The Mouse Cricket Caper

At one end of the World's most famous cricket ground stands the Lord's pavilion. For over a hundred years it has played host to some of the greatest names in the game. However, within its walls and beneath its floors live a collection of less celebrated cricketers and their families. Compo, Don, Gubby, CMJ, Mrs Heyhoe and others are members of the pavilion's mouse colony. They live happily side by side with the visiting spectators, scavenging what they need. All this changes when one night when Willow, their master batmaker, goes missing. She has been intercepted by two members of the local rat population who have been displaced by the activites of 'Pest Arrest' from the disused Lord's Tube Station. With their home made uninhabitable the rats are on the look out for a new residence. It is apparent that Willow is healthy and well cared for and they decide that wherever she lives they can live too. Bristle's, the rat's tough leader, decides that the mice have to go and they will take their place. At an anxious meeting the mice plead their case. It is decided that a cricket match between the two sides will determine who gets the right to live in the pavilion. The mice are spurred on by the exploits of their heroes, the England cricket team who are playing Australia in an Ashes Test Match on the main ground. Okay , I admit it - I love cricket. There is a photo of me at a tender age asleep hugging my cricket bat. For me, the writing of a cricket story was pretty much not if, but, when. An internet search for a children's story with a cricket background threw up a title published in 2009. Surely then, it is time for a new one. The characters in the story have their names borrowed from players of the past. I hope that some readers will be inspired to find out more about characters such as Ranjitsinhji and Gubby Allen. It is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Although it is based in and around the famous cricket ground there is no official association with the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) or Lord's Cricket Ground. The MCC Legal department are well aware of it and have asked that this 'Disclaimer' be made. There is a disused Lord's Tube Station but, as to whether there are cricket playing mice at Lord's Cricket Ground in London - I'll leave that for the reader to decide. Suitable age range 8-14 but if you're a cricket lover there is plenty here for any age group.

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