retiredmartin

Someone is bound to complain that isn’t Richie Benaud, aren’t they ?

But Richie IS cricket, if you ask me (you didn’t), and he’s celebrated in The Cricketers* in Longparish, another of those effortlessly gorgeous Test Valley pubs that aren’t half as posh as you expect.

Longparish is, coincidentally, a long parish, with lots of thatched cottages with animals sculpted on top.

But the Cricketers, again, is quite plain.

And therein lies its appeal. Wiki lists the famous sons as a Colonel, a Major, and a Lieutenant, but it’s Richie and Len who get commemorated in the pub.

Some lovely seating by the fire,

but the Old Boys are seated at the bar, discussing the price of a pint.

There is widespread astonishment that Amstel and Moretti, deemed “indistinguishable“, are £5 a pint. “Why’s lager so expensive ? It used to be the workingmen’s drink !“. I think they need to read “20th Century Pub“. Someone suggests tons of microbreweries can sell beer for £3.20. Yes, but it’s rubbish variable.

My beer in the Cricketers is Dark Star Hophead, oddly, drawn from the cask. It’s very flat, but decent enough (NBSS 3).

Two genteel ladies opposite me finish their lunch and, I assume, will soon start fighting over the right to pay the bill. Sadly, I can’t wait an hour to hear the denouement.

With half a dozen other folk inside, it’s one of the busiest, and most enjoyable, of my 3 days ticking.

And you don’t get Velvet Rose and Oud fragrance in Maidenhead. Trust me in that.

*What Pub reckons there’s an apostrophe. I expect CAMRA Discourse can discuss that at length.