Sam has played cricket for a London-based actors team throughout the years, and until now I have avoided going to a single, solitary cricket game for multiple reasons. One being the poor weather. The other being that I have no idea how cricket is played other than sometimes matches last for days. A bit like Quidditch.
Sam was invited to play for an amalgamation of several London actors teams to form a super actors team in the Words and Wickets Cricket Festival at Wormsley. The weather was supposed to be perfect, the grounds are known to be some of the most beautiful in the world, it raised money for charity, Belvedere was providing cocktails, and as Sam’s guest I got free drinks. I was obviously going to this match.
Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe Wormsley Cricket ground. It was originally Sir Paul Getty’s private cricket ground. (He fell in love with cricket after being introduced to it by Mick Jager.) It’s a replica of The Oval, complete with a mock-Tudor pavilion. The Queen Mother and Michael Caine watched the first match on the grounds. It clearly has a history of awesome people being there.
And then, lo and behold, another offering to strike my fancy! If you attended the festival, you could arrange a tour of the Wormsley Library. It’s the private collection of the Getty family and contains a first edition of “Canterbury Tales” and a Shakespeare first folio. Basically, there’s no reason it wouldn’t be love and first sight for me.
The match was the final one in the festival – actors versus writers (the writers having played the musicians the previous day). You can see a selection of the team lineup on the website. And whilst the actors walked away defeated in the end, truly I was the winner as I got to partake in this.
This was the festival’s second year – the lovely minds behind Words and Wickets are trying to make it an annual event. I can firmly say that even as a sports enthusiast lite I would go again. And I’d encourage people to follow Words and Wickets on twitter to stay in touch with information for attending next year!
The actors warming up.
I spy Sam.
Sam at bat.
Sam claiming his prize bottle of Belvedere.
While my understanding of the rules of cricket has skyrocketed, I still don’t think I could explain it to you.
