Michael Vaughan and Ben Stokes playing at Lindow Cricket Club

Taking a closer look, the puzzlement maybe continued upon recognising ex-England Ashes winning captain Michael Vaughan directing his team from the field, ex-England wicketkeeper Jack Russell wearing his famous floppy white hat patrolling behind the stumps, and last summer’s World Cup hero and all-round superstar Ben Stokes smashing the ball to all parts of Lindow Cricket Club’s Upcast Lane ground.

Your eyes would only have been partially playing tricks on you, as you would have been seeing Lindow’s rather ingenious method for keeping the birds away from their newly sown grass seed – a cricket match between scarecrows is in full flow!

Lindow asked members of the club and the community to get stuck into helping with their plan.

After the initial call for help went out, it was just hours before an army of cricketing scarecrows started to assemble at the club’s gates, each eager for a bat or a bowl.

The club is using the enforced break in the summer’s play to transform its already attractive ground into one of the finest in Cheshire.

Extensive work has gone into new drainage, the levelling of the outfield, and the filling in of the famous Knutsford Road ‘dip’.

Those who count up the scarecrows on their walk past may find that one team is playing without their full complement of 11.

As a result, Lindow are asking for more scarecrows.

A couple of garden canes, an old pillowcase or handful of hay and a cut-out of a famous cricketer to add the finishing touch would perhaps do the job.

Lindow are committed to giving all scarecrows a game, so leave them by the club’s entrance and no doubt ‘Vaughany’ will plug the gaps in the field and Stokes won’t be scoring runs quite so quickly.

With a community effort, there won’t be any birds at all, never mind crows, pecking seed as the grass grows.

And in this particular game of cricket, we would imagine everyone who bats will get at least one run. There will be no ducks in this game.