When former Marin Social player, Jonathan Botha, last year made muttering noises about the idea of attending the Philadelphia Cricket festival in the spring I paid little attention to the details of what he was talking about but expressed a fledgling interest. Early this year he followed up and, having to my surprise received encouragement from the home front, I decided to bite the bullet and make the pilgrimage to what turns out to be the truly spiritual home of Cricket in America – Philadelphia. Here, in the home of the Phillies and the Liberty Bell, cricket has been played since at least 1854 and for the past 17 years there has been a 4 day festival celebrated by more than a dozen teams from many parts of N.America [including 4 from Philadelphia] and a couple from England. To say the entire event was a complete blast, in spite of being washed out on the final day and intermittently interrupted by the wet stuff that falls from the sky would (for me) be one of the understatements of the year – it was a cracking experience that began with me saying to myself that it would be a “Once in a Lifetime Trip” and ending with me being determined to return with a team from Marin next year, if at all possible, and if not – sod it, I’ll go back on my own! Here’s a taste of what you’re missing:
There are 3 very established Country Clubs in Philadelphia, all of which were founded as cricket clubs – Merion Cricket Club, The Philadelphia Cricket Club and Germantown Cricket Club, where the game is played early in the spring and later in the fall, because between times these historic cricket ovals are used for lawn tennis. These grounds are so pristine and so authentic, and the clubhouses SO shi-shi that you might imagine yourself to be on hallowed turf in Jolly Olde England, until you inspect the wickets themselves, of course, which are necessarily temporary in nature – the clubs being loathe to ruffle the feathers of their larger membership by allocating even 22 yards of purpose made cricket pitch. So the strips are somewhat funkified, being either Flicx (someone unkindly – but rather accurately – described this as a shower mat), coconut matting and other synthetic surfaces applied on top of the grass. No matter, though each of these surfaces had its idiosyncrasies – principally variable (lower) bounce and not a lot in the way of turn for spinners – they were all perfectly playable, though none of the wickets I played on was built on concrete or had the bounce of the present day Marin surface. The clubhouses themselves are monuments to the glory days of the game in the USA and there are photos in both the Philadelphia and Germantown clubhouses that show THOUSANDS of spectators watching matches being played there in the late 1800’s and at the turn of the last century! WG Grace features prominently (well he would wouldn’t he) in one picture I saw. Then you go to the cricket library at Haverford College (also a venue on the Festival, though not this year, where cricket is on the curriculum, with a former Pakistan national player, Kamran Khan, as coach, earning what I am told is quite a tidy salary), a sizable room hung with memorabilia and containing most probably one of the largest collections of books on cricket in the world. It was simply jaw dropping. I got to handle Don Bradman’s bat, which to my surprise, was light as a feather and super elegant. You can’t help but be moved by that moment – The Don came and played there in, I think, 1950.
Each year the festival brings a celebrity player as the official guest of the festival. Past Celebrity Guests have included Jonty Rhodes (last year), Gary Kirsten, Sir Richard Hadlee and Sir Garry Sobers. My ears rang with tales of Mark Boucher’s batting & wicketkeeping prowess, as often the celebrity plays a game with several (if not all) of the teams who come to the festival. This year’s celebrity was Derek Underwood, who took 297 test wickets for England between 1968 and 1980 and bowled more overs than any player in the history of English test cricket! Derek Underwood, as it happens, was THE single inspiration behind my decision to become a slow left armer, although I now bowl Chinamen and need to work on my deadly accuracy to have even a glint of hope of competing with him in the geriatric cricket festival in the sky. Unfortunately Derek, who is also the current President of the MCC, declined to turn over his arm, and though a worthy guest who made a good speech at the rather stuffy suit and tie banquet on the Saturday night at Merion Cricket Club, could have rolled up his sleeves and been a bit more involved I thought, although he was extremely gracious to me, when I spent a few minutes talking with him. His anecdote about Geoffrey Boycott in a tense moment at the MCG when England had their backs to the wall in the Ashes back in the day brought the house down.
The standard of play among the 13 teams represented at the festival this year was extremely variable, from rank beginners – among them many young Americans relatively new to the game in all of the Philadelphia teams, which also featured a significant proportion of older players (I’m talking 50’s/60’s… and counting) to the Toronto team, whom I never got to see play (as they were in the other half of the draw and the final was a washout) who were young, tattooed and vibrant and included at least 2 members of the current Canada national squad. They felt very out of place at the banquet, which bored them silly, not surprisingly really, though they could have had no complaints about the food, which was excellent. Last year’s festival was won by the Trinidad and Tobago under 19 team. The 2 clubs who contested the other final place this year, Sarasota and Pittsburgh, both fielded fairly strong teams which I think would give a strong showing of the Marin Social team a good game - though frankly I think tight a squad of, ideally, 15 Marin players could have a good chance of bringing back to Piper Park the trophy the club won in 2001 – even considering the probable return of the Toronto mob, who will I think be there again next year! What about it guys?
Why 15 players? Well, the format of the Philadelphia Festival is such that (weather permitting) each team plays 5 or 6 matches over 4 days, with the Final being an additional game. Each game is 25 overs per side. That’s a lot of cricket and the matches can be quite intense, start at 8am each day and some days 2 games per team are scheduled, played on different grounds. 15 players would give a chance for a rotation system to be adopted and also make room for creative captaincy and team selection, allowing players of lesser ability to compete with some of the Philadelphia teams, which are frankly of a significantly lower standard than the most casual of the Marin Social teams, although they are also fronted by a few very good players in their ranks – the Philadelphia CC, for example, contains two wonderful Trinidadian all-rounders who were as good as anyone I’ve seen playing for Marin over the years. Nevertheless it’s good festival policy to have fun playing with your hosts, rather than having the pedal to the metal all the way through. This approach was diplomatically taken by the captain of the team I joined for the weekend, an Aussie, Simon Percival of N.Carolina’s The Anzac Wanderers (who was actually the only ANZAC in the whole bloody team) which otherwise consisted of 3 or 4 Saffers, a cluster of Indians and a Whingeing Pommie Bastard (yours truly) as well as an honorary American. This is Jonathan Botha’s mob.
Given that the Wanderers were pretty much a pickup bunch, which had to supplement their lineup with at least one floating festival player in each game we played, we did pretty well, losing only one game (Sarasota), winning 2 and having two games washed out, frustratingly – the game against Pittsburgh being well poised at the halfway stage. This was apparently, only the 2nd time in 17 years that the festival had been so affected by rain. There’s a plan in place to move matches indoors in case of rain but this option was cancelled a few days before the festival began due to budgetary considerations and a hopeful divining of the weather forecast. For my own part I found the whole festival to be a tremendous confidence booster at the start of the season. My bowling improved with every game and I took a cluster of wickets, 4 of the top 5 Philadelphia batsmen in the last game. My batting also began to show encouraging signs of coming out of mothballs – batting lower in the order I got 3 not out scores and against Sarasota made 15 not out.
So, in short, this was an all round fantastic experience and not too hard on the pocket either. If you can take 3 days off work and get a competitively priced air ticket (I cashed in miles) the overall cost is minimal for the overall experience. To play in the festival is $225 and my hotel room costs at the festival hotel, a Marriott, amounted to $150, as I shacked up with 2 other teammates. There are lower budget options available too. The food, which is mostly excellent, is almost entirely provided by the clubs and in all I spent $’s on two dinners alone. For a few dollars more I got to see the Mets kick the Phillies around the park too.
Come on Marin – lets go to Philadelphia next year, live it up in style, drink free beer and bring home the trophy!
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