Due to a lack of available article writers, Jim asked me in my capacity as an ad hoc contributor to come up with my A-Z of cricket, 26 words to do with cricket as I see it. Swiftly glossing over Abject and Batting, we find ourselves at C for Concentration.

Concentration at all times is vital for good cricket. How many times have we trudged back to the pavilion to offer no explanation as to how we have just been bowled out, or been staring into space when you hear a shout and the ball hurtling straight to you? Let me give you two examples on why we must concentrate at all times.

I took my long suffering misses to Cambridge for a good Saturday day out of shopping and boozing and went on-line to check the time of the last train back. I wasn’t really paying attention, and later on that evening, I found myself in the position of standing on an empty platform, where my train had departed 10 minutes before my half cut arrival. Some poor unfortunate rail monkey took the full force of my boozed up rant accusing him of stealing my train and sending it off 20 minutes early. Bile and vitriol spewed out at a volcanic rate. I even tried to bring another group of people into the argument, only for Caron to point out that they were in fact non-English speaking Japanese tourists. The type who photo and video shoot anything. Even portly pissed up left arm medium pacers who can’t read train timetables properly. No doubt I will soon be appearing on the number one Japanese TV show ‘Foreigners do the funniest things’, kicking and punching a metal post outside a train station. It slowly dawned on me in the cab home that cost me the price of a cheap seat at a lord’s test match, that I had earlier checked the times for weekdays instead of Saturdays.

Crest fallen at such a schoolboy error, I got up early a few hours later to watch the latest in the current dismal 7 match series of one dayers in India. India were going along nicely at 40 for no loss when there was a forced break in play. Pietersen complained to the umpires about hard rutted footings at the crease in which Broad was running into at one end. The umpire took Brenda Saywag’s bat at the non-stikers end and started prodding the area under investigation. Half the England team gathered round to inspect. Broad collapsed halfway down the wicket and the England physio rushed on to attend to an unfeasibly skinny ankle. Bumble, Skys favourite commentator, noticed that someone then kicked Brendas bat whilst it was being used as an impromptu hammer. Brenda didn’t like that and snatched his bat back.

This forced the umpires to summon a groundsman to the crease wielding a small toffee hammer, who got down on his knees and started to hammer away, one very small area at a time. You could hear from the stump mike of the umpire instructing the groundman to bash away as hard as he could as he was live on camera in front of millions of people. In fact you could be reading this article in a years time and he could still be going if it wasn’t for more groundsmen arriving a few minutes later with a large metal square block on the end of a larger wooden pole. Something that Henry VIII would had wielded in one-sided jousting competitions before more honourable pastimes for gentlemen were created.

By now, 6 minutes had gone by without a ball being bowled and Bumble was crying out ‘It’s hammer time’, ‘Bring on the hammer’ and ‘That hammer is as big as a elephants foot’. Indeed just as the viewer expected a passing elephant to be yanked in off the streets of downtown Bangalore, all the little groundsmen in immaculate brown overalls disappeared and play resumed. 8 minutes of play consisting of several people trying to iron out a small bump in the ground. Broad and his tall frame ran back in to bowl at the legend that is Sashin Tendaulker. Slightly fuller of length, it pitched outside off before nipping back and removing Sashins off stump. First ball after the restart. Even the best in the world have lapses in concentration. I wondered what Tendaulkers response was when asked what happened back in the pavillion.

Next week, D is for ‘Dunno mate’.