Page 6 - Bray Celebrity Cricket Programme Final

MICHAEL PARKINSON
is propelled towards the heavens and eventually drops in front of the batsman after a trajectory like a mortar bomb.
No one, except the Parkinsons, has twigged that the only way to bowl on our wicket is to do away with a run-up and deliver from a standing position. Thus it is that all my team—myself and my three sons—constitute the only all-spin attack in the world. Number One son and I bowl off-spin in the manner of the great Illingworth, Number Two son bowls leg breaks and googlies and Number Three son is the secret weapon, the only child lob bowler in the history of first-class cricket.
He has broken many a long stand by his habit of bursting into tears after being thrashed to the boundary. Whenever that happens the rest of the Parkinsons stare at the batsman as if he ought to be ashamed of himself, whereupon, more often than not, he surrenders his wicket next ball out of sheer remorse and in order to stop the waterworks.
If this mixture of spin and guile fails to work we have one surprise left. Number One son who, all else apart, is well on the way to becoming the eating champion of the world, has perfected a way of exploiting the natural and unique charms of our pitch to bowl the unplayable ball.
I should explain that apart from the mountainous approach there is one further hazard to the bowler which is Gunn, the willow tree. Although standing at mid-off, he weeps all over the run-up making a straightforward approach impossible to all, except to Number One son.
When bowling his ‘super ball’ he starts his run from the base of the willow thereby being hidden from the batsman whose only warning of impending doom is a rustling in the undergrowth. Still undetected Number One son charges up the mountain and when near the summit leaps upwards and forwards so that he bursts through the overhanging willow foliage and lands on the bowling crease.
MAIDENHEAD & BRAY CRICKET CLUB
MICH
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