Sunday Service with Church and Vickers

Episode 24 - Fast Bowling Coaching + Consultancy, Stuart Barnes

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Welcome back to the Sunday Service with Church and Vickers - we hope you’ve all had a peaceful cricketing week.

This week, Mark and Hector are joined by an elite fast-bowling coach and consultant.

This man has coached a wide array of teams - from working with a number of counties, to Head Coaching the Bangladesh A side, to being the bowling coach in the final of an under-19 World Cup - he is one of the most respected bowling coaches out there.

Having played professionally for Gloucestershire before entering the coaching world, he has now returned to freelance and has set up his own academy - where he not only coaches, but also offers consultancy to leaders outside of cricket.

Stuart Barnes joins the show to chat through his incredible career, discuss the science behind Neuro Linguistic Programming, and offer his advice to anyone looking to get into the coaching industry.

Also on the episode, Church and Vickers conclude their fantastic segment - “Whose cricket book is this?” - and Churchy delivers a sermon about the start of the domestic season and what it means for the Parish.

A huge thank you to Stuart Barnes for joining us on this week's show for such an insightful chat - we hope his first season back in freelance goes brilliantly.

Another big thank you goes to our friends at Newbery Cricket, who are offering up a beautiful Mjolnir bat for this month's competition giveaway... Reimagined. Refined. Built for the modern player.

You can check out the premium equipment that Newbery has to offer here: https://newbery.co.uk/

If you have liked this episode of Sunday Service, please make sure to rate and review us, and share us on social media platforms.

Make sure to get in touch, we want to hear your cricketing thoughts and guest suggestions:

Email us at: sundayservice.pod@yahoo.com

‘X’ - sundayservice22

SPEAKER_03

Well, hello everyone, and thank you for joining us again on the Sunday service with Churchin' Vicus. We hope you've all had a good cricketing week and the season is underway. All hell, mother cricket, and happy Easter to one and to all. Day three of the opening round of the championship games has just got underway, which means that the old man unfortunately is not alongside me.

SPEAKER_00

No, I'm not the only suburb of men. And can I just say it's splendid? Just splendid to have the domestic game on the way once again.

SPEAKER_03

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sunday service with Church and Vicus. Well, we are back in this week. It has been a busy one. The season is finally underway after 23 episodes. Cricket in this country is broken out once more. But let me tell you a little secret. We can't really talk about the games going on because we recorded this before Good Friday. So unless Churchy is Mystic Meg, he won't be able to tell us who scored runs and who's taken wickets. Churchy, are you Mystic Mark?

SPEAKER_00

I am Hector. And do you want to know why? Because I know as people start to listen to this podcast, I will be sat at Edbriston having consumed an Easter egg at breakfast. What I can tell you is this new stats book was brought on Monday. Stats were done on Tuesday in the car Wednesday. Took daughter to a concert on Thursday night. She'd rudely not looked at the fixture list, and recording this while waiting for her concert to finish, drove daughter back on Thursday night, got up in the early hours of Friday, drove to Birmingham. Now, young Hector, what is on the show today, please?

SPEAKER_03

Well, Churchill, you've had time to do your cricketing sermon, talking all about the start of the domestic season and what it means for the parish.

SPEAKER_00

We have, and this is an exclusive for you, the final edition of a hard-hitting feature. Whose cricket book is this?

SPEAKER_03

And our guest today is a bowling coach who's worked in both the county and international game.

SPEAKER_00

And thanks to our friends at Newbury Cricket, we have our competition where you can win one of their magnificent Majorna bats. And it is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of willow. And don't forget you can get in touch with us, just email sundayservice.pod at yahoo.com or tweet at Sundayservice22.

SPEAKER_03

So, lots to get through. Let's get cracking with the Sunday service. This is Cameron Steele, and you are listening to the Sunday service with Church and Vickers.

SPEAKER_00

Good morning. I trust your cricketing week has been showing the maker's name to the bowler, and the middle of your bat has been used regularly. Well, the domestic season is underway, and that has meant an extremely busy opening to the week for me in the parish. Jobs needed to be done before I headed to Birminghamshire to keep an eye on Warwickshire against Surrey. The first of those jobs was having our new electric fly mow repaired. As I told you last week, Mr. Jackson's very long extension lead got us to the middle, but I must confess I then got over excited using the FlyMow. After three hours of fly mowing, I had almost tunnelled under the pavilion and the blades got blocked with grass. Plus Mr Jackson needed his extension lead back because it was powering both his kettle and his television set from a plug in the garage. I took the stricken Flymo to our parish all rounder and general handyman, Tricky Trevor, and he kindly put new blades on, a new handle, and a new cover. In fact I suspect it would have been quicker and cheaper for Tricky to purchase a new Flymo, but thankfully it seems to be working again. Tuesday was spent making cricketing visits around the parish to get people's thoughts on the season ahead. Mrs. Dewhurst was very surprised to be told it would be quite something if Colin Cowdry was the leading run scorer for Kent this summer, and I gave up trying to convince Mr Hodges that W. Grase no longer played for Gloucestershire. But one thing shone through there was excitement in the parish for the new season. Wednesday was spent ironing my cassock and packing for Birminghamshire. I filled the car with petrol for the long drive, and I think the tank is now worth more than the car. The greatest hits of Barry Manilou and Hymns of the Century were put in the glove box for the compact disc player, and then it was time to open the good book and prepare for the game with some stats. The good book contained so many numbers that I found myself getting carried away and trying to work out how many times the ball was left alone in the first division last summer. I failed to come up with an answer, but my columns look marvellous in my new book of common stats, and I always have the play fair to fall back on. Thursday I said a fond farewell to the parish, leaving my hugely talented young chorister Mr Vickers in charge. He assured me all would run smoothly in my absence as he walked purposefully towards the badger's googly, clutching the hymn sheets for Sunday. He has decided choir practice goes much better over a couple of pints of the local brew and thirty legs of five oh one on the dartboard. Who am I to question him? B Manalo got me to Birmingham, and there was a lovely moment as the sun disappeared and Manalo hit the chorus of Here Comes the Night. My Honda Civic is not terribly good on the motorway, so I tend to stick to fifty miles an hour on the inside lane. Having arrived, I retired to bed with a copy of the good book and got an early night because the domestic season was starting the very next day. And here we are. Today is Easter Sunday. The season started on Good Friday, which must be a sign that this is going to be a good season. Plus, would you believe it was also the tenth anniversary of Carlos Braithwaite's four sixes in the World T twenty final? And yes, Mr Bishop, we still remember the name. No doubt you may be cracking open a Capri's whisper egg with your breakfast and seeing bunny rabbits everywhere. Today is the third day of the season, and headlines may have already been written, and I might have used a couple of my stats. For the service back to the parish I am being beamed from the OHP onto the white sheet by something Mr Vickers calls Zoom. It seems to have worked, and hopefully the parishioners are hearing this sermon loud and clear. I have Edgebiston as my background with the tall buildings of Birminghamshire in the distance. You will have to imagine the scene, but I am looking forward to hearing what Mr Vickers thought and hearing the hymns that they were practicing in the Badger's Googly. Mr Vickers also informs me that Mrs. Greenacre, who has a wonderfully out of key soprano voice, hit a 120 checkout on the dart board whilst practising, which is most impressive. So the season is underway. You may be listening to this at a county ground or whilst getting to the end of your Cabries Whisper Egg. All I can say is Happy Easter to you all, and thank you to Mother Cricket for getting the season underway. Until next Sunday, my cricketing friends, may all your cricket watching be successful and may all your eggs be of the right size and taste. Until next week, bat well everyone. Bat very, very well.

SPEAKER_03

And now it is feature time. The final Whose Cricket Book is this? It's a momentous day, and we've got a good one to finish. Last week, Churchy read out an extract from a crickling book, and we asked you the question, Whose cricket book is this? Here is the snippet.

SPEAKER_00

Then I ran out Derek Randall on his home ground in front of his home crowd. I can see it now. Me running head down to safety while Derek gives up the ghost and Rodney Marsh demolishes the stumps. If the ground had opened and swallowed me at that moment, it would have been a mercy.

SPEAKER_03

That was, of course, from Jeffrey Boycott's autobiography. Boycott the autobiography. And as Churchy revealed earlier, the breaking news is that is the last time that we will run whose cricket book is this. Because next week we will have a spell binding feature. Now the cricket season has started. It will be revealed next week. But let me assure you, it will be hard hitting.

SPEAKER_00

And let me just tell everybody, I've only just realized in the script I put for Hector that is the last one for the time being of whose cricket this. That would be a good feature, but it's not going to be our new one. No, no, no. Our new one is going to be utterly, utterly magnificent.

SPEAKER_01

Hi, Matt Fisher, Surrey and England. You're listening to the Sunday service with Church and Vickers.

SPEAKER_03

Now it's time for our cricketing guest. This man has coached a wide array of teams from head coaching the Bangladesh A side to being the bowling coach in the final of an under-19 World Cup, as well as working with a number of counties. He is one of the most respected bowling coaches in the game. Having played professionally for Gloucestershire before entering the coaching world, he has now returned to Freelance and has set up his own academy where he not only coaches but also offers consultancy to leaders outside of cricket. Stuart Barnes joins the show to chat all about his career and the art of bowling coaching. And I started by asking him how he was and how his winter had been.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm good. My winter has been um a little bit different than the last 20 odd winters in that um I'm now self-employed and I'm I'm going right back to where it all started for me, really, and that's kind of in development, I guess. Um working with young fast bowlers that have some ambition, uh, but all of them have the ambition of becoming the best that they can be at whatever level they want to kind of achieve. So my winter is um I'm still in Birmingham at the moment, although we're moving house next week. And um I'm doing a bunch of one-to-ones. I'm heading down to Epsom College to do some work with In Touch Academy there. Um, and I'm doing some one-to-ones up in Birmingham as well. So my winter has been busy, um, and outside of those kind of one-to-ones, I'm um kind of growing uh uh social media presence as well as um working with people online from around the world. So yeah, it's been different and and really interesting.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so what what do you look for in young players? Well, jump into your career and the teams you've worked with in a bit, but just working with your average player that wants a one-one session, what what are the key principles that you're looking for to see if if that bowler can can progress?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think the first thing I'm looking for is um do they actually want to be there? Do they actually want to be coached? Are they do they listen? Because with without that, really, uh my impact or any coach's impact is going to be kind of minimal. So I'm kind of I I I pick up some signals as to are they motivated, are they excited, are they keen? Um and then and then what I I would normally, if I'm seeing somebody for the first time, I would always ask them uh what club they're at, what coaches they're working with, what are they working on, how can I kind of help and complement whatever they're working on currently. So I get build a bit of a picture, and then I just go through a bit of a process of observing from different angles. I do use video analysis, so I capture their bowling from different angles and we chat about what I see. I I I like to keep things really simple. I I do know the science bit of bowling, uh, and the I guess the more complicated bit, but when I'm working with any bowlers of whatever age, I think it's really important um that uh simplicity is genius and the player doesn't need complication. This is just my belief. All they need is right, these are the one, maybe two things that you could do in order to um bowl faster, swing the ball more, be more accurate, or get more bounce. So those are the four kind of principles I work around and go through a process to w what's the starting point and what would they need to do in order to shift that needle across those principles, really.

SPEAKER_03

Was that always the plan then to get into coaching? You had a couple of years at Gloucestershire and then you said you started through the sort of freelance route. Was that always the plan and how did you get into that industry in the first place?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I I talk very openly about my when I look back, I consider myself to be a failed professional cricketer in that um I would I was highly talented looking back. Uh told I was um good. I was told I was told actually I was going to play for England at some point, but I never actually had to work that hard to get to get opportunities. I've never really, on reflection, if I was honest, I had to work that hard to get a professional contract. We're talking a long time ago now, long before you were born. Um so it was a bit different then than it is now, but I was highly talented, but didn't have the work ethic, the understanding of what to eat, when to eat, how to recover, how to fuel, um, who to surround myself by, uh, who challenged me. I I was pretty comfortable just with my talent. And like so many other people that I have since then worked with, um, I the my opportunity was gone. So I I consider myself a failed professional cricketer in a very positive sense because when I understood that actually it was my fault that it wasn't a 15-year career, um I vowed never to make the same mistake again. So I I vowed to always work harder, be curious about education, be curious about getting better, um making a commitment to who is already good at what I want to be good at coaching, um, connect with them and spend time with them. So failed um in the very positive sense, in it it was a learning um period in my life that it really was the catalyst to me becoming the best coach I could possibly be, really.

SPEAKER_03

And you've worked with some incredible teams, please correct me if I miss any out here, but no particular order. You've worked at Surrey, Gloucestershire, Kent, Somerset, most recently Warwickshire. You've head coached Bangladesh A Team, England under 19's fast bowling coach in two World Cups, including the final in 2022. Worked on the England Lions development programme, you're a member of the elite fast bowling group, and have also been assistant head at Cricket Island as well as their national bowling lead. And as you said before that, you had a couple of years as pro at Gloucestershire. Looking back on that list, what are you most proud of in terms of the teams and and the players that you feel you might have had the most impact on?

SPEAKER_02

Wow, when you read those teams out, I'm thinking, bloody, I'm a right journeyman. Uh at the start, at the start of my coaching career, I I I spent a lot of time learning my coaching trade at Gloucestershire, working alongside the likes of John Bracewell, um uh Mark Elaine, and some pretty incredible um players during that period as well when Gloucestershire were winning one-day trophies. What am I most proud of? Um, you put me on the spot here a little bit. I think I'm most proud of what feels like to me anyway, although you'd have to ask the players that I've worked with, um finding ways to connect with players, and you do it I I any coach cannot do their job really without a connection, a relationship with a player. And I really enjoy getting to know players, yes, of course, as cricketers, but as people as well. Um finding out you know what their ambitions are. So I'm most proud of the the people that I have worked with and the people I've kept in contact with as well, really. You know, I I've I'm I've worked with some pretty amazing people, and what I've found is you know, household names write down to you know good county cricketers. They're just people like the rest of us, but with a with an extraordinary gift, um that they are using to the best of their advantage, really. So I I think it's about it's not about trophies, it's not about the clubs that I've worked at necessarily, it's about um uh an introvert, I'm a natural introvert. I was quiet at school, but then being able to learn the how to get to know someone and and find out what they're motivated motivated by and to help them on their kind of journey as well, really. I think that's what I'm most proud of.

SPEAKER_03

So I guess that almost starts. Uh as I said, you had a couple of World Cups at the under 19s. That must be that must be pretty awesome to sort of see them at the start of their career in 2016, Bangladesh. You're working with Sam Curran, Sakeba Mood, George Garton, then Dan Lawrence and Mason Crane were spin, and then 2022, Josh Boyden, James Hales, Tom Aspinwall, and then Bethel Ahmed and Tom Press were the spinners there. On that bowling list, how proud are you to see the progression that they've made since you know the the very beginning of their career at the World Cup?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I've always taken an interest in observing most mostly from a distance, but um I have kept in contact with most of them. Um you're always keeping an eye on the direction of their career, and um yeah, it's amazing. I mean I I I don't consider myself I consider myself to have played a small part in their their journey because it's always it's always the cricketer that chooses that their path. We we can have as much impact as we hope to have, but it's only a very small part of their their kind of journey. Um yeah, it's been amazing to watch Sam and Tom, you know, the the projection of of their career. And when I was at Surrey, they were just graduating through the academy. So um, and then even before that, uh I had a call recently with David Payne, who who um I just I remember the the first time I saw him at a at Christchurch Indoor Centre in Dorset, and and I was kind of on the prowl to find out okay, is there anyone here that Gloucestershire might be interested in and as a left armor uh we're interested in? And and I was a call on a call recently, and it's like you know, he's now gone out to the IPL recently, having won the Big Bash, and then won the you know that there's a lot of people there that I consider kind of friends. Um, that yeah, I'm I'm immensely proud to watch them from a distance, really. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, he's been on fire. I saw uh Big Bash, I think he was play player of the tournament or player of the final, and then with those World Cups, and you also head coached at Bangladesh A and and were involved with Ireland, what are there particular striking differences in coaching international versus domestic cricket? And is is domestic cricket more relaxed, for example, or are the stakes different?

SPEAKER_02

I've always I've always thought that the higher up you um the higher up you work at the higher level so international level versus county cricket and pathway cricket. It's almost like a sliding scale. So bowlers, I've always got an eye on technique because technique is the process to deliver the plan. And so the tech the technique needs to be sound enough and consistent enough for a bowler to deliver the ball that they want to bowl and the plan against that particular batter. The higher level you go, you go more tactical, more planned, more clarity. Um, the lower you go, I've always believed it becomes slightly more technical because you're you're laying the foundations of technical. Or foundations for those bowlers to eventually execute on the plans, if you see what I mean. So it's a bit of a sliding scale. So I think that that's that's the main difference is as you kind of move through. But um just to you know, county cricket is pretty brutal in terms of the schedule, so it's not more relaxed. Yeah, uh it might be for some of the players, I don't know, but all the coaches that are involved in county cricket, you know, getting home at 2 a.m. and then you've got another T20 later that same day, it doesn't happen all the time, but it's it's pretty brutal. And as you get older, as I have done, um yeah, it's it's become more and more difficult to recover and then get up the same day. But the most important thing is that coaches set the energy levels so however tired a coach might be, um, I've always looked to where I can inject energy uh whenever I arrive into the dressing room, sort of thing. So, but it's pretty brutal, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And as as you were saying, you started off in freelancing kind of full circle moment. You're you're back there with Stuart Barnes coaching and consulting. What I find most interesting about that is you're not just coaching and mentoring in sport, you're kind of going beyond sport, business leaders, etc. How challenging was that for you? And and does it require a different skill set to sort of mentor outside of sport?

SPEAKER_02

I'm I'm loving it. I'm really enjoying that different kind of angle of coaching because pure coaching isn't giving solutions to problems. Um and and and I I've been a cricket coach um all of my pretty much all of my career, a couple of years working for Bartley's Bank, which again was great. But I've been a cricket coach, but I was I've actually been a mentor because mentors listen what's the problem and they work with the player to work through into a solution. Um pure coaching is asking open questions and helping the person navigate their own um find their own solutions. So I'm going through a qualification at the moment for a business coaching qualification, and I'm really enjoying it because it's challenging me to learn something slightly different and to add to my kind of coaching tools, if you see what I mean. So yeah, I'm I'm really enjoying that.

SPEAKER_03

And how did you get into that side? Was it just when you came out of uh coaching Warwickshire and then starting that uh freelance? Was that just a conscious decision that you wanted to test yourself and try something new?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I've I've been looking at doing this qualification for a good three, four, five years, but I've never been able to do it because there are modules that sit um during the season. So I was never able, once I got the dates through, I was never able to commit to all of them, and you have to commit to all of them to kind of respect the course, respect the cohort, and also the the guy delivering it as well. So as soon as um finished last summer, it was my opportunity to finally kind of um do commit to the course that I've I've had an eye on for quite a while, really.

SPEAKER_03

Another um qualification that you've got, which I'm gonna have to read it here, neurolinguistic programming, you're a master practitioner, I saw. Um first of all, I know you wanted to keep keep your teaching, especially at the early stages, simple, but how does neurolinguistic programming inform your coaching and what's the science behind that?

SPEAKER_02

How do you know all this? You've done your homework, big time. So NL NLP was a qualification that um the ECB um helped me jump on a few years ago when I was at Surrey actually. So NLP is basically how the brain works, how how someone how how spotting some signals from the person you're working with in their language, verbal and non-verbal, what their values are, um so getting as much information about that person as possible in order to use that information positively to help them achieve their goals. So, in simple terms, one of the things that I learned was that um trying to match behaviors to high performance. So I would work with a player and over a period of time observe how they behave, verbal and non-verbal, the body language, how they show up on the morning, um, how they prep. Um just generally build up a bit of a template of them. And then if they go out and perform really well, and then that's consistent, all of a sudden I've got uh I've got a match with how the how they show up and how they perform. And there's always dips in performances. There's you know, people lose form and things. But what I learned on um on that course was that nearly all in all cases there is a change of behaviour prior to a change in performance. So somebody might be quieter than normal if it doesn't match what how they would normally turn up when they perform really high, or they might turn up late, or they might be more grumpy, or they might be more grumpy, or they might be slower bowling their overs, or some there's something normally different that if you look closely you can see and spot before a dipping uh in performance. So that that was one of the things that really resonated with me, and and that's that's something that I've continued to try and use um since I I took the course on. There's so many other things in there as well, but that was one of the things that really stood out for me.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's seriously interesting. Would you recommend that to any of our listeners wanting to get into bowling coaching? Is that sort of would you say that's a bit more down the line when when you've earned your stripes or or can you start doing that as a qualification?

SPEAKER_02

Well that you can. You can just jump on an N LP course, you can find them everywhere. I think it's one of those things that if you're really interested in how can I how can I get an edge, what could I do in order to just put another tool in my coaching bag that could help somebody? Um it's definitely something that I enjoy, but I I guess like anything, it's not for everybody. But if you're interested in how um how the mind works and how that shows itself in performances, then it's definitely something that somebody can look into for sure.

SPEAKER_03

So finally, the the sort of main do's and don'ts of anyone perhaps they haven't played cricket professionally and they're they're just wanting to earn their qualifications and and get into freelance coaching. I know that you do a lot online as well. Is it important to have an online presence and and build a bit of a portfolio for yourself? And what would your main advice be to anyone wanting to get into bowling coaching?

SPEAKER_02

I'm I'm not sure having an online presence um is essential. Um I think having an online uh a digital presence depends what what you and what you want to end up doing. I I now want to help as many people around the world as possible. So how can people kind of know who I am? Well it it's kind of using social media. I don't find it, I don't find it natural, I'll be honest. Because I'm an introvert. I I uh you know saying stuff in front of the camera, I still don't I don't find myself really comfortable, but I do it because uh because I you know I'm I'm motivated by giving people insights, what happens at the top level, and then making the link with this is what it could look like at club level, at uh pathway level. So that that's why I do it. Because everyone's interested in what happens at the top level. And then my my challenge to myself is well, okay, you can't all do that because everyone's not as talented as that, but this is what you this is what it could look like at the level you're playing at. Um so social media um I I think the most important thing is um caring about the person in front of you, making sure that they have a lot of fun learning about the game, because sometimes the message of it's a game to have fun with with your mates, it's also fun when you perform really well and develop and improve. But I think um if somebody if somebody is there and they care about the person, you really do find ways to connect with the person, observe that person, and then work through ways to empower them to get out and be become the best that they can be. So if that answers your question, I hope it does.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thanks so much for your time. That that was a really interesting chat, and and good luck with the summer. Hopefully, I'll see you around uh some cricket grounds around the country. Yeah, I hope so, and thanks for the invite. I've enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00

The Majorna was never just a bat, it was a piece of cricket history, a shape players trusted. A bat that earned its place in the game. Now it returns. Reimagined, refined, built for the modern player. Still handcrafted in England, still made from the finest English willow. The Newbury Majorna, legacy redefined. Only 50 available exclusively at newbury.co.uk and selected retail partners. When they're gone, they're gone. Sale starts midday, Thursday, the 2nd of April, 2026. Your chance to own a piece of cricket history.

SPEAKER_03

So there are our friends at Newbury Cricket, and now it is competition time, and thanks to our friends at Newby Cricket, we have the Majorna bat to give away. And as we all know, this is a prize that you will want to win. And it's your last chance to get your name in the hat for it, isn't it, Churchy? A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of willow. It really is beautiful. So, first of all, Churchy, what was last week's question and answer?

SPEAKER_00

So the question last week is uh, or was so the domestic season is now underway. Three counties have never won the county championship. Somerset and Northamptonshire are two of those counties, but which is the third? The answer, every everybody, was Gloucestershire. Unbelievable. Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire have never won the county championship. There's only one of those three that can do it this year, of course, and that's Somerset. So we wait to see on that front. Now, my cricketing question for this week is this Who scored the most runs in the County Championship last season, and that includes Division One and Division Two? So who scored the most runs in the County Championship last season, and that includes Division One and Division II. If you think you know the answer, email that answer to Sundayservice.pod at yahoo.com or tweet at Sundayservice22. And our friends at Newbury have released an official Sunday service discount code. You can now use the discount code Sundayservice15 and get 15% off goods at www.newbury.co.uk, excluding bespoke bats. So why not treat yourself to some premium gear and quality willow?

SPEAKER_03

Right, that is stumps for this episode of the Sunday service with Church and Vickers. We will be back together next Sunday, the 12th of April, when the sun will be shining and we will know what happened in the opening round of fixtures. In fact, it will already be day three of the second round. So get that date in your download diary. Don't forget, send us your answers to the quiz and whose cricket book is this. And you can still get anything you want to off your chest cricket-wise by emailing Sundayservice.pod at yahoo.com or tweeting at Sundayservice22.

SPEAKER_00

So thank you for listening. If you've liked what you've heard, please rate and review us as it really helps others find the podcast. And I can say it now, we are all one big cricketing family, and we're happy once again. Stuart Barnes for joining us today, and of course, thank you to our friends at Newbury Cricket for all their support and their magnificent competition prize. It is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of willow. If you can hear some banging in the background as well, Hector, that's the dog. And if you can hear the kettle going, that's the kettle.

SPEAKER_03

Until next Sunday from Zoom, this has been Hector Vickers and March production. Have a magnificent cricketing week, everybody. And remember, you cannot win the county championship in the opening game.