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Articles by Douglas Heath

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About Douglas Heath

Douglas Heath began his lifelong love affair with cricket as an 8 year-old schoolboy playing OWZAT? Whilst listening to a 160s Ashes series on the radio. He later became half-decent at doing John Arlott impressions and is a member of Middlesex County Cricket Club. He holds no truck at all with the T20 version on the game. More Posts

I have tried, I really have

Readers will note from my biography below that I am no fan of the T20 game. Yet it is here to stay and yesterday I resolved to make my peace with it. It was a lovely warm evening, 27,000 packed Lords, the highest attendance for a T20 match, to see Middlesex play Surrey. My problem with this format [...]

July 22, 2016 // 0 Comments

MCC and the home of cricket

Although the match is tense and poised it did not seem to absorb the spectators round me who were by the afternoon chatting, sleeping, drinking or doing a crossword.  Drink is drunk in industrial quantities at cricket right from the start so on a hot humid day the consequence is fatigue. If I were [...]

July 17, 2016 // 0 Comments

First day of test

The first day of Lords is a special occasion, so much so that it tends – as it did yesterday – to overshadow the cricket. The old ground looked fabulous with only the Warner incomplete with no roof. It’s such a pleasing and successful fusion of old, the red brick Victorian [...]

July 15, 2016 // 0 Comments

Watching from the Mound Stand Lords

Through the good offices of Bob Tickler I was able to purchase a seat – my own seat – in the Upper Mound Stand. This affords you the right to watch the big events of Lords cricket from your seat in the Upper Mound for 3 years. I was initially unsure because of the cost, amount of use [...]

June 10, 2016 // 0 Comments

Tony Cozier

One of the aspects of Rust writing that I appreciate is that when it comes to obituaries we do not fall victim to hyperbole and hype. Thus in the case of Tony Cozier I agreed with much that was written but not all. He was the voice of West Indian cricket, he was extremely well informed but to call [...]

May 13, 2016 // 0 Comments

Sussex v Essex

The second division of the Championship is the poor relative of the cricket competitions meriting a wrap-up paragraph at the rear of the sports pages. One of these reasons for this is that a second division side can  still complete in the white ball competitions, indeed all 4 finalists in the [...]

April 19, 2016 // 0 Comments

The T20 Final

Correct me if I am wrong but if England win on Sunday this will be the only World Cup trophy they have won twice. We have certainly mastered the grammar of T20 cricket and much is due to Andrew Strauss who put the white ball game  high up the priority list. When he became Middlesex captain he [...]

April 2, 2016 // 0 Comments

Third day of the Test

In an attritional day, after the fireworks of the previous, Amla played a captain’s innings to keep South Africa in the game. On a  pitch that offered the bowler of pace, swing or spin no succour, England must have rued the two chances of catching Amla that Anderson and Compton failed to [...]

January 5, 2016 // 0 Comments

Fourth day / first day, second test

In the great NR debate on attendance v home watching the quality of the stadium/venue plays a role and few are as beautiful as Newlands the scene of the second test. It’s aspected by a mountian range that gives as thrilling a back drop as a Western and by the sea. The stands are around the [...]

January 3, 2016 // 0 Comments

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be

For some Rust contributors and readers of my acquaintance, the 21st Century endless merry-go-round of the various forms of international, regional and city-based cricket has become a surfeit that leaves them hankering for the old days when men were men and prep school boys played soccer, hockey or [...]

December 23, 2015 // 0 Comments

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