It has not been the greatest day of this Test series for England but at least our skipper, who rarely bowls himself, got their star player, and former skipper, out. Admittedly, Steve Smith had scored 211 and Joe Root bowled a long hop but, still, it reminds me of Turville Park v Middleton Stoney CC three years ago this Sunday.

This was one of our extremely rare away games. It was a gloomy day (pictured above, a little like the weather at the Test match yesterday) and a gloomy performance (a bit like today at the Test). Turville Park scored 247-8 declared and then bowled us out for 129. Never mind, though, because I took the wicket of their star player and captain. OK, he had scored a century. Oh yes, and perhaps I should mention that he was only out because he was brilliantly caught on the long-on boundary by our tallest player.

This is part of a wider trait of village cricketers, to relate the highest levels of the game to some episode from the life of our own club. In most cases, there is absolutely no comparison, of course. But there is much to be said for the ability to imagine that there is.

So when I see the highlights of a day at the Test match, I am drawn to my distorted memories of Middleton Stoney CC or staff matches at Queen’s University Belfast in the 1990s or school matches in Kent or college matches in Oxford in the 1970s. For example, I think T20 was invented by Queen’s staff.

One of the many strengths of Middleton Stoney CC is that we keep old match reports on our website so the next stage, after recalling a ‘similar’ incident, is to check the records. Here is Martin Randall’s fabulous account of that awful defeat:

http://www.middletonstoneycc.co.uk/club-news/2016/september/04/mscc-vs-turville-park-2016/

Now we could all quibble with the odd phrase here and there. For example, Martin writes, ‘The skipper also took a contender for catch of the season taking a sharp slip chance with his wrong hand a foot from the turf’. Wrong hand? I suppose he means my left hand. Sharp? Impossibly hard. Slip? Gully. A ‘foot from the turf’? Yes but more importantly three feet to my left before that dive. Still, you get the picture and Martin’s report was more than a contender, it was the undisputed match report of the season.

Cricketers at the highest levels are ‘just like us’ although not always quite as good as we think we are. For instance, pardon me, Tim Paine, but the Australian skipper declared today at 497-8 whereas I would have waited for the psychological advantage given by three more runs to declare at 500. Last Sunday, as detailed in #29, I declared only after we had reached 200.

Thinking in this way may be delusional but it can be replicated in other contexts, in life beyond boundaries. In universities, for example, the leadership and the wider community are conditioned to think that vice-chancellors come and go as quickly as football managers. In many settings, people compare leadership of tiny local groups to politicians running the country. That’s not usually a flattering comparison.

Back in Manchester at the Test match, the day ended with Matthew Wade’s spectacular  catch to dismiss Joe Denly. Now that was just like us, when I took that catch at Turville Park. Except that Wade didn’t take it cleanly first time, was on the other side of the bat, at short-leg, and was much closer. Just like us.