Christopher 'Baz' Hancox. The Captain.
A product of the work hard, play harder era at Astwood Bank Cricket Club. Baz would be the first to admit cricket didn't come naturally to him but his love for the game, eagerness to play and dedication to practice in conjunction with his passion for all things socially at ABCC has lead to him becoming an ABCC legend in his own lifetime.
7th on the all time ABCC run scoring list and being one of the clubs most successful captains are just some of his on field achievements. Anyone that saw him 'performing' to Layla by Eric Clapton with his beloved black Stanford bat as an air guitar in the early hours of the morning would agree that ranks as one of his many many great off-field moments. It's no wonder that so many late evenings at The Bank Bowl have seen the iconic ' Give Baz a chance' song reverberating around the clubhouse, old and new.
Name and some background details:
Chris (Baz) Hancox - 38 years old - around 25 years at the club.
I joined the club as a young junior and at that time we only had two teams on a Saturday, so there wasn’t much opportunity for juniors playing adult cricket. I would usually just fill in whenever a player dropped out on the Friday nightbefore a game! It’s great that there’s a lot more opportunity for juniors to play and develop nowadays.
When I was 19 years old I took on the 2nd team captaincy, and later the 3rd team captaincy as the club grew, captaining the sides for 12 straight years. I also ran the bar in the old clubhouse for several years, and back then I would spend all weekend and most weeknights at the club, helping out with anything and everything!
What is your role at ABCC?
I am currently the 3rd team captain. This involves helping to run the senior training on a Tuesday night, and then selecting teams for the weekend with the other captains afterwards. Usually quite a bit of time spent messaging during the week arranging replacements when players drop out too! Organising the team on match days and completing the admin for the league on a Sunday morning after the game (match reports etc).
What do you like about being a volunteer at ABCC?
It’s great to be part of a wider club community and contribute a small part towards its success. It’s also very rewarding captaining a team and helping other players to develop. By volunteering you build life-long friendships and a sense of purpose that I would recommend to everyone.
If more people at ABCC became involved as volunteers how would that help the club?
It’s pretty obvious that the more people who volunteer, the more successful the club becomes.
But maybe people don’t appreciate that volunteering doesn’t have to mean taking on a senior role, a big commitment, or a huge amount of time involvement. Everyone can volunteer in simple easy ways throughout the season that can be ad-hoc, don’t involve a massive commitment, but can add up to a much better club for everyone.
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