I have seen the future and it's.....

So its 103 sleeps ‘til the new season – or more accurately we are 138 essential maintenance tasks away from a new campaign. The fixtures are out and (subject to the selection committee*) players can plot their summer’s enjoyment. Inevitably it includes wincing as they realise they will miss a plum trip to a country idyll with great teas while on holiday – but be back home around midnight on the Friday for the game played by the canal, just past the gasworks, at a ground with a micro-climate that resembles Rekjavik in March.

But the fixtures signal the start of the pre-season period. For some involves a dry January and  dusting off the trainers – for most it’s reading about the latest 4:3 diet craze over a mug of tea and a family size pack of hob nobs. But for virtually everyone it’s time to think about new kit and personal targets – and in some cases predictions – and Crofter loves a few sporting predictions and can’t help but recall two figures who wrote theirs into sporting folklore.

In 1964 the then Cassius Clay told the press he’s knock out Sonny Liston in the 8^th round – and while that fight ended with a technical knockout after 6 it is said that Ali’s famous poems predicted the exact round that 12 of his fights would stop in.

At the other end of the spectrum, Scotland Manager Ally McCloud, on departing for the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, was asked what he would do after the world cup – his answer ‘Retain it!’  It is thought he‘s the first manager to talk about retaining the Jules Rimet trophy before winning it.

While Ali walked the walk, Ally just walked.

For the Village tonker/medium pacer there might be some sensible, modest targets. Get picked; don’t get injured; don’t be in the  dressing room when the skip gets a first baller. They might even stretch to a playing based target like qualifying for the averages or doing better than last year.

But perhaps cricket isn’t the game for being too specific – you can be run out without facing a ball, get a duff decision or simply wander around at mid-wicket doing your stretches for a full 45 overs to no effect and bowl zero overs. But Crofter has heard some predictions that fall into the ‘bold’ category – big runs in specific games.

Now in my book 5 tons to order means a £440 Salix presented at the end of year awards  by grateful teams mates – and when it happens the lucky recipient can echo Ali at the end of the first Liston fight and shout that ‘they shook up the world’.

Time will tell, and come September we’ll know whether we have seen ‘The Greatest’ or been on the march with Ally’s army.

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*Crofter will be covering the mystical cult that is the Selection Committee in a future post