Blog - Richard Browning - The Ride to Worcester

17 April 2010

So it was back to the ‘Weetwood Oval’ for our second outdoor practice on our picturesque ground preparing for three days against Worcestershire. A small turn out due to university commitments but a good practice none-the-less, with our lovely Irish opener, Chris Dougherty making sure he had his allotted two hours batting practice. Having sampled the delights of the centre of Leeds the previous night, it is safe to say many of the group were keen to get the fielding session out of the way as quickly as possible but not before our Marketing Manager and general dogs-body, Nick Davis, wore a few balls from the interesting throws that he was on the receiving end of!

The rest of the afternoon was ours and the lads dispersed to all parts of Leeds to catch up with uni work and/or girlfriends - trying not to overlap the two – before the three nights away. I can only assume the evening was a quiet one for all involved but maybe not so much for the housemates of a few of the group.

The following day was free for the 150mile journey down the M1 with the morning being predominantly used for drying our playing and training gear, as is typical of many uni sportspeople. We left in a four car convoy, and it was surprising that my passengers, Rick Moore and Chris Dougherty were not signed up by Virgin Records during the journey with their performance of ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ by Elton John and George Michael. The journey also involved severe competition on the iPhone application, DoodleJump with once again the Irishmen being the star of the show, much to the annoyance of Alex Blake.

We arrived at the Fownes Hotel in Worcester, a historic building with our rooms looking a lot like the inside of our grandparents houses and had our standard 6:15pm meeting. After reaching a conclusion that Vikram Solanki might struggle with the ball that swings in and nips away off the seam, we left for some food.

The following day, we left at 8:15am from our hotel to endure the 45minute journey to Kidderminster and for me to personally have a ‘fitness test’ as I had a niggle in my heel. Unfortunately I didn’t pass the test and was left to sit out the three days. This did give a chance to Matt Higginbottom with the boys warming up thoroughly, winning the toss and sticking Worcestershire in to bat…