Crowded worldwide cricket schedule means winter plans for my private yacht are put on hold - Chris Waters

THE QUESTION I am probably asked most often in my capacity as a cricket writer is this: “What do you do during the winter?”

Why, if I had a pound for every time someone has asked me that during the past two decades the answer would be pretty simple.

Basically, I would be relaxing on my private yacht in the Pacific, which all those pounds had enabled me to buy, while gold-digging beauties attended to my every whim, feigning interest as I regaled them with stories of Yorkshire’s performances in the T20 Blast and Royal London Cup.

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Occasionally, as said beauties lowered grapes into my mouth and refilled my wine glass while giggling softly, I might idly reflect on what is happening back home in cold, dank, dreary England.

England's crickets will once again be heading off on tour this winter, this time Down Under to take on Australia in The ashes. Picture: Saikat Das / Sportzpics for BCCIEngland's crickets will once again be heading off on tour this winter, this time Down Under to take on Australia in The ashes. Picture: Saikat Das / Sportzpics for BCCI
England's crickets will once again be heading off on tour this winter, this time Down Under to take on Australia in The ashes. Picture: Saikat Das / Sportzpics for BCCI

But after another back massage and quick dab of sun-cream, it would all be forgotten as I cracked on with another hard day of doing absolutely nothing pending the arrival of the next cricket season.

In reality, of course, as we bid farewell to yet another summer, the time-honoured question seems increasingly irrelevant.

“What do you do during the winter?” Why, one simply continues to write about cricket, now a 365 days-a-year, 24 hours-a-day operation, or at least that’s how it feels.

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Indeed, there always seems to be a game going on somewhere in the world at any given moment, another international match, another franchise tournament.

Covering Yorkshire is a year-round task Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.comCovering Yorkshire is a year-round task Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com
Covering Yorkshire is a year-round task Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com

The sport is increasingly global and, due to the veritable glut of fixtures and competitions, increasingly claustrophobic to the extent that there is little room to breathe, never mind time to keep up with it all.

I wonder, in passing, whether Father Christmas has ever had the same issue as me.

After the Christmas season has finished, and he is a bit green about the gills after gallivanting around the globe delivering his presents, do folk stroll up to him in Lapland and enquire: “Hey, Father Christmas, what do you do during the rest of the year?”

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It seems a fair enough question, I suppose, but presumably the chap is still hard at work on Amazon, pre-ordering and keeping tabs on all the latest toys, still busy attending to his sleigh and his fleet of reindeer.

Either that, or he has a private yacht somewhere in the Pacific.

Anyway, I digress.

There has also, historically, been plenty to write about at Yorkshire during the winter months.

During the 1970s and 1980s, for example, when the club was frequently at loggerheads and infighting rife, there was perhaps more to write about during the winter than there was during the summer, a peculiar inversion of the natural state of things.

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One can think of more recent crises that have gripped the club, some of which are still ongoing, and the world of Yorkshire cricket is rarely dull.

Happily, in this particular role, one can comment extensively in the winter months on anything that might be happening in the cricket world, one can cover England from afar thanks to the medium of satellite television, one can write historical/bygones pieces – often my favourite part of it all, delving back into the game’s rich and precious history – and one can usually find some helpful person to interview at gunpoint.

“What do you do during the winter?”

Basically what I do during the summer.

In the meantime, I suppose that yacht will just have to wait.

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