“I know the commentators and players come here expecting to see runs ...
The Andy Caddick Pavilion nearing completion
available. I am being told that wickets should be a more even contest between bat and ball. Fair enough, but to try and do that I need time on my wickets. And how can I do that when the fixture list is so crammed? And it’s not just the county games - LV, Friends Provident, Pro 40, Twenty20 - I’ve also got to accommodate One Day Internationals (ODI’s), The Ladies Twenty20 World Cup as well as other ladies matches. I’m not moaning, just making an observation.” Even the pre-season schedule is
The ‘Sir’ Ian Botham stand
heavy. “The head coach gave me the schedule of matches” said Phil ... and you just know, from the look on Phil’s face, that there’s an amusing story coming! “We’ve got Gloucester for a one day match, Glamorgan for two days and Derby for three” he proclaimed. “I looked at him and said, ‘Do you want to ring round the other fifteen counties and invite them down as well’. He didn’t get it at first but, about an hour and a half later my phone went. ‘Frosty, you are a b**tard, I’ve just realised what
you said!’ I had to laugh.” And it doesn’t stop there. “We had baseball matches and corporate events at the end of the cricket season. Obviously, I covered the square but it meant that I couldn’t start my end of season renovations until we were well in to October. It was too late really and, coupled with the bad weather, it’s been a difficult winter.”
It is a conundrum for Phil. Much of the cricket played at Taunton is the shorter version of the game where, in truth, spectators and pundits expect, and almost demand, a run fest. That’s what the shorter versions of the game are about. But Somerset would love to win the County Championship, something they have never done in their long history, and there’s the rub. “I know that commentators and players come here expecting to see runs” says Phil, “and whilst players and ex-players were obviously good at their craft, they are not groundsmen and, to be fair, whilst they can talk the talk, they don’t know the job!”
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