playing in the spirit of the game’. As a result...

Cresselly were right. Carew’s decision to declare with the score on 18-1 in the final game of the season was at odds with their title of champions of the county, but setting up a disciplinary committee to investigate the match is an unnecessary inconvenience and expense. Pembroke County Cricket has to be seen to do something of course but what they can actually do about it remains to be seen. Reports online (and there’s been plenty of them) suggest the county club could expel Carew for what they did, fine them up to £500 or reprimand them but neither will reverse the decision made on a day that promised so much yet delivered so little so the question has to be asked; just what is the point? It’s been claimed Carew deliberately lost the match and the result will suggest they did but there was no guarantee that Cresselly would have passed the total even though they needed just 19 to win. As unlikely as it would have been given Cresselly’s superior batting, they could have su...

And so it boils down to this. Four months after it began the cricket season comes to and end on Saturday and it’s been better than people give it credit for. For all the talk of standards being low, clubs struggling to field teams and players lacking interest the majority of the divisions have been tight. The bottom of the first, the bottom of the second and the top of the third have all gone down to the wire and if that doesn’t garner interest in the game then nothing will. The undoubted match of the day (quite possibly the match of the season) is at Carew where the hosts need just nine points to clinch the title and second placed Cresselly are the visitors. Can they overcome the 21 point gap? It will be interesting to see how Carew play it. Will they go for the win or settle for a draw? It’s not unconceivable that they could lose and still gain enough points to seal the title. At the bottom and Johnston’s win over Haverfordwest last week has really put the cat a...

A little bit of history was made in Pembrokeshire last Saturday when Laugharne’s Kevin Pearce raised his bat for a double century on the fine batting track that is Pembroke Dock. It was the second double century of the season, the first time such a feat has ever occurred in Pembrokeshire cricket. A week rarely goes by these days without a century being scored in one of our five divisions but going one further for a double is still a rare occurrence. Pearce is a good player, a player with too good for division five but as the saying goes, you still have to score them and score them he certainly did. His innings helped the league’s new boys record their 12th win of the season to keep their unbeaten record intact. In truth it was never in doubt. As soon as the visitors were invited to bat the writing was on the wall for the home team and it didn’t take long for them to take the game away from the hosts. They declared on 324-1 in just 30 overs and given they play straigh...

A newspaper cutting on John Cole helping Cresselly win the Bowl It reads like a who’s who of local cricketers with some of the finest players to grace our grounds having their names emblazoned on it. They say their is no I in team, but no matter who wins this year’s Harrison-Allen, all 22 players on the pitch will be hoping they are the star of the show; they will be wanting to lift the John Cole trophy. They will want to be named Man of the Match. Brilliant batting and brilliant bowling together with the odd brilliant catch all helps in being named as the trophy’s custodian for the next 12 months but who was the man who had a trophy named after him and why was a trophy named in his honour in the first place? John Cole was a Cresselly legend. Born and bred in the hamlet of Pisgah just a stone’s throw away from the Cresselly cricket ground it was inevitable he would gravitate towards the summer game. A butcher by trade, he was born in the same room that his son...