Arundel

Sunday I finally got to Arundel to watch some cricket.

Sadly Arundel Week disappeared after the pandemic but a Sussex XI were playing the national county Hertfordshire.

Years ago I remember seeing Hertfordshire, then called a minor county, dismissed by Middlesex for 111 runs. The standard has improved and Herts made a fist of it. Sussex posted 340 and Herts matched their run rate in a defiant opening stand by Chatfield and Harrison of 171.  Then they fell apart and Sussex won by 58 runs.

There can surely be no more attractive ground anywhere than Arundel. It’s totally surrounded by tall of trees except for a gap which provides a beautiful view of the River Arun.

Young families picnic around the perimeter and all the facilities are excellent.

It’s not a cricket club as such, though there is an Arundel cricket club, but a venue.

The Varsity Match is played here and next week MCC play Zimbabwe A.

Modern cricket writers castigate Bernard, Duke of Norfolk, who led the 1962 tour down under as a patrician but the Arundel ground was always popular with the tourists and now a more motley crew of cricketing teams.

The facilities for the players are better at Hove but one hopes they realise it’s a county side in which the outer grounds at Eastbourne, Horsham and Arundel play an important rôle.