Starting the new season with an East Midlands double-header: more #EighteenCounties fun
A planned trip to one match turned into a chance to visit two grounds in one day
County cricket is back for another season, as is our family’s tour of all eighteen grounds — which we began last year, and aim to complete this. We took the road north from London and headed to Northampton, where we watched Northamptonshire take on Gloucestershire. From there, we wandered a little further up the M1 and took in another ground too! Read on to find out how we got on…
Stadium and match review
Match nine: County Ground, Northampton. 10th April 2022
Fixture: Northamptonshire vs Gloucestershire, LV= County Championship, Division One
Arriving on day three of this four-day match, we were welcomed by friendly staff and took our seats amongst a smattering of supporters. We had a lovely view of a pretty ground, looking out over a lush outfield and a traditional pavilion.
We enjoyed our time in Northampton, Aarav even found an empty net and joined a couple of local kids playing with a soft ball for an impromptu practice — next to what looked like a couple of players from the Cayman Islands national team!
By the time we arrived, Gloucestershire had already lost three wickets in their second innings, and as we stepped through the turnstiles, lost a fourth — we wondered at that stage if the home side would need to bat again at all! What followed was a very solid partnership between Dent and Higgins, the former falling straight after lunch for a well made fifty.
In the club shop we looked for a mini-bat as a souvenir, but there weren’t any — until we asked the lovely lady behind the til, who promptly pulled out a whole box of signed mini-bats for Aarav to choose from, and didn’t charge us! He chose one signed by former Northants batter Adam Rossington — who now plays for Essex. Later in the day Aarav took the bat to the boundary and got bowler Nathan Buck to sign it — a rite of passage for any young cricket fan!
Over lunch, we’d looked at the other fixtures happening close by, and wondered if we should head to Leicester to take in another of our grounds on the list — our minds were made up when a brief April shower brought us hailstones! You can’t expect any less at the start of the county season, after all it snowed last week…
So off we went just before tea break, further up the M1 to Leicester. As it turned out, we missed an extraordinary post-tea session, with Higgins going on to make a hundred.
Stadium and match review
Match ten: Uptonsteel County Ground, Grace Road, Leicester.10th April 2022
Fixture: Leicestershire vs Worcestershire, LV= County Championship, Division Two
Another factor in our decision to take in a second game was that Leicestershire didn’t charge us for a ticket after tea. That made up for a rather eye-watering entry fee in Northampton — £41 for the three of us, which for a county championship game felt a little steep.
The Leicester ground is a nice setting, with low coloured seating and plenty of space to walk around the perimeter of the field whilst retaining a view of play. Krish discovered a nice indoor hospitality area serving tea and cake, so we enjoyed an hour or so of play looking out through wide windows — taking in the evening sunshine, but sheltered from the April cold
Walking round the boundary, we stopped to chat to Callum Parkinson, who was toiling away in the evening sun for a long spell. In between overs, Callum was kind enough to talk to Aarav about being a left-arm spinner, and the challenges of being a spin bowler in early-season English conditions — something his twin brother Matt spoke out about as well. It was great chatting to a professional at some length, the connection with Aarav’s left-arm action strengthened when I mentioned to Callum that I’d attended the same school as him, albeit some years before him ;-).
After a lovely evening in the Leicester sunshine, we popped to Leicester’s Golden Mile for nourishment before heading home — happy with our trips to two games in one day!
We’re writing this post on the train out to the next leg of our pilgrimage, hoping to take in two matches this weekend at Bristol and Taunton. Here’s hoping the weather holds out for grounds nine and ten out of eighteen!