The Captain's Wicket

It was the last day of Kent's game against Northampton today, and against our instincts Jack and I went along hoping for an exciting finish and a Kent win. Unfortunately the visitors seemed content to let time go by and the game to fizzle out to a tame draw. I though that the way Boje batted was a disgrace, and showed contempt for the spectators, things will have to change if the county game is to survive!

Kent had some youngsters on view. Phillip Duncan Edwards (his parents must have been Man U supporters) is a young fast bowler. I'm not a bowling coach, but it does look as it he isn't making enough of his considerable height.

The biggest surprise was captain Rob Key bowling seven overs, he bowled two in the whole of last season. He only went for two runs and over an Boje played out two maiden overs. For a test player I think that this is inexcusable, he may have found it a joke but he should remember that without spectators he wouldn't have a job. Rob Keys action was not classic, in fact it looks ,in the picture above, as it he is throwing a javelin. Never-the-less he did get the surprise wicket of David Willey, the son of former England player Peter.

The rest of the team were quick to congratulate the skipper on his first class wicket, I don't think he will bowl many more batsman this season! The players finally wandered off the pitch as aimlessly as the day gone. Although I have not always been a fan of one day cricket, it does at least inject some sort of urgency into the game.

I took a walk along South Foreland Valley this evening, hoping to bump into something unusual, but this was not to be. The air was full of bird song, with Song Thrushes and Whitethroats prominent. In the wood a Great-spotted Woodpecker was drumming on a particularly resonating dead tree.

The cattle were doing their job of keeping the grass cropped in one area but I was a little worried at how scrubby the recently cleared are is already looking. If the intention is to produce an interesting chalk grassland flora it will need a lot of active management, if it is left to long it will quickly revert to a far less interesting area of thistle and other fast colonisers.

There were a lot of recently arrived Whitethroats, singing their scratchy songs, but my hoped for Nightingale seemed to be absent.