Tuesday 20 August 2019

Merton Sunday Boars v Plastics XI: A Hope Opera


If ever a game existed that highlighted the difference a year can make in the travails of a Sunday social cricket team, it was this one. Last year, in the corresponding fixture, we were in the middle of a weeks-long heatwave that reduced virtually all cricket pitches to roads for the batsmen and heartbreak highways for the bowlers; and our game was no exception. Plastics – admittedly, with a couple of ringers in their team – piled up 298-7 from 40 overs on a baking-hot day, with Ian and Abdul conceding 140 runs off their combined sixteen overs and Jake and my three combined overs going for 50 runs…although it was Jake’s famous over that lasted longer than “War and Peace” that make more of an impression than the whiplash I suffered watching my lollipops getting slammed over my head and into the bushes by the sightscreen. In reply, we mustered 165 thanks to the combined efforts of myself, Abdul and Extras. This year, the gap between the two teams would reduce dramatically, but could the Boars get one over the Plastics and atone for the previous year’s crushing?

Firstly, the weather. There will be no talk of heatwaves when reminiscing about 2019. The batsmen who were feasting on all bowling last year are struggling to lick the crumbs from last year’s table; the squares have been greener than a cannabis farm for most of the season, especially on Saturdays, when the League batters have been reduced to batting averages that look more like bowling averages, and Sunday pie bowlers – whose averages are normally just about higher than their ages – have been the ruin of many a weekend. Flat is the beer and stale the cheese and cucumber when you’ve been bowled under your bat by an 11 year-old/ 60 year-old/ 80 year-old….which is why the tonnes of rain that fell during various times during the week threatened to reduce yet another weekend of cricket to games of over-arm skittles. Just for the fun of it, Mother Nature threw down another load on the morning of our game that hadn’t been forecasted, and dreams of playing on a decent pitch turned into a nightmare.

Then came the availability snags. A fantastic fillip for the club was the ability to field three teams on this Sunday, but the downside is receiving the dreaded “Sorry, skip” WhatsApp messages and e-mails that instantly puncture a hole in your line-up. I was two players down until the Saturday afternoon but, crucially, saw a young lad called Kosta at our home ground when I went to watch a bit of the Saturday 1st XI in action. He’s been coming down the club all season, watching the cricket, taking part in a little bit of the practice, showing that he’s capable enough of playing…and so I asked him – and his mum – if he wanted to play. Yes, he said. Great. One down. Sunday morning came, and I was still one down…so it was time to play the Daughter Card. Hannah is fifteen, likes the game but doesn’t play it often (always badgers me to pick her, though), but she made her debut in one of the worst games I’ve ever helmed two years ago at Trinity Mid-Whitgiftian and more than held her own. All sorted, I reasoned. I had my eleven. It was also the first post-Jake “The Cat” Curnow Boars game; his runs would be missed, as would his athletic, never-say-die fielding. The challenge was laid down to the team; his shoes would need to be filled.

Thankfully, as we got to the home ground, the rain had passed over and been replaced with bright sunshine and warmth. The outfield glistened but would dry quickly enough; I was more worried about the uncovered pitch. Sure enough, it was damp; a few rolls from the super-soaker lifted a little of the dampness, but not enough to squeeze it dry. No matter, I thought; I didn’t have a great deal of pace in our bowling attack and had already planned to bowl the slowies from the start anyway. I merely resolved to ensure I won the toss and bowled first; if we’d batted first, we might have broken the record for earliest finish of a Merton Cricket Club game (which we’d set against Ewell the previous September). Plastics arrived; Charlie, their skipper, and I duly went out to toss, and between us decided that – as I was intending to bowl first if I’d won, and he was intending to bat first if he won – we would field first. We tossed the coin anyway, just for show, and he won. If the game now went tits-up, I could legitimately claim to have lost the toss.

BOARS LINE-UP: Neil “The Fridge” Simpson; Abdul “Silver Fox” Hameed; Ian “Steel Testicles” Bawn; Oliver “Marauder” Miller; Andrew “Safe Hands” Counihan; Bob “The Dark Lord” Egan; Sujanan “Quiet Assassin” Romalojoseph; Kaleem “Special K” Sajjid; Shakil “Shakatak” Ehsan; Kosta Miskou; Hannah “Captain’s Daughter” Simpson.

At the stroke of 1pm, and under warm, blue skies, the Boars took the field; Plastics skipper Charlie and Mark were the opening batsmen. I’d asked Ian and Shakil to take the new ball and hopefully exploit the damp conditions and the general use of the pitch; sadly for us, Rob Turner had pulled out due to injury, but he’d have wasted his time bowling on what was a pudding of a pitch for the first hour or so of the game. Ian took the first over from the Kingston Road End and a full-toss got slammed to the boundary by Mark, but that was the last of his freebies as he settled into a probing line and length outside off-stump. Shakil’s first over from the Clubhouse End started with a ball that fizzed from off to leg that had the whole team purring. His fifth ball pitched in line with middle and leg and didn’t turn; it carried straight on, our appeal was imploring, and the umpire’s finger went up. Charlie was on his way for that Sunday Boars speciality – a duck. 4-1; what a start.


It got better in Ian’s next over. Bob now reminds me of one of my favourite footballers, Ruben Neves of Wolves: Neves doesn’t score simple tap-ins inside the box. Oh no. Neves only deals in twenty-five/ thirty-yard howitzers that rocket into top corners, and Bob doesn’t deal in straight-forward slip catches; not for him the stand still, hands cupped, yawn while the ball reaches you approach to slip catching. All of his slip catches this season have been tumbling, diving, sprawling moments of magic, and our second wicket was probably his best catch of the season so far. Ian elicited the outside-edge from batsman Bob and it flew low past me to slip, where Boars Bob brilliantly scooped it up off his bootlaces whilst diving to his left. No one could quite believe it, but we suddenly found ourselves on a roll: new bat Alex played for spin but Shakil cunningly bowled one that held its line and cannoned into the stumps. While Mark was somehow surviving at the other end and picking up runs where he could, 20-3 became 24-4 as Shakil’s rip and turn back into Phil forced him to chop the ball onto his stumps.

Kaleem replaced Ian from the Kingston Road End. “Special K” is in the bowling groove of his life and, time and again, he hooped the ball from off to leg, beating the outside edge. In a classic over, he set up batsman Jimmy brilliantly by bowling him two widish inswingers outside off-stump, which had Jimmy puffing out his cheeks in frustration, before bowling him one much straighter. Jimmy couldn’t resist the heave across the line, and departed to the sound of middle stump being knocked back. Meanwhile, the fielding was matching the bowling; Oli and Ian were proving hard to beat at point and square leg respectively; with “The Cat” now residing in Malaysia, these two were battling it out to become “The Tabby”. On top of that, young Kosta pulled off two brilliant stops at midwicket and had a run-out opportunity with a direct hit.
Pete Bishop was now at the wicket, and one of his first tasks was to needlessly run out Mark. The opener wasn’t looking that comfortable but was set on 30 when called through for a single to a push straight to Andrew; he returned the ball to me perfectly over the stumps, and as I broke them Mark was three yards out of his crease. Were we cock-a-hoop? Hell,yes! Plastics XI were 44-6; I’m not sure which set of players couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

That brought Joey Anderson to the crease, and he set out his stall immediately with a full-blooded pull off Kaleem for four. He wasn’t going to die wondering and I knew we’d get him sooner or later; what I didn’t realise was a Plastics batting revival had just started. The ball was also leaving Pete’s bat like a pistol crack, but on the stroke of drinks, and with the score at 78, Anderson tried one pull shot too many off Sujanan; the ball rocketed a mile in the air, Shakil steeled himself beneath it, and held his nerve – and the ball – to take a brilliant catch. Big, big wicket. Drinks were taken halfway through the 20th over; I was pinching myself. Getting them out for around 100 was a very serious possibility; three wickets were all we needed. Three balls, out of a possible 123. Surely, surely this was to be our day?

Young Kosta stepped up for his first-ever Merton over. The first ball turned off the pitch and sailed past new bat Peter’s outside edge; the second ball hit a bump in the pitch and rolled agonisingly close to the stumps. His fifth ball was wide, but full, down the leg side; sensing an easy boundary, Peter gleefully had a go at it, only to top-edge it to square leg. Kaleem put his hands together, the ball bounced in, then out…and then he pouched it safely on the juggle. Peter was out, they were 82-8, and Kosta had taken his first-ever wicket with his fifth ball. Everyone in the team rushed to congratulate him; it was a fantastic moment.

Little did we know, that was as good as it got.

The sun had been out for a while now and the pitch was drying nicely, which was also making batting easier than in that first hour or so. Jamie joined Pete at the wicket and looked like a wicket-in-waiting as he just about managed to keep out stumps-bound yorkers and full-length balls at the very last moment, but he soon proved to be the immovable object to our irresistible force. His obduracy was giving the in-form Pete licence to play his shots, and they were coming off; seeing he favoured the pull through mid-wicket, I pushed Andrew back ten yards from that very spot…you can guess where Pete’s next pull shot went. Agonisingly for us, it landed at Andrew’s feet instead of in his hands.

As much as everything had gone our way before drinks, everything was now going against us. Twice in the same over, Bob found Pete’s inside-edge, but on both occasions the edge was too thick and flew past me down to fine leg. In his next over, the luckless Bob induced a wild swing from Pete that went slicing over slip and gully to where no fielder was, and a shout for caught behind was also turned down. We also found ourselves powerless to stop Pete from farming the strike, and pinching singles off the 5th and 6th balls of an over became the norm. Pete brought up his fifty, and shortly afterwards the 150 came up. The innings finally closed on 171-8, and Pete was 86 not out; it had been a brilliant knock, probably the best I’ve seen at our ground all season. The game had now swung firmly in their favour in the space of 123 balls.
“It’s the hope that kills you” is now our new Sunday Boars motto.

After tea, Abdul and myself went out there to start the run-chase. The batting conditions had improved the more the pitch had dried out, as Pete and Jamie (who’d finished on 11 not out from his 20-over crease occupation), so it was up to us to do nothing silly and get ourselves in. We were settled in relatively quickly; Saril couldn’t get his line right and we knew we could score off his bowling as a couple of fours demonstrated, but Jamie at the other end was a different prospect altogether: slower, bowling to the end where it could either ping you between the eyes or roll under your bat, we decided to just keep him out and not take any chances. His first two overs were maidens. It was a good ploy; the runs began to flow from the other end. Abdul and I exchanged boundaries, a crunching extra-cover from me bested by Abdul’s giant six into the top of the bushes near the school. My four brought up our fifty partnership (we bat well, us two: the last time we batted, against Kensington and Chelsea, we put on 109), but then I allowed my concentration to lapse for just one ball, didn’t quite cover a straight one, and was bowled by Milburn. I was gutted, but we were 59-1 – more than a third of the way there.

Ian came in and soon mastered the art of the one’s and two’s. Anderson was bowling rippers down the hill, pitching on off and called wide as the balls keep turning nearly off the cut strip towards slip, and Abdul had dealt with him well…until the stroke of drinks. To be fair to Abdul, there was nothing he could have done about the ball that got him; extra bounce saw the ball balloon off his glove and into the keeper’s gloves. 81-2, but Abdul had looked really good. That brought Oli to the crease, but his stay was brief due to a piece of brilliance from bowler Newhurst, who somehow turned Oli’s rocket shot into a safely-taken return catch; Davies then came on down the hill and put his team firmly in the driving seat. Turning the ball from off to leg, he got a beauty to lift and caress Ian’s bails from their grooves; three balls later, he did exactly the same to Bob. 82-1 had become 90-5.

Hannah joined Andrew at the crease, and there came another magic moment: two balls after a push from Hannah had been caught on the bounce by a close-in fielder, a pull shot brought her her first-ever run. The cheers from the clubhouse could be heard in Raynes Park. She’s the first-ever female to play for Merton CC, and she’d just scored the first run ever by a female player for a Merton CC team. History had been made, and the moment seemed to rub off on Andrew. Where he’d been previously watchful, he suddenly became Andrew the ‘Ammer by smashing three fours and a six down to the boundary near the school. Between them they added 28 runs for the sixth wicket, but it sadly came to an end when Andrew was bowled by the returning Saril, and a decent shot from Hannah was caught safely by mid-on. 119-7 became 126-9, as firstly Sujanan was caught behind off Charlie and then Kosta – who also scored his first-ever Merton run, and looked more than handy with the bat – was run out.

That left Shakil and Kaleem at the crease; Merton’s last stand. 46 runs to win, 36 balls left in the match. Milburn and Davies were the death bowlers, and dot balls were dominating. Shakil was looking to go big, though, and several big swings had missed…but he didn’t miss for long. The bowlers were struggling for consistency, and no-balls were swelling the Boars total; Shakil then reeled off a succession of fours and a monster six, that left us – improbably, but not impossibly – chasing 17 runs off the last over. Kaleem was on strike; he went for a mow at the first ball and hit it straight back to the bowler for a dot ball, then made contact with the second ball. In the air it flew, seemingly wide of mid-on, but the fielder there had broken into a run and smartly took the catch, on the move, to end the innings and the game. We were 155 all out.

The margin of defeat was just sixteen runs; a far cry from the 140-run shellacking of last season. True, the pitch and conditions had been a very good leveller, but once again our bowling and fielding had been top-rate. Yes, we were disappointed not to wrap the Plastics up for around 100-120, but if you’d offered me 171-8 at the start of the day I’d have snapped your hand off. All that stood between us and victory had been Pete Bishop’s great innings and Jamie sticking with him while he scored them, and the fact that Pete isn’t a ringer in disguise softens the blow. From what a couple of his team-mates said, it was his finest-ever innings: sod’s law he makes it against us. Maybe next year we’ll get him for a duck. But to run a good side close, with an XI that featured an 11-year old debutant and the captain’s daughter who normally buries her head in memes and YouTube videos, is something to be proud of. The fact she’d also scored more runs that day than the 2018 Player’s Player of the Year caused much merriment inside the clubhouse; the beer never tastes flat when you’ve just taken part in a terrific game of cricket and had a lovely day.

It’s the hope that kills you: never a truer word has been spoken in jest. Every Sunday team like us should have it as their motto.

No comments:

Post a Comment