Liam Cromar

Autumn is an odd time of year to join a cricket club. It's typically the season for introspection, for shuttering up the clubhouse, for mulling over the victories and losses of the past year.

For me, it had been a year marked more by watching than by playing. I calculate that I went to see professional cricket on some 16 different occasions during 2015, and if my appetite wasn't exactly sated, it was still ready to fast for a while, to allow the events to be more properly digested. Next year, perhaps, I would tone down the number of Tests I would attend, and focus on playing the game.

Focusing on personal on-field prowess isn't always very encouraging, though. When it came to reviewing my performances during 2015, I had to admit that it had not been an auspicious season with bat or ball. Nonetheless, at least I had managed to avoid most obviously embarrassing situations, or at least partly justify them to myself. That single-figure score? Run-out, honourably sacrificing myself to give the strike to our star bat. That time I was bowled behind my legs by that part-timer? The scorebook shows I at least achieved the respectability of double figures. That wicketless desert from July to September? Can be put down to those catches, well, put down. If all else fails, I can at least console myself with the fact that, this year, I avoided the indignity of a first-ball dismissal.

February 9th, 2015. Brisbane is hot. Two miles should be a laughably easy stroll. It's about 1.99 miles too far for this Englishman fresh off the Singapore flight, sleep limited, stomach upset and skin burning. The prospect of free Sheffield Shield cricket is just about enough to keep us stumbling down the South Bank towards the ominously named Vulture Street. We arrive to find the teams have just stopped for lunch. We slouch off to a launderette.

September 22nd, 2015. Worcester is not very hot. The brightest elements in my vision are the double yellow lines guarding every inch of kerb in the vicinity. We park, leaving a straightforward half-mile amble to the ground. An attempted shortcut through Chapter Meadows promptly deposits us in a sodden muddy field. With the skies unleashing torrents of September rain, we manage to choose every wrong turn, thus contriving to double the length of our journey. We arrive to find the teams will not start before lunch. We slouch off to a library.

I ought to be more of a Worcestershire CCC fan than I am. Over 15 years ago, New Road was where I paid my first visit to first-class cricket, and buried as I am in deepest Herefordshire, it remains my nearest first-class ground. Most on the county circuit would consider this to be a stroke of good fortune. New Road, after all, has a deserved reputation as one of the most attractive county grounds, so any excuse to pay regular visits should be gratefully seized. Even the recent redevelopment isn't entirely negative: they didn't quite pave paradise to put up a Premier Inn, but at least the cathedral finally has a rival on the skyline to provoke discussion among the brethren that Paul Allott would term "the Worcester faithful".

Two households, both alike in dignity. For the second time in three years, the Antipodean siblings assembled, and their aged relative once again displayed obvious favouritism. Two Tests for New Zealand and five for Australia: hardly the most equitable arrangement of the FTP.

The two visitors ultimately lost four Tests to the home team's three. Yet imagine what could have been accomplished had they joined forces. Here, then, is the all-Antipodean XI, selected on the ability to play Tests in England in 2015. (Note that this is rather different from the ability to amuse crowds: on such a basis two Australian allrounders (no names) would have been automatic picks). Super Test, anyone?

In Mel Brooks' western farce Blazing Saddles, the villain, upon hearing his henchman bellow "We'll head them off at the pass", slowly turns round, grinds out, "I hate that cliché", and unloads his pistol into his foot. I haven't yet been moved to similar violence by any of the inane comments cricket frequently provokes, but there is one that might just tip me over the edge, displaying as it does a total lack of appreciation for one oft-forgotten role: the thoughtless utterance that a batsman dismissed for a duck "didn't trouble the scorers".

As any scorer knows, a duck, particularly a golden duck, is anything but no trouble for the scorers. Barely have the details of the previous wicket to have fallen been entered - how out, over when out, time out, how many balls faced, how many runs scored, partnership, bowler's name, fielder's name if applicable, current score of the not-out batsman - than the whole process has to be repeated for the fresh dismissal, perhaps even before the first has been completed. Commentators must imagine that all that scorers have to do is jot down a zero and relax.

I should say scorer rather than scorers. In the low-grade circles where I've played much of my cricket - primarily social and so-called "friendly" matches - it's often a minor triumph to locate a single person capable of bringing a pencil and scorebook together with a modicum of knowledge and accuracy. Forget about having two dedicated scorers: the best that we'll realistically be able to hope for is a single "volunteer" from the batting side.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. On most counts, Ashes Tests and Wimbledon finals are born as great sporting events, regardless of the quality of the play. Once in a while, they also achieve greatness through quality: Goran Ivanisevic's five-set wildcard win in 2001 and the drawn Old Trafford Test of 2005 fall into this category. And even more rarely, the third element clicks in: a home winner, as at Edgbaston '05 and Wimbledon '13.

I'd only witnessed Ashes cricket live once previously, at Lord's in 2009, and I'd never been to the All-England Lawn Tennis Championships, although I was privileged to see Serena Williams play Olympic tennis at Wimbledon in 2012. Recently, that changed: much to my own surprise, not only did all my applications for Ashes tickets succeed, but also my LTA ballot entry. At £1.10 per minute, the Gentlemen's Singles Final (no disrespect meant to the following mixed doubles final, but the former is clearly the main attraction) proves the most expensive sporting event I've attended; by contrast, the first Test clocks in at £0.16 per minute.

The Ashes is already good value, then, and certainly doesn't need to attempt to boost it with an opening ceremony. The Olympics, as a slightly eccentric hodgepodge of sports from all over the world, can get away with a bonkers opening night, which serves to heighten rather than lessen anticipation. Something similar applies to the 32-team FIFA World Cup: less diverse, but excusable, owing to the global scale of the event. As an aside, though, it will be the height of hypocrisy if the ten-team 2019 cricket World Cup tries to use an opening ceremony to paint itself as an inclusive celebratory competition.