South Wilts Third Eleven should count themselves lucky he didn't bowl too

If you were on your way to Stonehenge last Sunday and passed the nearby village cricket ground at Shrewton, you could have been forgiven for thinking fireworks day had arrived early. Because there were some serious pyrotechnics being launched that afternoon.

Rikki Clarke, the former Surrey all-rounder who played Test and one-day cricket for England in the Noughties, was enjoying himself. Playing in Division Two of the Hampshire League against South Wilts third XI, he scored 229 off 109 balls, including 22 sixes. It helped his team reach 385 for seven off just 45 overs.

But when he posted news of his score on social media, he came in for some serious criticism. What was the point of a former international hammering club bowlers, was the complaint. How was that going to help the game? And if he insisted on playing a village match, why could he not behave like Alastair Cook recently did and get himself bowled out cheaply by a 15-year-old?

“I’ve got pretty thick skin, so it washed over me a bit,” says Clarke of the online brickbats. “Besides, the lad who got me out was actually 15.”

Clarke, though, is adamant that his innings was not detrimental to the club game. Far from it: he believes more ex-pros should return to the grass roots after their first-class careers are over to encourage its growth and development.

“We were looking for a club for my eight-year-old son to join,” says Clarke, who retired from Surrey last season at the age of 39 and played two Tests and 20 ODIs for England. “The closest one to us was Shrewton, and we really liked the people there, they are amazing. It’s a small village club, with a lot of people working hard behind the scenes, giving up their time to mow lawns, do the teas and so on.

“Talking to them, I realised they want to learn how to grow the club. And it was my opportunity to give back ideas, so I got involved at a committee level. Then they jokingly said: Fancy a game? So I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ I still felt physically up for it.”

These days as the head of cricket at King Edward’s, an independent co-educational school in Witley, Surrey, he was already embroiled in encouraging young people into the game. But he recognised that smaller clubs such as Shrewton were increasingly finding it hard to compete with other demands on people’s time.

“The only way to progress as a club is to stop the bigger teams taking your better players,” he says. “One way to stop that is to have a team that wins. So I said ‘yes, I’ll play, see if I can help you do that’. I could have played semi-pro but I felt this was a better use of my skills.”

Unable to play every week because of school commitments, he nevertheless turned out whenever he could.

“I played in a warm-up game at the start of the season, got 37, then played in a couple of league games and got 14 in both of them,” he says as he prepares for a midweek evening fixture at Rockbourne in Hampshire. “I’m hoping the lads who got me out will now have a tale to tell: the day they did an ex-England player cheaply.”

But then came Sunday’s thrashathon, when he properly unleashed his talent. As the ball endangered the local windscreens, did he not think it might have been kinder to the opposition to retire, say, when he reached his century? Was flogging 229 really necessary?

“Listen, I know I am playing a couple of notches below myself, but I have an obligation to help Shrewton win. It is winning that will put them on the map. If I’d retired and the team had lost, then I wouldn’t be doing that. Honestly, of the four games I’ve played, that is the only one that I have made a winning contribution.”

Besides, he says, the reaction in the media to his knock – Shrewton were mentioned on the local television news and on TalkSport – mitigated any concern.

“It kind of put them on the map in a way I’m not sure me scoring a couple of 14s had done,” he says.

But even so, does he not worry that his exploits might disillusion the poor bowlers who were dispatched all over Salisbury Plain?

“I don’t know about that. I think it’s part of the learning process. I remember when I was 14 I played for Guildford against Jimmy Adams, who was turning out as a pro in the Surrey League warming up for a West Indies tour, and he whacked me to all parts. That season I faced Ian Bishop bowling rapid at me. Didn’t put me off. In fact, I think it encouraged me.”

Which means on the village greens of Wiltshire and Hampshire over the rest of the summer, there may well be more to come