Saturday 13 July 2019

The Camel Slayer


Well, well, well. They say you should always expect the unexpected in sport; with us, you should always expect the following:-
1)      To field first.
2)      To collapse at some point when we bat.
3)      Someone to nick all the jaffa cakes off the tea table before I’ve even got my spikes off.
What is always unexpected, and almost always pleasurable, is a win. When, however, the win is more comprehensive than almost any other win you’ve ever played in, it can be a struggle to comprehend. On this day, though, the struggle would turn out to be most definitely real…

Our old friends, Sopwith Camels, were the hosts as we made our way to the Roebucks Cricket Club in Bromley for our latest Sunday adventure. Minds thought back to when we played them at our place earlier in the season, to when he had them 41-5 and dreaming about skittling them out for under a hundred, only for their post-drinks batting and our fielding to go off in wildly different trajectories, and we ended up losing a game by 90-odd runs that we really should have nailed to the floor.

The Roebucks is a lovely little ground. The boundaries are slightly shorter than the bowlers would like, but the clubhouse is lovely and huge automated gates have to be passed through in order to get to the car park. I’d said to myself all week that, if I won the toss I’d bat first, but as I went out for the toss with their skipper Richie, I had a wobble. Thankfully, I lost another toss…and we were put into bat.

 Lots of familiar faces returned to the Boars fold following the Six-a-Side tournament the previous week, and it was Jake and Aleem that opened the innings. The first ball brought a “Sliding Doors” moment to the fore; what if their man at cover had held that catch off Jake? The Cat would’ve notched another entry into the Sunday Boars burgeoning Duck Club, and the entire day would’ve turned out markedly different. Thankfully for us, the catch didn’t stick, and Jake then did to the next ball what he spent the next few overs doing: creaming it mercilessly to the boundary. Through point, over midwicket, over long-on…the ball left his bat like a pistol crack, and Sopwith were stunned into silence in the field. Aleem was also looking positive in the shot, but as Jake sent the scoreboard whirling – and John Smither’s faculties, as he tried in vain to keep on top of the scoring – Aleem looked for the ones and twos and gave Jake the strike whenever he could.

The fifty partnership wasn’t long in coming up, and the bowlers who had terrorised us in previous encounters weren’t getting any joy out of a pitch offering them little. At least the tight boundaries meant no rummaging around in bushes looking for the ball, but Jake kept making their fielders chase, with Aleem also sending the bad ball to the rope. Harry Deans, torturer-in-chief in the corresponding fixture last year, came on and was instantly dispatched for four by Jake, and shortly after that, another boundary took Jake to his fourth Sunday score of 50+ this season, and past 400 runs for the season to date. But, with drinks on the horizon and the score on 91, he tried a big hit too many and was bowled, but what a platform he and Aleem had laid; our best opening partnership for some time, having been put into bat, and with plenty of batting to come. Even at this early stage of the game – the quarter point – we were looking in very good shape.

I replaced Jake and immediately got into the shots, slicing Vinay over cover for four. Despite never looking totally convincing, and seemingly unable to play the ball along the ground much this season, I put on 30-odd with Aleem and was on 23 when the old warrior Hughie entered the attack. Having watched me try to thump his son Harry around, he got his third ball to me to move from leg to off, pass my outside edge, and clink into off stump. I’d been done again by the wiles of a Sunday bowler; crucial for Sopwith, as our nemesis/buddy JP was limping on a previously-injured leg and only bowling two overs.

It was time for us to kick on, and inevitably wickets started to fall; Aleem, though, was still there, untroubled, unfazed, fully-focused and playing the anchor role to perfection. Mustafa smashed a six off near-enough his first ball but then top-edged one so high it came down cold, and poor Andrew Counihan fell lbw to the only ball of the entire innings that bounced no higher than ankle height. We approached the 150 mark, and Moh – making his Boars debut after squllions of years at the club – was off the mark with a super clip through point. He doesn’t play too often but he makes batting look easy when he’s in the groove, and he was soon in the boundaries. He was ultimately castled by a ball that probably should’ve been knocked into Kent, but the incoming Johnny M started doing just that. Confident, crisp and hitting the ball with purpose, his first boundary was a pull to backward square off his hip, and his second was a cracking shot through midwicket. As Aleem patiently ticked over, Johnny fell to a fantastic catch by Richie in the gully: the shot was good and seemingly rising over the cordon for another four, but Richie plucked it out of the air with his right hand – having injured his left hand earlier in the innings – for a one-handed wonder. Johnny M hadn’t trudged off long when Aleem followed him; a booming drive to the long-on boundary just didn’t quite have the legs, and Harry Deans took a fine tumbling catch. We groaned: not because Aleem had got out, but because he’d done it on 47. If ever someone had deserved a 50, it was that man on this day. Our innings was dissolving, but he’d been the glue that had kept it together. The wickets were tumbling to one bowler: Nikhil, son of Vinay (one of two dads & lads duos amongst the Camels).

Bawny duly contributed to our Boars Duck Club, his blob being the 23rd of the campaign so far, and we were eight down. Sujanan’s first act was to belt a swirling six over midwicket, but once he’d perished, Rob followed shortly after. We were all out for 191; a fantastic team effort. In a 35-over game such as this, you’re looking at 150/160 minimum if batting first, so to have nearly 200 on the board was wonderful. And an omen suddenly fluttered into thought as well; our previously two wins in 2019 had happened when we’d batted first, and in the other occasions when I’d beaten Sopwith – twice, in 2011 and 2014 – we batted first then. Hmm. Nikhil had got fitting reward for his golden arm with a fine 5-for; 5-36 to be precise, for the architect of our wicket rush.

The Camels innings started off in comedy fashion. Realising we didn’t have a square leg umpire, out sauntered – and I mean, he sauntered – their guy to umpire…in a pair of white shorts that looked like an oversized nappy, topless, with a cup of tea in his hand. He looked more like a 1980’s bullion robber on a Costa Del Sol villa balcony, and more mirth followed two balls into Suj’s opening over when, with the batsman’s trousers sagging around his knees, the ump was forced to dip into the batsman’s crotch area for the trouser laces – having pulled his trousers up for him – and tie them together.

Suj and “Killer” Smither opened the bowler and started well; John almost picked up a wicket in his first over, as a fend towards the gully area just fell slightly short of the straining Moh. Killer, who hadn’t realised the umpire was keeping his cap stuffed down his shorts so he could keep his hands free to count Killer’s balls, then almost struck with a chip to Couns at point, but that too just fell short.

It was Suj that made the breakthrough, bowling one so gun-barrel straight it hypnotised the batsman into forgetting to move his feet as it thudded into his front pad. It pitched in line, it hit in line; if it had been a DRS review, there’d have been three red lights on the screen. One down, nine to go, but that was merely the appetiser for a Smither banquet that had us all gasping in both joy and disbelief.

Every serial killer has one or more accomplices: enter the ring of fielders on the off-side. Moh at gully; Couns at point, Mustafa at cover, Johnny M at mid-off.

“NONE SHALL PASS.”

 Not one Black Knight, of Monty Python fame, but four: unlike the Black Knight, they stayed on their feet and kept their hands poised and ready to pouch anything even slightly aerial. They strangled everything that came their way as a good murderer’s accomplice would, and it was their catches that helped Killer burn through the Camels top and middle order like a dodgy curry through a porn star’s arsehole. First, Killer extracted a wild drive that flew up and into the safe hands of Mustafa; next, another expansive shot flew not where the batter intended, but instead to Mustafa again, whose bucket hands made no mistake for the second time in rapid succession. Three balls later, with the dangerous JP now at the wicket but at the other end, catching practice came Couns’s way as he gobbled up a regulation chip to point. The Camels were 24-4, and we were pinching ourselves. It had to be said that Killer had bowled so much better in the past for approximately zero reward; but, on this day, that stop-off at Gregg’s had seen him take on board a lot more of their stock than just a takeaway mocha. Every ball was now seen as a potential wicket-taking hand grenade, but still the Camels played their shots; sure enough, a lusty drive merely took the edge and spooned to Moh, waiting gratefully at gully to swallow the catch. 28-5, and Killer had four. Could he? A quick check confirmed that he’d never ever taken a five-for. As the umpire switched Killer’s cap from his crotch to his armpit – fuelling speculation John would have a new head of curly hair by the middle of the week, fuelled by the transfer of crotch-to-cap testosterone – all the Boars crouched around the wicket even keener than before.

The moment came on the first ball of the 12th over, and what a moment it was. JP was facing; Killer pitched it slightly shorter. It was a real pie; overflowing with steak and ale, Fray Bentos written along the seam, there to be pulled through midwicket for four. But JP mistimed the bounce and played the shot too early; the ball sliced neatly through his defences like a kitchen knife through a hooker’s ribcage, and knocked back off and middle. Killer jumped and yelled; we all jumped and yelled, then mobbed him as hard as we possibly could. After twenty-five years at the club, he’d finally taken a five-wicket haul. What’s more, they were 30-odd for six. I couldn’t process which of these facts was easier to take in, but as Killer tired and with only four wickets left to take, it was time to bring on the fresh legs. Rob “UMPIYAAAAH!” Turner came on to replace Suj, but if the Camels thought a change of bowler would bring them a little bit of a breather, they were sadly mistaken. Rob hit a good, quick line from ball one, and just two balls later he induced batter Brian to chop the ball onto his stumps. The Camels were 40-7 in just the 13th over; would we even make drinks? 


Bawny replaced Killer, who retreated to midwicket with our ovation ringing in his ears (and a phone call from Fred Dinenage, asking if he'd like to be on the next series of "Murder Casebook"), and proceeded to bowl a maiden – and, as a rarity, wicketless – over. Sam, their batter, had been unfazed by the carnage; he was the one to carry the attack to Suj and Killer, plundering boundaries with some very crisp shots. He almost came a cropper to Rob’s first ball of the next over, though, as a slash to slip was tipped over the bar by Moh, running all the way to the boundary for four instead. In the next over, Bawny joined the party by inducing a pull shot out of Hughie…straight to, waiting with eyes wide open in eager anticipation, Killer. The hands opened, Jaws-like, waited for the prey to fly nearer, then wrapped around it and gobbled it up. Eight down; us Merton “old-timers” barely knew what to feel.

Rob wouldn’t be denied a second time. A little extra bounce saw him take Sam’s outside edge, and this time Moh couldn’t have been better-placed to take the catch. 60-9; we don’t do this to other teams, I thought. Other teams do this to us.

Sensing the bowling would shortly be at an end, I called upon Johnny M to bowl the 17th over, the last one before the scheduled drinks breaks. And their last batsman? The Costa Del Cricketer, only now he was taken it really seriously: he’d put a string vest on. And he somehow nicked a single off Johnny’s first ball, a ball that narrowly missed the off-bail as well as it went flying between myself and first slip. Johnny then tried far too hard to get that last wicket, and leg and off-side byes were taken off the next three balls. The next ball was better; a straight one kept out well by the batter. Time for The Steriliser to clean up: with the final ball of the over, he took a breath, focused himself, and bowled a ball the batter could only shovel back in his direction. With Mustafa moving in from cover, waiting to pounce for the catch, Johnny got behind the ball, steadied himself, and took the catch that sealed our win.

64. ALL OUT.

Of course, we didn’t celebrate wildly or go mad. It was Sopwith Camels we’d beaten, a team we’d never show any form of disrespect to, and their handshakes and embraces in defeat were warm and genuine. They know we’ve hardly beaten them over the years, were overdue a good day against them, and today had been our day. And what a day! It was my first true win as skipper over them in five years of trying, following a hollow victory a couple of years earlier that hadn’t brought me any major satisfaction; it was the biggest margin of victory any team I’d played on had recorded (127 runs); it was the first time any team I’d played on had bowled a team out for double figures. Killer had ended up with 5-26. The catching and fielding had been like something out of League cricket, and proved we don’t fluke our performances from week to week; with the ball, and in the field, we’re now a team to be reckoned with. We’d totally dominated a game from start to finish; not even the nine-wicket win at Banstead in 2018 had been this one-sided. And yes, as I glanced at Bawny and Smither, team-mates of mine during the last nine years of at times painful shellackings and humiliating massacres, and Johnny M, four years a Boar and veteran of some of those beatings, I thought back to some of those times we’d fielded first in scorching heat, conceded 320, then been hustled out by cocky, talkative so-and-so’s with bad hair and appalling manners, for 80 or 90. And then had a beer to flush the game out of our system, wondering when we’d get a day like that.

That day had arrived, and it felt utterly amazing.