The Ultimate Lymington Bearded XI
As the long winter nights start to draw in and the 2023 cricket season is just a distant memory, our thoughts have turned to more important matters, such as beards. Historically beards have been the domain of tramps, pirates, Open University professors and Operation Yewtree suspects. However, Covid changed all that and now virtually every male has dabbled with growing a beard at some point or other. Even though our current Test captain Ben Stokes sports one, there seems to have been dearth of decent facial hair in English cricket over the years. Perhaps WG Grace set such a high standard that it was impossible to follow. Botham's beard famously won the Ashes in 1981, but until Moeen came along fairly recently properly hirsute cricketers have been few and far between. As far as Lymington Cricket Club is concerned we have not been blessed with the greatest selection of beards either in our long and illustrious history. The womens' section even less so. However, we have trawled