Badgers Stop Play
This is a sadder story about badgers ruining a cricket ground. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
Badgers have stopped play at one of England’s oldest cricket clubs after they tore huge chunks out of the pitch.
The damage has forced Rickmansworth Cricket Club, in Hertfordshire, to postpone all of its games in April and May as staff try to repair the ground.
It is believed the badgers were attracted by bugs thriving in the damp pitch, with the club unable to treat the ground due to the cold weather.
Badgers are becoming a serious pest in many places, due to the fact that they are protected and have no natural predator. So consequently, there is getting to be a population, that doesn’t have the space and sufficient food. It’s the same with deer in some places, but at least they are good to eat.
We must get sensible about our wildlife. Foxes, badgers, grey squirrels and deer seem to get all the protection they need to prosper from well-meaning town dwellers, but that wonderful queen of the countryside; the brown hare, and the beautiful red squirrel, keep struggling.
Cricket At The Olympic Stadium
It was reported on the BBC London News last night, that Essex County Cricket Club are negotiating to play their Twenty20 games at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford in East London.
This is a brilliant idea, as if they get the marketing and ticketing right, I’m sure that they’ll get a whole load of new people to go to the cricket.
Remember, as we saw in New Zealand recently, you can play the Twenty20 version of the game in a rugby or football stadium with a drop-in wicket.
Imagine too, England against Australia at Twenty20 with 70,000 supporters looking on. Now that will be some game!
It will happen, if for no other reason, there is no other way in the UK, to get that number of people to one of the greatest and longest rivalries in world sport.
The Anonymous Widower 