Game Day #16 - Banstead (away): The Best Wins Come To Those Who Wait

It’s as if the heatwave never happened…nine days into September, and it’s dark by quarter past eight in the evening. The daytime breeze is chilling as opposed to cooling, the afternoon sunlight is bright but not blinding and cricket jumpers start to appear over the backs of players who had previously hated fielding first. Card Factory have an entire wall dedicated to Christmas cards, and as I pass underneath the loft at home I glance frequently at its hatch, knowing I’ll soon be stowing my kitbag up there. I don’t like September.

We were off to Banstead today; both ourselves to play their 3rds, and the Sunday Wolves to play Banstead 2nds. None of us had been there before so were unsure how our games would pan out, but we had at least ensured the right teams played the right opposition…or had we?

Banstead’s ground was very picturesque, tucked away behind a portion of the high street and accessible via a side road. A tall row of trees separated the two pitches; inevitably, Wolves vs Banstead 2nds would be on the show pitch whilst us Boars vs Banstead 3rds would be on the back pitch. Both grounds were in great condition, albeit our square was decorated with the odd lump of poo here and there; I made sure any field changes took their location into account.

Following our excellent bowling & fielding/ “what if” batting performances at Sopwith Camels the previous week, we arrived at Banstead relatively unchanged, with Ian and Waleed “The Wizard” coming in for Kaleem and Suggs. Banstead 3rds arrived as we did, one by one, and there was certainly a lot of experience on show; we learned that four of their players had represented England in the over-60’s team. One of them had a double-barrelled surname, whilst the other had a sensational, bushy moustache like Lionel Jefferies from the film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. A couple of colts complemented their team, but it was shaping up to be their wily old campaigners versus our younger guns.

I tossed up with their skipper Jason and returned to winning ways, calling heads correctly and – emboldened by the way we’ve bowled in recent weeks - opting to field first.  The wicket itself was in excellent condition, and so I once again asked Rob “The Typhoon” and Sujanan “The Quiet Assassin” to open the bowling. Rob began to beat the bat and Sujanan was getting the ball to reverse-swing through the air, and chances arrived from the get-go as opener Scott went aerial on a couple of occasions and could easily have perished. Runs off the bat weren’t coming along easily but balls that, on other days, weren’t that wide of off stump were being called wide by the umpires, so the Banstead total was ticking over thanks to the prolific but attention-shy source of runs known as extras. Greenwood-Hone, the other opener, looked good with a couple of drives and was also leaving alone anything dangerous.

I don’t think Rob will ever have a spell like the first three balls of his third over again. The first ball, to Greenwood-Hone, was played straight back to him at ankle height; Rob went for the return catch but couldn’t hold on. The second ball was chipped just over a fielder’s head; the third ball was nicked behind, but it hit Aleem’s gloves hard and slipped to the ground. He could’ve had a hat-trick of wickets – instead, it was a hat-trick of heartaches, stinging palms (resplendent with the imprint of the seam on his flesh) and thoughts that it could well be one of those days…

Until the next over from The Typhoon, that is. Scott finally used up all of his lives by skying one to cover;  a stock-still Johnny Milton waited patiently beneath it for it to drop, and pouched the catch when it finally reached him.  After that, more catching chances came and went, including an excellent diving effort from Shakil; taking the ball just as it was about to hit the grass but failing agonisingly to hold on to it. We’d also noticed a slightly chilly atmosphere, or perhaps, lack of friendliness, pervading the ground. Us Boars were our usual selves - encouraging and cajoling, having a laugh – but the Banstead innings had began shrouded in a blanket of seriousness. This was highlighted by Mr Double-Barrel shaking his head disparagingly at a couple of lbw shouts, including glaring at Sujanan as he joined in the appeal from square leg, and then when Johnny M entered the attack and bowled a high full-toss that the batter left alone outside off-stump. As Johnathan held up his hand and offered his apology, the batsman looked at him as if he’d  just dropped his trousers and taken a massive dump on his dinner plate.  “An apology would be nice,” murmured the batsman frostily, and I had to tell him that he’d already received one. Chilly!

“The Steriliser” won that particular battle in his next over. His first two balls were pretty good outside off-stump, both played and missed by Double-Barrel…and called wide by the umpire. Myself, at slip, and Aleem exchanged murmurs of disbelief, but Aleem had spotted the batter standing outside his crease. So, when the second ball was played at, missed and called wide, Aleem threw down the stumps and we all turned to appeal to the square-leg umpire. Unfortunately, he’d been looking at the ground at the time; fortunately, the batter was still out of his crease by the time he’d looked up. Rob implored for a decision in our favour, and it came with the raising of the finger. Double-Barrel trudged slowly off, and Banstead were two wickets down.

The luckless Sujanan, who’d bowled well without any reward, was replaced by Shakil, and more skied chances followed, generally falling either side of where the fielders were. Then came the third wicket; Forshaw clean bowled by the “Shakattack”. Drinks arrived with three wickets down and the run rate around four an over, and after drinks, when a few more runs had been chiselled out, Ian Bawn came on and struck by bowling Ives. Now at the wicket were the wonderfully-moustached Hart and the much younger Hunt, who instantly looked like he might be a handful when he effortlessly flicked Shakil down leg for a couple of runs. Between them, and with the aid of extras, they stalled our charge for wickets, and Hunt was proving to be an excellent hitter of the ball. Runs came to long-on from both ends of the wicket from Hunt, and they were pinching singles to rotate the strike towards each over. Mr Double-Barrel came out to umpire and gave me another glare for daring to make a field change; nobody in the game does a slow, disgusted shake of the head like this man.

Killer came on and Hunt took a shine to his bowling, dispatching him to the square leg boundary a couple of times, but when Hart tried it he found I’d positioned myself there by now and was on hand to take the catch. Beaumont came out to carry on with Hunt where Hart had left off, and Hunt duly notched a quick fifty. Soon after that, and with the field spread, Rob and Sujanan rejoined the attack. Rob’s pace increased and so did the plays and misses, until – with the field a little more spread – Hunt tried one big boomer too many and hit one straight towards Dave “The Demon” Barber. After a brief chest & shoulder juggle, the ball nestled in Dave’s palms and Hunt was out for a lively 61. Banstead passed the 200 mark before Sujanan finally got his reward, enticing Beaumont to slice one high to cover where Rob made no mistake with the catch. With that, Banstead declared their innings at 212-7 after 41.4 overs, and we would be chasing 213 to win – a daunting task. All of the main bowlers took at least a wicket each, and the catching had been good. How would we do with the bat?

One of the main aspects of timed cricket, as opposed to limited-overs cricket, is that any of the bowlers can bowl an unlimited amount of overs. Great for slow bowlers – they can bowl ten, fifteen overs on the spin, and only be taken out of the attack if they start to get carted. Then, for the batting team, at a set time – in today’s case 5:30pm – they’ll have twenty overs to score whatever runs are left in the target. If the slowies have bowled 30 overs before this time, it means the batters will have had 50 overs to score whatever they’re chasing. And when Banstead’s slowies opened the bowling, I guessed that their tactic was to eat up the overs until the final twenty, when they’d bring on whatever pace bowlers they had.

Waleed and I opened the innings, and while I flailed outside off-stump time and again, Waleed was instantly in fifth gear. He rocked back and cracked the short balls for four while hitting anything full over the top for more boundaries. I didn’t score a run until the fourth over and suddenly didn’t feel in great form, but put the opening bowler back over his head twice to settle my nerves. “The Wizard” was dealing exclusively in fours, his bat like a magic wand paralysing the fielders from having to chase his boundaries, and we were scoring eight or nine an over. As platforms go, it was a terrific start, and I was making up for my inability to score outside off-stump by putting away anything full or short to leg for runs instead. Byes were also helping us as much as wides had helped them, and before long Waleed and I had brought up our fifty partnership. We were trading fours now, exploiting big spaces on the square leg boundary, and also running smartly between the wickets by taking runs off the arms of some of the fielders. Then, with the hundred partnership on the horizon and the moustache into the attack, Waleed went a fraction early on his drive and was bowled for 38. 94-1 was the score in the 17^th over; we had been scoring at more than the five an over we were sure we’d needed, and only 119 more runs were needed for victory. I was pinching myself – was this actually happening?

It was, and on it continued as Ian Bawn came to the wicket. The pitch was offering the best bounce of all the pitches we’ve played on so far this season; I confidently left a couple of straight ones knowing they were bouncing harmlessly over the stumps. I took a single to bring up my fifty, and reflected on how poorly I’d played in comparison with other times during the season; my pattern has been: play well, get to fifty, get out. This was different: I was hitting across the line to leg a lot, principally because the bowling was so slow and it was the best scoring area on offer, but looked clueless on the off-side which is where I normally score my runs.

Hunt came into the attack, and almost instantly got Ian chipping round the corner to square leg; luckily for Ian, square leg dropped it. He had readily admitted his batting form had been non-existent all season, but after taking some smart singles and settling down he looked like the Ian of old. At the other end, I was fortunate to have the sun beating down on the square leg boundary; four times I hit there, to where there was a fielder positioned, only to see the ball either squirt between his legs for four or go either side of him as he looked blankly into the sun, arms outstretched, waiting for a ball he couldn’t see. In contrast to me, Ian now looked imperious outside off-stump and fours cracked through the covers began to flow from his bat. Then, for me, a scare and potential controversy; the young lad, Thorley, came on to bowl, got me reaching too far forward and missing one, and the keeper whipped off the bails with an appeal for stumping. I was sure my foot was still in the crease; Waleed, umpiring at square leg, called ‘not out’. Cue a few minutes of objections and appealing from the senior players in the team, who were adamant that I was out, and there were shades of the Hook game as they wouldn’t let the matter lie there and then.

By now, we’d soared past 150, still only one wicket down, and we needed less than a run a ball. I was playing much better now, and got into line against the young Thorley – just to keep him out – and took runs instead off their skipper and quick bowler Harper at the other end. Who knows what our reply would’ve been had these guys opened the bowling instead? None of that stopped us ticking over the scoreboard, and Ian and I shook hands as our century partnership was reached in the 35^th over. It had taken us eighteen overs to reach the milestone – our first in eight years playing together at Merton – and the fight had long since evaporated from the Banstead players.

The 200 came and went as Ian continued to smoke half-volleys for four through the off-side, and as we reached the 37^th over just nine runs were needed. Just four balls was it took for Ian to knock them off – we’d also scored 53 runs in the last 34 balls – and the Boars had won by nine wickets. Apparently, Killer – who had been scoring – had been shouting coded messages to me that I was near my hundred, but I had been having so much fun out in the middle that I hadn’t tried too hard to decipher them. Nor was I that bothered at missing out; 92 not out was 91 more runs than I’d scored the previous week. Ian ended on 41 not out.

The handshakes were offered/ accepted, and us Boars had a big huddle before we left the pitch; I wanted them all to know that, despite only three of us getting to bat, it had been a magnificent team effort and a victory for players one to eleven. It also transpired that the Wolves had lost on the front pitch, a lack of runs in their innings doing their chances the most harm. As for me, I must’ve floated off the pitch. We’d just dished out to someone else the kind of beating we’ve been on the receiving end of for all the years I’ve been a Merton player; memories of all those days of conceding 320-2 and being bowled out for 80 quickly swam into focus then swam away again. It was a truly remarkable win for us Boars: always unfancied, sometimes underestimated, but always whole-hearted.

Game Day #15 - Sopwith Camels (away): One Hump Or Two

And so the season rolls into September – the final month of our cricket season. May to August always seems to whip past in a blur of games and sunny weather; you lose count of the amount of beers consumed after the game on a Sunday (enough to balance out the entire year’s recommended alcohol intake in some cases), and sometimes you struggle to recall all the games that have been played without being prompted by a glance at the scorebook. September always seems to sharpen the focus on the final games, because they are just that – the final games of the season. Alongside  the return of “The X Factor” and “Strictly” on telly and the appearance of £5 tins of sweets in the supermarkets, the run-in to season’s end brings home the unedifying fact that winter isn’t that far off. Time, then, to savour every moment, and rinse every drop, from what’s left ahead of us, before the kit bag goes in the loft and the cricket whites get folded and placed in the  hibernated darkness of an unopened drawer, not to be touched again for months.

On this, the first of the final five Sundays of the season, the Boars made the trip to Bromley Common to face our old friends Sopwith Camels. Last year’s game was an early-May affair and, for something like the third year in a row, was affected by rain. It was also memorable for Alex Bridgeman ‘photo-bombing’ a catch about to be taken by Ian Bawn, appearing ‘in shot’ at the very second the ball was about to drop into Treadstone’s hands and distracting him enough to spill the catch – and breaking a couple of Alex’s fingers in the process. As it was about ten minutes into the game it wasn’t exactly the greatest omen for the rest of the day, but we bowled well and only fell short in the run chase by 21 runs. This time around, the weather was lovely; blue skies and an ever-present sun, with a nice warm heat that was nothing like the oppressive conditions we’d been playing in during the heatwave. The back pitch at Bromley Common, which backs onto land and stables that are home to a small group of horses and where we always play the Camels, was looking very trim too; the outfield was lush and green, and the wicket in excellent condition.

A couple of Sopwith’s regulars, Scooby (who was captain for the day) and Hughie Deans, were welcome sights for those of us who’ve played them regularly. Scooby explained that they had a couple of unknown players in their team, friends of friends, which seems to be the way a lot of nomadic clubs are going these days; indeed, we were parachuting friends of friends into our own teams during August, when numbers were short. Everyone is still on holiday, apparently; don’t these people know there’s an austerity drive still on? I thought everyone was still skint???

The Boars were looking in good shape for the match-up. Andrew “Suggs” Suggitt, Dave “The Demon” Barber, John “Killer” Smither and Shakil “Shakattack” Ehsan returned to the line-up. Had I won the toss I would’ve bowled; as it turned out I lost the toss, and we were asked to bowl. That’s a lost toss to me, but if I were Jose Mourinho I’d have claimed the win as we ended up doing what I’d planned to do anyway. He held up three fingers at a journalist during a press conference in the week, to denote how many Premiership titles he’d won; I’ve lost three tosses this season out of fifteen and could’ve copied him, but I know for a fact only the horses would’ve been bothered.

Bromley Common’s back pitch has always been on the kind of slope pace bowlers dread being asked to bowl from, as they all have a mortal fear of the word ‘uphill’.  Only Shakil, of our attack, bowls slow, and so I cast my beady eye around the rest of the bowlers to see who I’d be annoying by asking them to cart themselves up the hill. Rob, from the top end, was a no-brainer, and I plumped for Sujanan, “The Quiet Assassin”, to open up the slope alongside him. Both bowlers opened well; Rob got an early wide out of his system before settling down and bowling a tight line, and Sujanan was producing a prodigious amount of swing through the air. Dom and Ricky opened the batting for the Camels and, with the score on 15, Sujanan drew first blood. Ricky didn’t quite time his drive, and the ball looped back towards the Assassin who smartly pouched a return catch. A couple of sharp chances went to ground before Rob struck next, eliciting the drive from Rob that took the edge and landed safely into Aleem’s gloves behind the stumps.

Nikhil came out to join Charlie at the crease; Charlie was their best batsman, and unfurled a couple of crisp shots for four off balls that weren’t all that bad. Kaleem replaced Rob at the top end and proceeded to bowl one of his best – and unluckiest – spells for Merton. Firstly he dispatched Nikhil back to the clubhouse with a ball so fine it didn’t want to sully itself by hitting the stumps, but merely caressed the leg-bail out of its groove like a feather falling from a nest. He then went on to have either catches dropped – no easy ones, mind – or catching opportunities drop just short of fielders. Meanwhile, Shakil replaced Sujanan and was immediately in the wickets, removing the prized scalp of Charlie. Finding a patch of green just in front of his off-stump, the ball bounced a little more than the others; Charlie went for the drive and edged to Suggs at slip who took a quite brilliant catch above his head. Suggs has made this kind of thing his trademark; he’s one of the best slippers at the club. Shortly after that, Shakil clean-bowled Vinay for a duck and the Camels were teetering on 59-5. The fielding and bowling had been excellent, and everyone seemed determined not to let the Camels off the hook.

Sean was now at the wicket. Now, I’m sure somebody had said he’d either never played cricket before or hadn’t played for a large amount of years. Well, as he groped at the first ball Kaleem bowled him I guessed it was the former, but when the next ball was clubbed for four over Killer’s head at point I suspected it hadn’t been that long since his last game. Suggs almost pulled off another blinding catch at slip off Kaleem’s bowling by diving to his left and just failing to hang on, while also having second slip Sujanan trip over him in his own attempt to take the catch and nearly be kicked in the head for his pains. Raminder joined him and helped blunt our bowlers for a few overs until Shakil accounted for him, a looping drive to mid-off taken smartly by Jake “The Cat” Curnow running in from midwicket. That was 80-6, which brought young Harry to the crease. More frustration followed as he and Sean hung around, not just surviving but scoring runs too. Johnny Milton was on at the top end and when he bent his back got the ball to really zip through; Harry, however, took a bit of a shine to long-on and put a couple of big drives down there for four. Then came one of those moments that make a Sunday captain punch the air; a field change that directly brings a wicket. Taking advice from Aleem, I pushed Shakil to where Harry had been hitting the ball, Johnny M bowled him another one, and Harry hit it high and long…towards Shakil. It seemed to take forever to come down but, as we all stopped and watched, down it came – into the bucket hands of Shakattack. I literally leapt in the air, went to chase after Johnny M, stopped and chased after Shakil instead only to find he’d gone, and so turned back and jumped on Johnny M, who told me he’d given the departing Harry his death stare – his new trademark.

Sean and Harry had put on 32 runs and taken the Camels past 100. With only seven overs left I was confident we could keep them below 140 and set up an exciting run-chase, providing we kept our focus and got the last three wickets. Enter Killer from the bottom end, a man for whom putting up a plaque bearing the words “Rillington Place” over his front door would be disturbing to others but ‘paying homage’ for him. For asking him to bowl up the hill I thought I might become his next victim, soon to be propping up a concrete pillar somewhere, but what a mini-spell he went on to bowl. Ten balls, eight dots, three wickets, five runs conceded. His first victim was Gagan, who’d looked to push the scoring on. He’d has the impertinence to hit Killer for four, tried the trick again, only to sky the ball towards me. I took the catch but not easily; the ball missed my waiting hands and nestled between my ample boobs instead. Finally, a few deliveries later, the lynchpin Sean was gone, offering a straight bat to a low full-toss which bypassed the bat and thumped into middle stump. Two balls later, it was all over as Scooby pulled a higher full-toss straight to Shakil at square leg. We all eyed the umpires, expecting to see a signal for no-ball, but no signal came – they’d been happy the ball had been below waist height – and so the ultimate “death bowler” had mopped up the tail and Sopwith Camels had been dismissed for 132. All of the bowlers had taken at least one wicket each, and the fielding had been superb; one of the best team performances of my four years’ captaincy. But the even harder work lay ahead; chasing down their score.

After a lovely tea and a catch-up with the England/India Southampton Test Match, Andrew and I went out to bat. The plan would be, as always, wait for a bad ball and put it away, while keeping everything else out; get to 30/40, establish a solid base, kick on from them.

There’s something about the best laid plans…

I survived the first over from Hughie; he has a knack of bowling a ball that looks like a full toss but dips alarmingly on a good length and drops just in front of you. He gave me nothing to hit in those first six balls; I squeezed a single away without knowing I’d actually done it. I wished I hadn’t. Vinny bowled the next over from the bottom end, gave me a nice bouncy one outside off-stump with his first ball, which I duly spooned to the close-in fielder for catching practice. I hadn’t stopped shaking my head when Suggs was dismissed, playing “Bairstow-like” in his own words, bowled for nought. A bad start got worse as Jake lost his bails to the bowling of Vinay, and we were 8-3 on a pitch that was slow and to bowling that was as accurate as anything we’d faced all season. Dave joined Aleem, now nicknamed “The Scorpion” as they’re one of the hardest creatures on Earth to kill, and managed to repel Vinny’s excellent bowling by taking blow after blow on his arse. Scoring was proving impossible; after ten overs, we were just 14-3 and the target of 133 looked as distant as the Moon.

After seeing off Vinny, Dave then fell to the traditional sucker punch of the new bowler. Eyeing up a bouncy one outside off, he played the drive only to take the edge and was dismissed by a brilliant diving catch at second slip. There wasn’t much Dave could’ve done about a catch like that, but it prompted a bout of his ‘Batsman’s Tourettes’ and he exited the crease amid a flotilla of the choicest Anglo-Saxon swear words he could think of. That brought Johnny Milton out to bat, on the back of some assured stays at the crease this season. He rotated the strike well with Aleem, who pushed and cajoled Johnny M into a steady stream of singles, and extras were also now coming in droves to bump up our total. Maybe, we thought, the chase could still be on, and when Johnny M played the shot of the season with a beautiful, crunching straight drive to the long-off boundary, it still seemed possible. Shortly after, however, he perished to the bowling of Nikhil, to be unluckily followed by Rob – run out by a direct hit from about fifty yards. There seemed to be some confusion over whether or not Rob had made his ground or not, but Rob sportingly took the slow walk back to resolve the matter.

As the overs ticked away and our hopes became as gloomy as the fading September light, Aleem kept on pushing on and reached another deserved fifty, lifting himself past 800 runs for the season. Firstly Killer then Sujanan kept him company until they were accounted for by Harry and Nikhil, and as Shakil took a single off the last ball our innings finished on 98-8. We simply never recovered after that bad start, with both myself and Suggs betraying our recent good form with failures to score. Credit to Hughie and Vinny too; their combined twelve overs cost just sixteen runs and picked up three wickets. Nobody recovers quickly from being strangled – ask Killer – and the same applied to us. Johnny Milton was third top-scorer with eight, behind extras on 18, and again Aleem was the stand-out batter on 59 not out.

The sun vanished quickly behind the tall trees bordering the grounds, and so we all made our way to the clubhouse by the front pitch for a beer and a yarn. It was twilight when we all said our goodbyes and made our way back to Merton, ensuring we said our proper goodbyes to our old friends the Camels and looking forward to returning to play them next year.

Game Day #14 - Plastics XI (home): The Boars (plastic) Bagged & Tagged

Home, sweet home. After a few weeks on the road, the Boars were back at the John Innes Theatre of Dreams for a game against a team brand-new to the Merton itinerary: Plastics XI, a nomadic team that – from their excellent blog – promised a friendly but competitive game of Sunday cricket. After the grief and the unsavoury scenes from the previous week, I was looking forward to something a little less fraught.

All of the talk pre-match was about a certain England player avoiding getting jailed for affray, and then parachuted back into the team that were playing at the same time as we were. I’m not completely aware of the night-time manoeuvres undertaken by all of the guys at Merton, but I have known players in the past for whom a piss-up and a punch-up at 3am on a Saturday/Sunday isn’t affray, but merely pre-match conditioning and rehydration. We do have our own ‘Rocky’ in Ian Crawford, but he’s a big pussycat! I wouldn’t wind him up, mind…

My first job on arriving at the ground was to marvel at the pitch that had been “prepared” for us…well, it’d had the lines marked on it, and that was it. The grass was as lush as the rest of the square, and so – after taking some advice – I decided to play on the previous day’s pitch. It was still firm and in good condition, even after it had weathered nearly eighty overs. After it had a roll and new crease lines painted, we were good to go.

The Boars welcomed the returned of Richard, Rocky, Abdul “The Silver Fox” Hameed and Kaleem, and received William – aka “Big Ol’ Bill” – and Jake for their Boars debuts. Charlie, the Plastics captain, and I went out to toss; instinct screamed at me to bat first if I won, which I did, but I decided to bowl instead. Charlie had said that he had a couple of players new to his team, including a softball player decked out in black like a sporty Johnny Cash, and so I decided to bowl first instead. The plan was to keep them under 200, and then go for the chase.

Olliver and Bishy opened the batting for Plastics, while Rob “Typhoon” Turner and “Special K” Kaleem took the new ball. And what a fine specimen of a new ball it was…a Dukes ball. For those not aware of the significance of receiving such a high-quality ball to play Sunday cricket with, it’s a bit like buying a Smart Price microwave lasagne for one and – when you go home and take off the wrapping – find it’s actually a Waitrose “Swan & Caviar” lasagne instead. There are times when you dread the visiting oppo throwing you the ball they’ve brought, because sometimes it turns out to be a ball bought in a newsagents that a dog would turn its nose up at, but not this time.  If the Plastics have a nice supply of these beauties in their locker, they’ll forever be welcome at ours!

Rob and Kaleem kept it tidy at the start, as they now do every time they bowl in tandem; there were only three boundaries in the first eight overs. The outfield was quick and the pitch, thankfully, was offering proper bounce and pace; a return to the pitches of June, when they’d settled down, rather than the unpredictable wasps nests of recent weeks. Chances came early, but our catching wasn’t up to it; Olliver was living dangerously, dropped twice and finding the top edge regularly, whereas Bishy looked a bit more comfortable. It was a surprise, therefore, when he became Kaleem’s first victim when he played forward and looped up a catch to the tumbling Jake Curnow running in from the corner of the square. It was a carbon-copy of Mike Gatting’s Headingley catch of 1981, and Bishy initially queried it for bump ball, but the umpire was satisfied with his decision and Plastics were 37-1 after ten overs.

Vice came in and, after a couple of swings and misses, quickly settled down and looked good. Two wickets in two overs then put us in the driving seat: Rob struck in the 11^th over, enticing Olliver to lob the ball to the waiting Big Ol’ Bill, and in the next over Kaleem removed the softball player by clean-bowling him. 49-3 had me dreaming of keeping Plastics even lower than 200 as Billy Soomro came out to bat, and he looked nervous at first facing the cutters of Ian Bawn by driving outside off and slicing it through the slips area. The bounce of the pitch was also working against us; any drive that took the top edge went flying over slips instead of towards them, and Johnny Milton’s first ball nearly accounted for a swishing Vice just outside off.

At this point, Vice took a shine to Ian’s bowling and Ian decided that any price for a wicket was  better than nothing, and switched from buying his wickets from Poundstretcher to buying them from Harrods. The right-handed Vice thumped him high and hard over long-on for three successive sixes; frustratingly, against the left-handed Soomro, he was beating the bat time and again. At the other end, Johnny M was doing his best to keep it tight but the batters were motoring now; at drinks, and after Vice had brought up a rapid fifty, Plastics were a daunting 118-3.

Drinks breaks are funny things. Normally, our fielding and bowling takes a turn down Fred Karno Street once a drink has been taken, but on this occasion it meant instant success. Vice tried to wallop Ian’s first ball after the resumption and was bowled, and we weren’t sure who was more surprised – the batter or us. Better still, after Ian’s first five overs – which weren’t as bad as they were costly – had cost eleven runs an over, this one was a wicket maiden: the first maiden since the second over, and the last one we bowled in the innings. Abdul replaced Johnny M and could’ve had a couple of wickets from top-edges, but they sailed harmlessly either side of square leg and midwicket, and it was the returning Rob who picked up another wicket. With his pace cranked up, he got Smith to edge a tracer bullet past Rocky at slip…only for Rocky’s hands to suddenly appear and pouch the ball, and Rocky was as nonchalant as you like. This man’s hands are some of the safest at the club, and then had to deal with being mobbed by the elated Typhoon. That was 190-5 with nine overs left. Okay, I thought, 230…keep them to 230…

A couple more wickets were snapped up; Abdul finally picked one up, with Jake taking an easier catch than his first one off Kaleem, and Kaleem then bowling Soomro for 80. 225-7 after 36 overs was respectable, but the last four overs subsequently conceded a blood-curdling 22, 7, 24, 26. Davies and Anderson hit the ball harder and cleaner than the previous batsmen, leaving me grumpily chuntering on about ringers (primarily because it was my bowling being carted to all parts) and relieved that they hadn’t been batting earlier. Spare a thought for Jake; he didn’t want to bowl the last over, but I was insistent. It was only one over, I said. Wrong: when it was finished, it was two and a half overs. Maybe Jake wanted more bowling and decided he’d string the 40^th over out a little bit; every one of his nine no-balls got higher and higher, until Aleem nearly tripped over the sightscreen keeping wicket. On taking one moonball, he shook his hand as if in pain, and all I could surmise was that the ball had gone so high in the sky it had come down with snow on it and frostbitten Aleem’s fingers. When the over was finished, someone somewhere played “The Last Post”; on this date, August 19^th next year, there will be a service of remembrance for Jake’s over and a wreath laid at the wicket.

Plastics finished on a mammoth 298-7; bizarrely, we didn’t feel like we’d conceded all of that. It had taken nearly three hours for the innings to be completed, and on returning to the clubhouse we were shocked to discover that England had folded during the same period of time at the  Nottingham Test Match. Another wonderful tea was consumed before Richard and I padded up and went out to open the innings. Bishop and Bradbury opened the bowling with a quick/slow bowling combo, and it was Bradbury who looked dangerous bowling from the Kingston Road End; every ball to Richard was on the right spot and his first over was a maiden. Bishop was struggling a little for line and length at the other end and I was able to put some boundaries away, including a six over long-off; Richard hit a couple of nice fours before Bradbury got him to nick one to the keeper and we were 22-1. Aleem succumbed to a very smart catch at short mid-on; driving low and hard, the fielder scooped the ball off his bootlaces and Aleem had gone for a rare low score. 

All the while, I’d kept the scoreboard ticking over and brought up my fifty with a four…before I reverted to type, and pulled Soomro’s worst ball straight and true into the grateful hands of midwicket. We were going at eight an over and, although the game appeared to be beyond us, we were looking to have a good innings.

That was until the introduction of Anderson to the bowling attack. A genuine spinner, he was getting the ball to turn prodigiously, and Jake was his first victim as a ball turned outrageously around the back of his legs and bowled him. Rocky hit a lovely four before he and Bill were snapped up in successive overs by Anderson, and at drinks we were 108-7 and teetering. Abdul was now batting, and – just as a drink had revived Ian with the ball, a drink had the same effect on Abdul with the bat. Picking off the bad balls saw him score rapidly while firstly Johnny M and then Ian kept him company at the other end - taking a liking to Webster and Smith - and as we sailed past 150 Abdul brought up his first Merton fifty. Almost instantly, though, he perished to the returning Bradbury, before Anderson returned for a solitary over and cleaned up Rob and Kaleem in successive balls. We were 165 all out and, on paper, it was a proper shellacking, but we’d given a good go and it was the first time in seven games we’d been bowled out. There were the customary handshakes all round at the end, and we congratulated them on a fine display.

Game Day #13: Hook & Southborough - Sour Grapes & Brown Stuff

And then, it rained.

This was the twelfth Sunday of the season that the Boars were due in action, and the first to feature a single drop of rain since September 2017; that day was memorable for the following exchange took place between captains, as us lot turned up to play Trinity Mid-Whitgiftians down near Sanderstead:-

Their captain: “So, what strength are you today?”

Me: “Weak. Very weak. There’s only nine of us, and one of those is my eldest daughter."

Their captain: “Oh…we’re quite strong today. We were expecting your strongest team.”

Me: “That’s funny. I was expecting to play your weakest team.”

Their captain: “Oh. Well, I’m sure it’ll be a good game.”

And it was – for them. 320-2 in 35 overs played 120-odd for nine, my daughter surviving the last three balls of the match and even scampering a bye off the last ball. 35 overs bowled in just 90 minutes, and the entire match played in a stinking September drizzle.

In terms of the weather today promised much of the same, and the initial forecasts weren’t good for the game at all. We were due to play Hook & Southborough, arguably our oldest friendly opposition on the circuit, and I woke up expecting to see the remnants of a downpour battering against the windows and my phone bearing the fatal message from the Hook contact telling me the game was called off. But the ground was dry, the skies were sort of clear, and my phone was silent. I cracked on with putting together the picnic  food for the daughters, reminded myself of the buses I’d need to catch to get to the ground in Chessington, and made my plans for the day.

Firstly, we had to be better than the opening game of the Sunday season. That was against Hook at our ground, on a pitch that offered zilch to the bowler except low bounce; we’d bowled really well in restricting them to 165-4, with Kaleem getting the ball to hoop around corners and Rob taking his first Merton wicket, but we couldn’t get their opener Roland out that day, and he played the pitch brilliantly to notch 73 not out. That was nineteen more runs than our entire team mustered; five of our batters were bowled by pea-rollers as we slid from 19-2 to 30-8, and only some lusty blows from Kaleem took us to our final total of 54. Also, in last year’s corresponding fixture, we were 129-2 chasing 171 to win and ahead of the run-rate until a collapse reminiscent of cars down a sinkhole saw us lose by 21 runs. It would take all our powers of concentration to overcome this team of stubborn (mostly) old pros.

The rain started whilst the daughters and I were on the second leg of a three-leg trip to the Hook ground. The sky grew darker and the rain heavier. Daughter #2’s mantra-chant of “I reckon it’s going to be called off, Dad. What do you think?” did nothing to help my mood, and as we switched to the final bus in Kingston the rain was set and steady. Glumly, I traipsed my daughters to find the right bus stop, and after a short journey we were at the Hook ground. The rain had now lessened to a relentless drizzle; the sky was a grey blanket covering everything, without a crack in the clouds to be seen. Keith Milton, one of Hook’s great stalwart players and officials, was already there and, after making us feel welcome, jumped on an engine-powered roller and went off to roll the pitch.

The outfield was covered in baseball markings and, more traditionally, feathers. Either the foxes use this ground as a place to eat what they’ve caught, or there’s cock-fighting here every year. The feathers would come in handy later, for one of our players. Keith had done a brilliant job with the strip; the surface moisture had been rolled in and the strip itself was very firm. If only the bloody rain would hold off…

The rest of the players began to arrive. We welcomed Shakil and Joe back into the Boars fold in place of Dave “The Demon”, cruising somewhere in the Med doing his best Rob Brydon impression, and Kaleem, who simply wasn’t available (but could probably do a good Rob Brydon impression if asked to). Being very bowler-heavy meant stints up the order for Ian Bawn and Joe, up in the ‘nosebleeds’ at 3 and 4 respectively, while everyone bar myself, Alex “The Jailer” and Aleem would get a bowl at some point. That was, of course, if the game was to be played in its entirety…

Adnan, the unforgettable Hook skipper, suddenly appeared out of nowhere, beer in hand. We went out to toss and agreed to shorten the game to 35 overs in case we ended up losing any time later in the day. Deep down, I wanted to bowl first; Adnan won the toss and I got my wish. Before that, though, a scare: my phone went off, and I found myself speaking to Greg, Joe’s son. Joe’s dad had had a fall, and despite us offering Joe the chance to go home, he opted to stay and wait for further information. Things like that put everything into perspective, including what would happen later in the day.

Under slate-grey skies but with the drizzle thinning out, we took the field minus Shakil, who hadn’t turned up yet. I threw the new ball to Rob to bowl to Keith, and we instantly found out what happens on this pitch if you bowl it a fraction short: it gets cracked for four. Keith either gets a duck or a fifty-plus against us; duck was now off the menu. Killer Smither took the ball from the other end and bowled a tight line, while Rob – whilst bowling at good pace – got punished virtually every time he dropped one short. The ball was doing zero off the pitch and Keith and Richard looked very comfortable, until Shakil got one of his first deliveries to take a wafer-thin edge off Keith that Aleem agonisingly couldn’t keep hold of. It had stopped drizzling completely now; the ball was still in good condition and the run-rate had slowed due to a thickish outfield. We didn’t look like getting many wickets, mind. Keith and Richard were running well between the wickets until Richard tried one sharp run too many and did himself an injury, retiring hurt on 12. That brought Simon to the crease, who refused to be bamboozled by Sujanan’s swirling deliveries and started hitting to long-on for four. Then, another chance: Keith popped one up to Rob at cover, but it cannoned straight into Rob’s chest and onto the floor.

We needed some comic relief, and it came in the form of Sam Wyld and – quite literally - some shit. Fielding a ball at mid-off, he began staring in disgust at his own hand, then wiped both the ball and his hand on the grass furiously. In picking up the ball, he’d put his hand in a pile of fox-shit. Horrified at the prospect of what we presumed to be his eating hand potentially struck down by streptococcus, he sprinted, gazelle-like, off the pitch to wash his hands, Rob’s advice of “Don’t rub your eyes, mate!” ringing in his ears (along with our laughter). Aleem mentioned it was the first time he’d even seen shit stop play. Keith called for a shovel, and with a freshly-cleaned Sam in tow, Keith’s son David came out carrying a shovel to look for the offending excrement. I watched from slip as three Boars players, plus David and the umpire, examined the ground around them like police officers conducting a fingertip search of a crime scene. It took them a full two minutes to realise that Sam’s hand had probably destroyed the entire mound before play continued; we carried on until drinks, but Simon and Keith were still there, and we hadn’t taken a wicket. 77-0.

By now, Killer had found a use for the plethora of feathers that were scattered, confetti-like, around the square by plucking them into his shoes and hat. As he has a reputation for being (probably) a serial killer on the sly, we reasoned it was better for him to wear them as trophies rather than the less-preferred ears, scalps, noses etc of any potential victims that may or may not lie buried beneath the home ground.

Johnny M, “The Steriliser”, and Sam “Shit Hands” Wyld then entered the attack, and immediately Sam struck to get us off the mark. With the field slightly spread and Simon looking to continue hitting over mid-on, Sam induced another expansive drive and Simon nicked it into Aleem’s gloves. Nobody really wanted to shake Sam’s hand, but rubbing his hands in fox-shit seemed to have done the trick, and when he repeated the dose two overs later – same shot, same catch, same result – I started to hatch a plan. Next week, before the game, I am going to secure enough faeces from somewhere (not mine; that would be far too weird) and get my bowlers to rub their hands in it. It’ll be like an aphrodisiac to their bowling hand; a Viagra for their wicket column.  At the other end, The Steriliser was bowling really well, probably the smoothest he’s run in all season. Out came Adnan to bat, a man who loves to swing so much he should be living in Boxhill. Naturally, after moving Rob to fourth slip for impending catch, Adnan slashed one over where  fifth slip would’ve been, but that was the prelude to a memorable Steriliser moment. In his next over to Adnan, he had him swinging and missing, before pitching it up a little more with his next ball and clean-bowling him. He’d set up his man and then served him up his wicket, and after bellowing out a war-cry Johnny M fixed Adnan with a classic bowler’s death-stare send-off as he trudged slowly off the pitch.

We’d made inroads into their batting, but that was that as far as the wickets were concerned. Paul came in and put some loose stuff away in quick time, and Hook ended on 189-3. Keith had carried his bat for a brilliant 93, the two drops being the only chances he gave us. In our last three encounters against Hook, and after bowling a combined total of 110 overs, we’ve only taken  ten wickets. It’s the kind of problem that would have taken Sherlock Holmes three pipes of tobacco to ruminate over but, as I don’t smoke, egg sandwiches and cans of bitter will have to suffice.

After a very satisfying tea (finally, somebody serves Battenberg cake!!!), Aleem and I went out to open the batting. Sam A bowled the first over and should’ve had me out second ball; he bowled me one so wide I could barely reach it, but reach it I did and it popped in – and out – of first slip’s hands. Galvanised by my second chance, Aleem and I went off like a train. We were 25-0 after three overs, and the middle one – bowled by the ever-wily Mark Dainty – had been a maiden. Sam was struggling for line and length, and every loose ball he bowled me went for four. We were flying along at 40-0 off seven overs, before a nasty case of déjà vu came to hit me between the eyes (and the stumps). Last year, in the corresponding fixture and when on 28, I stepped back to a Dainty special, tried to pull it and was bowled. This year, despite telling myself over and over what not to do, the exact same thing happened: same delivery, same shot, same result. This time, I’d made 29. I stomped off, furious with myself, loudly calling myself every name under the sun. And when I got inside the changing room I carried on, bellowing as loud as I could a couple of times for good measure. Sixty seconds later, the toilet door inched very slowly open and Sam Wyld stepped quietly out. I hadn’t even known he was in there and he seemed not to have paid much attention to my rant, instead warning me to steer clear of the toilet he’d just occupied and pumping copious amounts of handsoap all over his digits. Lovely.

Ian joined Aleem at the crease but quickly lost his bails to a Phil Evans moonball, which brought Joe to the middle. As the pace of the ball teetered between ‘slow’ and ‘stop’, Joe struggled to hit his trademark big shots, but the singles were still coming and Aleem was as hard to dislodge as ever. Then, controversy. It was a moment I missed, as I was playing football with daughter #2, but raised voices from the middle got the attention of everyone. Aleem had about eight Hook players crowded around him, including captain Adnan, and things looked animated. For a couple of minutes, time stopped until someone got wind of what had happened: Evans had bowled, Aleem played the ball, and the bails had been dislodged. The Hook players were adamant Aleem had been clean bowled; Aleem was convinced the ball had gone past the stumps, hit the keeper’s thigh-guard, and ricocheted back onto the bails. The umpires weren’t sure, and had erred on the side of caution: Aleem was not out. That, unfortunately, set the tone for the rest of the match. Ian and I took drinks to the middle shortly afterwards and I was expecting reference to be made of the incident, but to hear the slip fielder’s cry of “What a f***ing cheating b****rd!” rather took me aback. Five of their fielders were extremely wound up over what had happened and were clearly in no mood to let it go. Scores-wise, we were around the same as Hook had been at their drinks break; the only question was, did we have enough batting to chase down the rest of the target?

Joe and Aleem were slugging it out; boundaries were hard to come by, but the running between the wickets was keeping the score ticking over. Rob and I went out to umpire the last twelve overs of the match, and I immediately found that the Hook players were still grumbling. Aleem was being sledged behind the wicket, with slip making constant references to him being bowled, and even tricked Rob into calling for the wickets column on the scoreboard to be updated from two to three, when we were only two down.

Sam returned to the attack and, after Joe and Aleem had put on 63 runs, dismissed Joe by rocking back his middle stump. Cue more references of “are you sure that’s bowled?” etc etc, and on top of one other fielder mimicking Aleem I started to get a little uncomfortable at how unfriendly the game had become. “The Jailer” came to wicket, batting arm swirling like a windmill, bristling with attacking intent. And attack he did; from ball one, if it was in the slot he was going to hit it. Before he got started, though, Aleem brought up another attritional fifty that was studiously ignored by the fielding players. Enter Alex: Mark Dainty came back into the attack, and Alex played him like I wished I’d done, using some fast hands to pull him down to long-on time and time again for two runs at a time either side of some fiercely-hit boundaries. Aleem was a man possessed now, both riled and inspired by his treatment by the Hook players, and he began urging and pushing Alex to turn ones into twos. This rattled Hook even more, and when the scoreboard was posted incorrectly one of their ringleaders started moaning at me. The implication was that we were being a little creative with the scoring, to which I replied that whatever had gone on before had nothing to do with the scoring, and we weren’t trying to con them out of runs or overs. The mood had not only turned decidedly ugly, but seemed set in concrete as well.

On and on, Aleem pushed Alex; it was the hardest The Jailer had run in a long time. With a face like a moustachioed tomato, he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion at one point as if he’d just completed Tough Mudder, prompting the slip fielder to ask if he needed an oxygen canister. In the meantime, I made my feelings known about the constant carping to Adnan, who didn’t say anything but instead  lit up a fag next to me at square leg. The running between the wickets was becoming more and more frenetic, leading one fielder to have a shy at the stumps as Aleem made his ground. Funnily enough, the ball didn’t appear to have been actually aimed at the stumps. If I’d known yesterday that it was a Level 2 offence under Law 41, as I do today, I’d have issued a warning.

With five overs left, we needed 36 to win. Another round of moaning came my way, as the scoreboard read 164-3 instead of 154-3. It was human error, but clearly Mr Evans was having none of it. I finally piped up and told him, and slip, that the last few overs had been the most unfriendly I’d witnessed in years, only to be by slip to “teach your team about f***ing gamesmanship then!”. Paul came onto to bowl and, after bowling a couple of deliveries that were too good for both Alex and the stumps, bowled a straighter one and cleaned him up. The partnership had been 51, and Alex had contributed 22 of them; his best knock so far for Merton, and one that we were all very proud of him for. That brought Shakil to the wicket, but he only lasted one ball: done by a filthy double-bouncer that he would’ve needed a broom handle to reach. Paul on a hat-trick, The Steriliser to face. Sure enough, Paul worked his magic: Johnny M scooped it high, for Sam to take a comfortable catch. Paul had his hat-trick, and our charge to the finish line had been halted.

In the midst of all this, I made sure Mark Dainty heard my complaint about his team-mates language and behaviour. At the fall of a wicket he had them all in a huddle, after which Adnan belatedly bounced over and offered profound apology.  Aleem, his mind as always on the game, was still there, now joined by Killer Smither, and after a barrage of Aleem twos Killer looked and sounded as out of puff as Alex had. With twenty-two required off the last over, fours were needed; sadly, we couldn’t get them. Only six runs had been mustered when Smither departed, leaving Sam Wyld – now he was wearing batting gloves, people were only too willing to shake his hand – to face the last ball. We had run Hook close but not close enough, and lost by sixteen runs.

I managed to shake about seven hands; nobody shook Aleem’s hand at all except his fellow Boars players and Mark; he’d finished on 83 not out, his fourth consecutive red-inker for the club. The result was immaterial; what had become a thrilling climax to the game had been totally overshadowed by the League-style hostility shown by at least five of their players, and cast a pall over the relationship between the clubs as well. I paid for the teas, we all packed up and then we all left the ground. We normally stay for a beer and a chat at the Hook ground, but nobody wanted to. Besides, Joe – who had played the whole game for us despite his dad being admitted to hospital – wanted to get there. The poor spirit of the game had soured the day for many of us, but compared to the day Joe was having it was nothing, and didn’t really matter. We all hope Joe’s dad is on the mend; whether or not the connection between Hook and us will is a matter for another day.

Now then: where can I get my hands on a gallon drum of top-grade, freshly-laid, fox-shit?

Game Day #12 - Golden Age(away): They Came From Beyond Wandsworth

“Space-age” can conjure up all sorts of futuristic images: hover-cars, droids, artificial intelligence, holograms. ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Back To The Future’. Human colonies on the Moon and on Mars. ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Star Trek’. Well, Captains Kirk, Picard and all the others on board the Starship Enterprise were completely wrong: space is not the final frontier. Wandsworth Common is. And, in the case of the Boars trip there to play Golden Age, it was the “Space-age” of an old episode of ‘Dr Who’ from the Seventies rather than the sleek lines, flying vehicles and bright neon colours of ‘Blade Runner’; a desolate, ashy, dustbowl of a wasteland that hosted the great Dalek War of 2967 (and was filmed in a Welsh quarry in 1972).

We appeared to be boldly going where no man had gone before.

Unusually, we were playing Golden Age away; we usually play them at home. We’ve been playing them for a few years now and they’re a great crowd, with the games played in the right spirit and each game has always been a close-run thing (in their favour regarding the result). Our fixture secretaries confirmed the fixture and they booked the pitch; I must confess I’d never been to Wandsworth Common despite once living about fifteen minutes walk away, but my fellow Sunday skipper Arjun had played there earlier in the season and warned me about the pitch, remarking that the ball had a tendency to  roll along the ground instead of bouncing. It had been another blisteringly hot week too, in this “son of ‘76” summer that we’ve been having, and with the pitch being maintained by the council I guessed correctly that it wouldn’t have seen a drop of water all week, adding to whatever uneven bounce awaited us.

The other Sunday teams, the Rhinos and the Wolves, were playing much stiffer opposition on the same day, so Andrew, Matt and Sam E – who played so well to help us win the game against Sutton Challengers – went back to play for the Rhinos, and into the Boars came James Prebble, erstwhile Saturday captain and owner of the dirtiest, shabbiest kit you’ll ever see on a cricket field, alongside the return of the Miltons and Dave “The Demon” Barber. Aleem had damaged his finger keeping wicket in the previous Saturday’s league game which meant he wasn’t able to keep for us, and so myself and The Demon stepped up to deputise. Foolish people…when we ever learn?

On the way to the ground, accompanied by daughters #1 and #2, this wonderful cricket ground suddenly shimmered into view. It was an oasis of green; the lushest, softest field of grass I’ve ever seen, with a good-quality square parked in the middle. Could this, I dared to wonder, be Wandsworth Common? But where was the dog shit and pile of used barbecues? Should we get off the bus now? Then a huge banner caught my eye which read, “Home of Sinjun Grammarians etc”, and I sadly settled back once more for the (Star) trek ahead.

From the road, the Common looked pleasant enough; tellingly, after a scan of the ground, my eyes couldn’t actually see anything that remotely looked like a cricket pitch. Ian Bawn had been the first to arrive and was waiting for us in the shade of a tree next to a very nice-looking café, killing his time admiring the quality of the people coming in and out of there. To the right of the café were a couple of playgrounds, so I instantly went to the top of daughter #1’s Christmas card list by asking her to take daughter #2 there whenever she got bored (which turned out to be often). Ian and I went out to look for a cricket pitch, and were disturbed by what we saw: the first pitch, which was the nearest to the café, was barely visible with hardly any lines marked out. If the Japanese had been playing cricket in Hiroshima on the day the bomb was dropped, and had run for their lives when they heard the whistle, this must’ve been the pitch they were on – neglected, abandoned, not curated for decades. So, we went to look at the other pitch, nearest the main road…and that was even worse. There may well be water somewhere on Mars, but there’s more moisture up there than had been seen on this wicket, and it was so dusty I half-expected to see the Mars Rover probe suddenly roll into view and take a sample. I can see NASA releasing a press statement about what Rover has found: “After taking the samples and sending the data back to Earth, we have instructed Rover to win the toss and bowl first. Find water, and have drinks at eighteen overs.”

Either that, or we’d found the place where they’d faked the Moon landings in 1969.

There was dust everywhere, the kind of dust you’d find in a Welsh quarry. At one end of the square, unbelievably, was a strip marked out for juniors, and I half-expected to find a couple of wreaths at one end; the strip at the other end of the square hadn’t been cut for a very long time, and just as well – a huge, jagged crack ran through the length of the crease, looking like the San Andreas fault line. A large, liberal sprinkling of what The Demon identified as goose droppings were awaiting anybody asked to field at mid-off. That left just one strip that looked like it could be fit for purpose, and when the Golden Age skipper Jerry arrived, he confirmed that it was the one we would be using. I was very glad that I’d started wearing a helmet to bat in.

The rest of the Boars arrived and took their own look at the pitch; as James Prebble arrived in a clean white T-shirt I didn’t recognise him at first. Also arriving were two players connected to our club that I’d arranged to play for Golden Age, as they were two short – Jake Curnow, son of club legend Geoff and soon to be Merton player, and Campbell, who played some games for me a couple of seasons ago. It was Campbell who provided the fighting talk by saying he wanted the wickets of Prebs and myself, while I told him my bowlers would be queuing up to have a bowl if he came out to bat. There were some familiar faces amongst their ranks; Paul, who’d booked the pitch, Matthew George, who always bowls his heart out and we always have to be on our mettle against him, and Gary, a good bowler/batter as well as a team cheerleader too.

Everybody decamped to the tree nearest the pitch that provided the most amount of shade, and I remarked on the fact that the Common was almost totally devoid of benches to sit on. Sunday cricketers are not very good at getting back up off the floor when they’ve sat down, so I was worried that once some of us got down to the floor, we’d be staying there until a winch was found. Jerry and I tossed up, and I resumed my winning habit by calling correctly. I was gambling on the pitch being like every other one we’ve played on since the heatwave started – spiteful and helpful for bowling for the first twenty overs, then becoming docile when the ball lost its hardness – and so I opted to bowl. I did the first stint with the keeper’s gloves and opened the bowling with Rob and Ian, and got off to an inauspicious start when a good length ball from Rob rolled at pace along the floor, under the batter’s bat, and under my outstretched leg as well for the first runs (via byes) of the day. Richard’s face at first slip was a picture of apprehension and alarm; he was clearly relishing batting on the same pitch later in the day.

We didn’t have to wait long for the first wicket; Ian, bowling into the moon rock from the Flats End, got their opener to shovel the ball straight into Kaleem’s hands at shortish cover. We soon worked out that Ian was bowling to the end that was slow and low, while Rob’s end was a bit more spiteful and unpredictable; he bowled a couple that almost came through at head height off a good length, and had the batsmen swinging like the proverbial rusty gate. He got his breakthrough in the tenth over when Jerry chopped the ball onto his stumps. Keenan had looked good and hit a couple of boundaries, but then he tried to hit Kaleem straight for another one but instead holed out to Prebs, and we had them 38-3.

By this point, we noticed that Ian was very happy to graze down at long-on/ fine leg once his spell had finished. At first, we thought he just wanted to enjoy the shade of the huge tree that separated him and a large wall from the block of flats that towered over the skyline. But then, upon spotting an elderly lady looking out of one of the flats, we surmised  that she had started to talk dirty to him and he was lapping it up down there. In fact, the only two times he came up from the boundary was for the drinks break and the close of the innings. I didn’t bother again to see if the lady was still there later on; she was standing on the eighth floor but her cleavage was drooping as low as the sixth, and I didn’t want to be put off my food during the tea interval.

Barr and George came in and steadied the ship; Prebs replaced Ian at the flats end and was getting ludicrous turn for his first three overs, but the batsmen were surviving and, at drinks, had inched their way to 68-3. Barr survived a very hard chance when Alex put down a long drive on the boundary – the kind of catch you only take after a lot of practice – and settled down after that, playing some very nice shots. Sam Wyld bowled well and with great enthusiasm but he, too, was getting no reward; using his height and getting bounce, he had the batsmen fending the ball away from their bodies.

Finally, the Steriliser made the breakthrough; Johnny Milton, with probably the worst ball of his spell, served a full-toss to George who cleaved it high towards point where Prebs took an excellent catch. That brought Jake to the crease, and in between dodging Sam Wyld’s throat balls played some crisp shots for four. As we have done time and again, we wilted a little after the drinks break: the fielding was much better than in recent weeks, but as the heat increased and Barr kept the strike, we started to leak runs. There weren’t many gaps in the field, but the batsmen were finding them, and predictably what help there had been in the pitch for the bowlers had vanished. After countless overs of skidding across the course, rough outfield, the ball looked like one a dog had spent years chewing . On we toiled, though; Jake and Barr had put on exactly fifty when a direct throw from Prebs, halfway between mid-on and long-on, shattered the stumps and left Jake short of his ground. Gary came out to bat and picked up where Jake left off, hitting the ball hard and, between the batters, about forty-odd runs came in the last five overs. Campbell’s batting services were not required, and so my queue of bowlers disappeared faster than a high street pound shop.

In lieu of tables and chairs, a fine tea was served upon a picnic blanket, and everyone dived in. For  the umpteenth game in a row, the heat wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry and so a gaggle of Boars tried their best to get some food down them. Word came to us later that the Rhinos had been served cream cheese and beetroot sandwiches for tea at their game; it sounded like the kind of lab-rat experiment that should see the tea provider locked up for crimes against humanity.

Richard “Robocop” Ackerman and I took our regular opening partnership onto the field to start our innings. We were chasing 190 to win off 35 overs; Golden Age had racked up over 120 runs in the seventeen overs after drinks, and we knew we’d have to try and score a boundary an over to keep pace with the target. Right from the first ball, their keeper experienced the same problems with the pitch that saw Dave and I concede 24 byes in the Golden Age knock as the ball whistled past him along the ground down to third man. George was getting his usual steep bounce from a good length but Richard and I repelled both him and Grant from the other end, finding the gaps and notching boundaries. As we approached our third 40-plus partnership, George and Grant gave way to the one and only Campbell from one end, and top-scorer Barr from the other. After I survived a nervy first over of Campbell’s slowies, and with a fifty partnership on the horizon, Barr got a ball to nip into Richard off the pitch and he bottom-edged it into his stumps. The partnership? Forty-seven. With eleven overs gone, we were ticking over at four runs per over, and Prebs joined me at the crease. As I struggled against the slow stuff for an over or two – and was dropped by the keeper and square leg – Prebs struggled to get a bat on the flotilla of leg-side deliveries bowled his way. But, at drinks, we were comparatively ahead of Golden Age by four runs; could we kick on like they did?

I was managing to find the boundary a bit more regularly, and brought up my fifty in the 24^th over. As I ran out of energy and out of shots to play, Prebs got frustrated and tried to charge Barr; the ball evaded the bat and cannoned into the stumps. Johnathan came and went as his bat simply wasn’t long enough to stop a pea-roller taking out leg-stump, leaving Aleem to survive the hat-trick ball. And then I perished in the next over, bogged down by Gallimore’s nagging, arrow-straight spears; I swiped wildly and was bowled. Aleem, with more singles to his name than Tinder and in such great form that even the aforementioned Daleks wouldn’t exterminate him easily, saw Alex (after hitting his first boundary for the club, duly celebrated with a swish of the bat), Ian, and Rob only stay briefly at the crease – yet another grubber doing for Rob – which left us hanging on for dear life at 109-7. The win was out of the question, and so it came down to salvaging pride in seeing out the overs. Kaleem joined brother Aleem at the crease and they did just that, with a partnership of 37 that saw Aleem put away some bad balls and Kaleem stick around to help him.

At the end, we closed on 146-7; forty-four short of victory. We gave them 36 extras and there were a couple of loose overs from us too, so it could’ve been a lot closer than it was in the end. But that’s cricket. The game was played in an excellent spirit, and Golden Age proved themselves to be a fine set of winners. On top of that, they produced a hamper of cold beers and lagers for everyone to enjoy, which was fantastic. Once they were consumed, we all headed for the convoy of cars to take us back to Merton; leaving behind the desolate landscape of Wandsworth Common, wondering if we were going to be the last set of humans to set foot upon its surface for many a year.

Game Day #11 - Sutton Challengers: Cops, Capers, Convoys and Comebacks

 An unwanted turn of fate brought our Boars “away” game against Sutton Challengers closer to home than originally planned; the venue for this game was meant to be the neutral Colets Leisure Centre in Surbiton, home of the sadly-departed Surbiton Imperial Cricket Club, a team we had many eventful tussles with but one that has become a victim of an all-too familiar malady: the chronic player shortage. I hope we see them resurrected, Phoenix-like, at some point in the future. The turn of fate was us, as a club, suddenly losing the availabilities of almost twenty players in a week; three games became untenable and, for a few hours, even two teams was looking a tall order. The Sunday captains decided to shelve the Sutton Challengers game and concentrate on a home game versus SW United (who the Rhinos had beaten away the previous Sunday) and a “home” game at one of our satellite grounds, Abbey Recreation Ground, against London Fields. In a classic example of Sunday cricket timing, once I’d informed Sutton Challengers that our game was off, London Fields then pulled out – which now meant our original fixture was back on, but half a mile away from our home ground instead of a thirty-minute drive to Surbiton. Happy days.

The day’s tea lady would be me, and I ensured that the players would be well-fed and offered loads of variety by hitting Lidl like a hammer. I know my shortcomings, though; the ladies that do our teas on Sundays offer levels of care and attention I can only dream of owning, and so my sandwiches reflected my Midlands upbringing: no frills. My ham sandwiches had nothing in them but ham: you want cous cous and rocket salad with that? Waitrose is a mile away; jog on down there, mate. The only reason I put any pickle in the cheese sandwiches was because my first batch were so crumbly the sandwiches were barely staying together. The second batch needed some binding. I had visions of players tucking into my cheese sandwiches, only for them to watch as the cheese tumbled from between the slices of bread and fall all over their trousers, like clouds of dandruff from an itchy man’s scratched head.

Needless to say, most of my sandwiches went uneaten.

Friday’s forecast thunderstorm didn’t arrive, and so this part of the world was still plugged into a heatwave that meant you started sweating at 10am and didn’t stop until 11pm. Game day was sultry and hot from the moment the daughters and I clambered into an Uber to take all the tea stuff to the ground, which was by now bleached white by the relentless heat in certain parts along the boundary. The only water being used on the ground was to water the square, and that now looked like a green postage stamp stuck on a manila envelope, such was the lack of greenery around the rest of the ground. The sandwiches were done, and the other players had arrived to take all the equipment we needed, convoy-like, down to Abbey Rec: tables, chairs, scoreboard and stumps etc, all the water I’d bought, and of course the tea. It was twelve o’clock, we were an hour away from the first ball of our game being bowled, and we were ahead of schedule.

Then came one of those incidents that can either define your day or destroy it. If you’ve followed this blog from day one, you’ll know I’m a single parent, and my two daughters come with me to cricket every week – much to their often-disguised ‘delight’. Sometimes, when you’re rushing around with a thousand things on the go, it’s easy to leave one ‘I’ undotted and one ‘t’ uncrossed…and that’s what brought me my one and only brush (to date) with the law. I’d asked daughter #1 to take a stack of chairs to Joe’s car, but she misheard and brought them to Kaleem’s instead, which is where I was with daughter #2 and Kaleem.  I took the chairs to where they should originally have gone…not knowing that daughter #1 had followed me. Kaleem, meanwhile, had let daughter #2 in his car and made sure she was seatbelted in…then he followed me too. Minutes later, when I got back to Kaleem’s car, I was confronted with the sight of daughter #2 crying and upset and being spoken to by an irate-looking lady who soon made a beeline for me. Her vitriol was off the scale as she demanded to know what kind of father I was for locking my daughter in a hot car, berating my lack of proper parenting skills, and generally heralding my existence as the biggest, dirtiest turd she’d ever laid eyes on. Every one of her machine-gun sentences started with “How dare you”. When she then hectoringly demanded that I give my daughter a hug, forty-five minutes of preparing enough egg mayo, tuna and ham sandwiches to feed a small army followed by readying tables and chairs for convoy led me to boil over and snap back at her. After berating her in turn for her lecturing, holier-than-thou, busybody attitude, she then told me – despite daughter #2 telling her I was just around the corner, which I literally was – that she’d called the police. Kaleem was extremely apologetic but I wasn’t having any of that;I’d got caught in such a rush and he’d done what he thought was the right thing to do. Perhaps the Busybody would have been happier if he’d just left daughter #2 standing on the street corner where she could have come to some real harm.

After fifteen minutes of waiting for the police with my back turned to the Busybody and fantasising about finding where she lived, defecating in my hand and smearing it all over her windows, I left my details with her to give to the Police and we headed off to join the rest of the team at Abbey Rec. Daughter #2, incidentally, was absolutely fine, but the Busybody – who was by now very quiet indeed, especially as her own kids were demanding to know why they were being held up from playing with the other snowflakes in the park – was only interested in her own sense of self-righteousness. I imagined her to be the kind of person who’d shout at a Muslim for not wearing their burkha properly.

Finally, we got to Abbey Rec to meet the rest of the team bar Andrew ‘Suggs’ Suggitt. Two years ago he’d played here and ended up waiting for ages on the front pitch while the rest of the team were on the back pitch, wondering where he was…surely the same thing couldn’t have happened, only with the pitches the other way round? Oh yes, it could! We all looked over to the top of the Rec, to where a sturdy metal fence separated the two pitches, to see Suggs waving at us, and wondering how he was going to get to where we were. In the meantime, and to the disbelief of some, the Police arrived. I welcomed them and volunteered my statement, only to be met by one officer’s first sentence of “Have you been arrested before, Mr Simpson?”…I calmed replied in the negative despite my brain asking “Am I about to be arrested now?”. The third officer – yes, it took three of them to come down and see what kind of tooled-up monster they’d been told about, while somewhere someone was probably becoming the victim of an actual crime – took daughter #2 to one side and spoke to her, and after a five-minute discussion that took in my side of things, I was told I’d passed the “Attitude Test” and there’d be no action taken. I felt sorry for Kaleem, who couldn’t have done right for doing wrong, as he was given a stern lecture about the perils of locking someone else’s child in his car whilst going to pick up a bag of stumps and bails for a game of cricket.

Right, shall we get on with the cricket?

Hang on, not yet; as the police exited the Rec car park, I turned to see Suggs now inexplicably hopping from garden to garden of the houses on the other side of the bushes from where we were, looking like a burglar (albeit a well-spoken one) trying to find an escape route. God only knows how he'd got there, and I was just waiting for the police to come and arrest him for trespass to top off an eventful morning. He finally managed to join us, but I wondered if the day’s quota of bizarreness had been fulfilled before a ball had even been bowled…

Mahesh, the Sutton Challengers captain, and I went out to toss, having  been advised to bowl first by my senior players if I won. Well, if I won, it’d be ten won tosses in a row – La Decima; the pitch was, like all the others in the Surrey county, a dustbowl covered in a thin verdant layer of grass. Mahesh called correctly and my run was over; he decided that the Challengers would bat first.

The team had a good balance to it; we welcomed Matty Holmes to the fold, one of the finest batsmen at the club, and someone I’d wanted in the Boars for a couple of weeks. Him only playing Sundays this year, when he is usually a high-standard League cricketer, was Saturday’s loss and our gain. Kaleem and Rob returned to Boars colours too, to complement a bowling attack that retained Joe Gun, Ian “Treadstone” Bawn, and the Sams Wyld and Egan. And so, after rebutting the Challengers’ attempts to have leg-side wides as part of the game – no thanks, I said, I don’t fancy being here at nine o’clock at night having racked up a hundred wides in the day – we took the field. The heat of the day wasn’t going anywhere, but we did have a sudden, welcoming breeze descend upon the ground as I handed the new ball to Rob and Kaleem. Thulasi and Sai were the openers, and they found life very hard going against some excellent bowling; Rob had not long returned from the hamstring injury he’d suffered at Old Wimbledonians, but his run-up was smooth, his pace was good and he was looking sharp. It was Rob who made the breakthrough; with only a few runs on the board, and with Sai looking to hit big, he bowled a straight one that Sai tried to hit into Wimbledon and had his middle stump rocked back instead.

After ten overs, the Sams came into the attack and it was the Wyld one that struck immediately. Thulasi seemed to be caught in two minds over how to play his straight one and ended up turning it to square leg; Joe Gun took a couple of steps to his left and, to his utter astonishment, held onto the catch. "Oh my God, I've taken a catch!" he was heard to cry. His face was a picture, like someone who’d been paid a visit by the people in the Postcode Lottery commercials. You know how it goes, Joe: “Someone’s knocking at the door…”

We were ticking through the overs but runs were starting to flow a little easier now; edges and nicks were evading our fielders, and the outfield wasn’t helping either, the ball in danger of spinning two feet past you after landing. I prefer my cricket grounds to have some grass on them, and none of us were enjoying fielding on what amounted to a cracked concrete floor. Sam Egan then got his first wicket in classic Sam fashion. Vinayak cut outside off-stump to Sam’s sharply-rising ball and it looped just over Rob’s outstretched hands at deepish gully and ran away for four. Next ball, and Rob had moved about a foot to his right: Sam bowled the same ball, the batsman played the same shot, and this time Rob gratefully and gleefully took the catch. Sam’s trap ball had worked again: that ball plus that shot plus that field equals wicket. Almost immediately, his fiery pace cleaned up Bhasat’s stumps to leave the Challengers four down, and that became five down as Sam Wyld got Hemmant to bottom-edge one that rolled slowly onto his stumps. The bails tumbled to the ground, and as drinks were taken we were halfway through their batting with only seventy-odd runs on the board.

As has happened so often in the past, however, the drinks break seemed to sap our strength. The breeze disappeared, the mercury inched a little higher on the thermometer, and Jay and Afif tucked into our bowling. With there being bare, grassless patches at both ends of the wicket, I was confident that Joe and Ian's slow bowling would profit, but although Ian bowled a beauty of a maiden over, the pitch was suddenly flat and lifeless and gave them nothing. The backside suddenly fell out of our fielding too as fatigue took hold; one attempt to stop the ball on the boundary looked like a move (complete with jazz hands) from a “Chicago” number and the bowling figures suffered. I include myself in that category; one particular ball – a standard pick up and throw – dribbled along the ground past me, as my three bellies compressed together like an accordion and denied my hands the ability to reach the floor. Poor Joe and Kaleem, on the other side of the wicket, were running so often to beyond the boundary to fetch the ball, we wondered whether it was worth hiring a Ring & Ride van from square leg to help them on their fetching missions. 

Jay was seeing it, and hitting it, very well, and after the pair had posted a fine century-plus stand, Sam Egan came back with his leggies to finally break the partnership, bowling Afif as he tried to make room and hit to off. A couple of balls later, he got Chetan to do the same thing, and he suddenly had four wickets from five overs. Despite having eighteen balls to notch a five-for, another wicket eluded him, but the returning Kaleem finally got the reward his bowling had deserved by having Hardik trapped lbw; and, as I ran off to rip a tonne of tin foil from those sandwiches I’d lovingly sweated over, Rob took the last over and bowled Prudeep. I didn’t see it as my back was turned to the action, but I’m reliably informed it was a 110 miles an hour snorted that moved along the pitch like a racer snake, sat up, waved its middle finger at the batsman, and knocked all three stumps over like Jonah Lomu bulldozing Mike Catt all those years ago. The Challengers finished on 238-9 and Jay was 80 not out; a fantastic knock. Despite our fielding lapses and probably giving them thirty runs too many, I was pleased with the effort we’d put in. To almost bowl them out in that heat, and with two batsmen taking the game away from you, was a great comeback. As it would turn out, it wouldn’t be the last comeback of the day. Rob and Kaleem were the pick of the bowlers alongside Sam Egan and his four-for; I felt for Joe and Ian, as they’d bowled at the precise moment the pitch decided to take a holiday and turned everything they had to offer into scoring opportunities for their batters.

Tea was taken; for some reason, I didn’t feel like eating my own sandwiches. Neither did anyone else…the only attention they received was from the wasps that descended upon the tea table once all the mozzarella sticks and popcorn chicken had been scoffed. I could’ve murdered a cup of tea, but with no tea-making facilities at Abbey Rec, squash had to do.

Once the break was over, I asked Richard and Andrew to open the innings. After Richard had copped his lump on the head against Chessington he’d picked up a helmet from the clubhouse; he ended up picking up the one that made him look like Robocop. It didn’t take away from his form, though; he may not be getting the big scores he’d undoubtedly like to post,  but he’s hitting the ball hard this year and the timing is good. It wasn’t easy to score quickly for the first few overs – the odd boundaries were counter-balanced by Prudeep’s maidens – but the guys were hanging in there and not looking too troubled. The first wicket didn’t fall until the 15^th over, when Richard was caught at mid-on trying to hit over the top, and the opening partnership had yielded 47  runs. That brought me to the crease and, maybe imagining that the ball looked like Miss Busybody’s head, I proceeded to smack it the boundary whenever I could. I was only out there for just under five overs but hit a breezy nineteen and added 38 with Suggs, who was looking in great form, until adrenalin – and a horrid pull shot to a good-length ball keeping low – did for me. That was drinks and we were 83-2; at this point, I hadn’t envisaged a serious assault on their score, but the pitch was lifeless and we still had a ton of batting in Matty, Aleem, Ian, Joe, Sam and a few others. Crucially, we had more wickets in the bank at drinks than they did. Could we give it a real go?

As Matty and Suggs continued untroubled for the next few overs, taking their partnership past fifty, we caught our first sound of the Sutton Challengers’ version of Monty Python’s Black Knight. Fielding deep near long-on, you heard this voice, time after time, urging “Come on boys, one more wicket and we win!”, despite the fact that we had only lost two so far. Suggs reached an excellent fifty of his own; watchful when required, attacking when required. Soon after, however, he was lbw to Chetan and Aleem was in. From the first ball, Aleem knew the run-rate and came to the crease with the handbrake off, crashing Chetan straight for two fours in two balls. This attitude had a sudden liberating effect on Matty, and an extraordinary series of overs followed; this was the end of the 29^th over, and with eleven left – or 66 balls – we needed 95 to win.

“Come on boys, one more wicket and we win!” piped up the Black Knight, still based at long-on. Matty was beginning to open his shoulders and runs were coming quickly, so – if you’ve seen “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – this was the equivalent of him piping up just after Graham Chapman had taken his arm off.

The last two overs had yielded us 23 runs, the next five yielded us 61, mostly from Matty’s bat. If you bowled to him on leg stump, he pinged the ball over or through midwicket for four every time, and if you strayed outside off-stump he smacked it through cover or long-off. It was brutal, exhilarating stuff, and as I umpired at square leg, watching Matty take the bowling apart, I suddenly dared to dream that the win was on. Aleem’s game-management was brilliant, giving Matty the strike and running so well between the wickets that misfielding and overthrows became the norm. On one occasion, they took a comfortable two – only to take two more from the same ball off overthrows due to some shoddy fielding. The pitch was lifeless, the bowling was flat, and their heads were dropping. Matty was middling everything, sending their fielders into the bushes time and again to retrieve the ball. Another cleanly-hit pull shot brought him a very quick fifty, and the run-rate was now down to six an over.  When the 200 came up we were still in the 33^rd over, and now we only needed 34 runs from 42 balls. I began to feel giddy at square leg as Matty and Aleem continued to milk the bowling and find the gaps. In desperation they were changing the bowling every over, and their keeper frantically appealed for a caught behind off Aleem that only he heard, but still the runs came.

“Come on boys, I don’t give a f*** about the result…one more wicket and we win!”

Then, with five overs left and just sixteen runs required, Matty charged at Chetan’s slower ball and was stumped by the keeper. Off he went to a terrific ovation, but the butterflies in my stomach flittered about uncomfortably. Could we really see this off, or would we freeze? Being a captain with only four wins to his name in near-four seasons, and someone who has seen us snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory on many an occasion, the doubts crept in. I envisaged their bowling suddenly tangling us up in knots, and denying us by the slenderest of margins. The unease wasn’t helped by Joe facing the rest of Chetan’s over; every ball was right on the money, very tricky to face, and how the last ball of the over didn’t knock over Joe’s leg stump I’ll never know. But survive it he did, and after three dot balls of the next over and a single to get Joe off the mark, Aleem eased the tension with his third and final boundary – at square leg, I gave myself a fist-pump. We’d done it. Still came the Black Knight, hooting from the boundary, both his arms and one leg chopped off. Six was required from 12 balls; Aleem pocketed two two’s, Prudeep bowled a wide to bring the scores level, and after two more dots Aleem placed the sixth ball perfectly through a gap and took the winning single to seal the mother of all run-chases and the unlikeliest of wins.

As I ran towards Aleem and Joe and nearly committed GBH on each of them in turn, you could tell the Challengers were hurt by defeat. I’ve been there on several occasions, and you’ll never see me rub victory in anyone’s faces unless they’ve acted like a bunch of numpties throughout the match. The Challengers had played the game in the right spirit and were unlucky to run into us on the day our batting rose magnificently to the occasion; our four wickets had been worth 47, 36, 68 and 82 in turn. I hadn’t prepared for winning until Matty and Aleem put their astonishing partnership together in record time and would have settled, at the time, for getting to within thirty runs or so; I hope we play Sutton Challengers again in future. We shook hands with Mahesh and his players and exchanged pleasantries, before I proceeded to crush as many of my players as possible with a Simpson-sized man-hug. Still, I expected the Black Knight to nod in our direction and say, “All right…we’ll call it a draw”…

To be honest, it still hasn’t sunk in. In eight years of being a Merton player, I’ve never seen a run-chase like that, never been part of a comeback win like that and I guess I won’t again. And with that, the Boars clocked up our second win in three games and second of the season. For Ian, it’s like buses; you wait twenty-nine games for a win, and then two come along at once. I’d started the day making sandwiches and nearly having my collar felt by the law; I ended it as the only triumphant captain of the weekend. Still, it wasn’t all good news at the end; some sod nicked my batting pads. Jeez, man; where’s the Police when you really need them?