Opinion: Hay meadow work prompts cricket pitch fantasy

A farmer writing in Farmers Weekly describes a personal tradition of walking their freshly mown back meadow after hay bale clearing and fantasising about reviving the historic Hinton Ampner Cricket Club, which once existed when small hamlets could field a team. The original pitch was located just west of Hinton Ampner House but is now buried under building spoil. The writer's dream is repeatedly thwarted by practical obstacles, including an awkward east-west square orientation, wartime ridge-and-furrow ground irregularities, and a telegraph pole positioned exactly where a batting crease would be needed.