"Test Match Cricket is Boring? Kiwis win in a thriller!"

Episode 9 of "The Blackford Book Club" is also the fifth and final part from my self-published book of May 2023 entitled "Ashes to Ashes" and here, a reading of my final chapter from their 2023 tour to New Zealand entitled

"Test Match cricket is boring? Kiwi's win in a thriller!"

Here's a link to the paperback book and a short excerpt from the chapter itself:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5Z3FVYC

"After 4 days and fully 2 sessions of rain interrupted Test Match cricket, it came down to this: England needing just two runs for victory, New Zealand one final precious wicket. Seconds later, Neil Wagner is screaming like a wild banshee before being mobbed by his jubilant, disbelieving team-mates whilst James Anderson can only stand disconsolately, looking down at the ground and the bat that had tickled the faintest of possible edges through to the full length sprawling dive of wicket-keeper Tom Blundell. New Zealand had won, against all possible odds in a following on, come from behind victory for the ages, and for the second time in the entire history of this great and grandest game of all by one, single, solitary run, and stealing from the great Ian Smith from the ICC cricket World Cup of 2019, “by the barest of margins”.

The barest of margins indeed.

My goodness.

There are many people for whom Test Match cricket is summarily and instantly dismissed as “boring”. Five days, often resulting in a draw (but not in this English revolution), with rain delays, declarations and fielding positions such as “Backward Square Leg” or “Deep Third Man” looked upon with contempt and derision. Teams are in, then out, out then back in, made to “follow-on” amid “googlies”, “zooters” and “leg breaks” and batsmen that are not out until they are out, but are back in again before they get out.

Perhaps you fancy a brand new “cherry” or “nut” or “rock” to bowl, seam, swing, reverse swing, spin, leg spin, side spin or indeed no spin at all or even better, that “mystery ball” on a “green top”, a “road” or a “feather-bed”, or perhaps a “Bunsen Burner” in a Delhi dust bowl or the grey overhead conditions of Headingley in Yorkshire, watching the masters of their bowling art “swing the ball around corners” with unplayable “Jaffa’s” that trap a batsman “dead” and “plumb” in front a “castle” of “poles”, but the less said about the “Silly Mid-Off” fielding position the better, ok? I may be confusing you enough by now.

But boring? Please".

Thanks for watching!

https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.paypal.me/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/steveblackford