Monday 5 August 2019

The Return Of Energy Exiles

I think mid-season burn-out is setting in. It's that feeling you get when, having had the scheduled opposition sadly withdraw their availability on the first day of the week, you spend day after day checking fixture websites every hour on the hour - like others check their Facebook and Instagram pages - and just want to close your eyes and go to sleep.

Golden Age were the unfortunate team we were supposed to be playing; it sounds like they're having one of those seasons when teams suddenly haven't enough players to put out a team on a regular basis. Having been there ourselves, everyone here can sympathise.

Four fruitless days searching for an opposition had started off my eye twitching, like Chief Inspector Dreyfus from the Pink Panther films, when Fixture Sec Janet got in touch and said that Energy Exiles, a team we used to play every season without fail until 2017, would like a game. Would I be interested? I bit her hand off via WhatsApp.

And so to the day. As we're becoming more confident as a team batting first and posting a defendable total, I'd harboured the desire all week to bat first if I won the toss. That was, until I saw the pitch. It was a lush, April green, as verdant as the entire square looks before the season has begun, and I suddenly didn't know what to do. Bat first, ride out the first ten overs, wait for the ball to lose its firmness and then cash in, as per what happens pretty much every week on our square? Or bowl first, exploit the greenness and humidity in the air, keep them to under 140 and knock off the runs when the ball's old and the pitch is flatter?

Then, as the oppo started to arrive, it rained. It was only a couple of showers, but it was enough to see the covers wheeled onto the strip. Bugger it, I thought: lose the toss and not have to make a decision...which is why, when myself and Bernard - the Energy Exiles skipper - went out to toss and I won, it took me about thirty seconds to say the magic words, "We'll have a bowl". The gut instinct had been to bat first...such a shame that my gut can't talk, unless there's a pizza in front of it.

I strapped on the keeper's pads and joined the team out on the field. We were welcoming back Bob (injury), Sam E (banished to Coventry), and Kaleem (brother's wedding), and it was to Johnny M and Sam that I gave the new ball to. Johnny M's plan was to just try and pitch the ball up, get the extra bounce and a little movement off the pitch to surprise the batsman; Sam's plan was to tear in down the hill and let the ball go at supersonic speed, and not worry about line and length. He's always had a knack for panicking batsmen into swatting rashly at short-length balls outside off-stump; sadly, he's not always had fielders with the requisite catching ability at third man and deep point to complete the trick and take the catch. Today, I was hoping, would be the day.

It took the first two overs of the day to realise that day would have to wait; we were bowling on a quick bowler's graveyard. Johnny M struggled to get his line and length right and was swatted, hockey-style, to leg for a couple of boundaries; Sam was barely getting the ball above waist-height thanks to the featherbed pitch if it was straight, getting the ball to rocket through to me at keeper if it was outside off-stump, enabling their openers to swing their bats at will with no fear of being caught on the hop. The odd ball would beat the bat, but as the ten-over mark neared, their openers already had 80 runs on the board. Johnny M, it turns out, was still nursing a knee problem from the previous week; Sam's genuine hostility had been neutralised by the deck. Time for a change, and, just as the free-scoring Khan had clocked up two boundaries to sail past fifty, the change worked. Sujanan had replaced Johnny M at the Clubhouse End, and now watched as an attemped lofted drive flew to where 'The Steriliser' had just taken his position at mid-on. Johnny M was a picture of concentration as the ball dropped towards him and nestled perfectly into his waiting hands. Finally, as the humidity had risen and the temperature got hotter, we had our first breakthrough.

Kaleem replaced Sam at the Kingston Road End, and the batsmen suddenly found that they couldn't score a run. 'Special K' was putting every ball on a perfect length on off and middle, and in his second over got his first reward. Shahid was the batsman who saw the ball in the slot for a big, booming drive, didn't see it swing viciously late, and was still staring skywards when the ball perfectly bent back middle stump. Kaleem's jaffa was back; not bad for a fella who had hardly bowled in five weeks! And two wickets suddenly became three just five balls later; after a lot of prodding, Omshed flashed hard at a ball outside off and succeeded only in nicking it to me behind the stumps. Wow, what a turnaround - from scoring eight runs an over, the Exiles had lost three wickets for six runs in four overs, and 'Special K' had bowled that rarity of Merton beasts, the double-wicket maiden.

Keith, the dogged left-handed opener whose two colt sons were also playing, was still there at drinks, giving absolutely nothing away. We'd succeeded in neutralising his favourite scoring area by packing the arc between gully and point, but we didn't look like getting him out. Still, at drinks, they were 112-3; having whipped 80 runs off their first ten overs, Suj and Kaleem had restricted them to just 32 off the second ten. Having looked at one point like we were staring down the barrel of a total of 300, the game was back on an even keel.

The temperature rose; the pitch was once more becalmed. Bob replaced Suj and instantly applied the nous and skill that makes him still a dangerous bowler (in six overs, there would be just six scoring strokes off his bowling), while Rob gave Kaleem a breather and concentrated on accuracy over pace. Keith had been joined by Jonny at the fall of the third wicket, and he was skilful enough to keep out the good stuff and wait for anything slightly off-beam to hit to the boundary, and for a few overs not a lot happened. Bob rendered Keith virtually strokeless, and when Suj replaced Bob for his second spell, Keith tried to flick him down leg-side. The glance was firm, but not firm enough; the nick flew into my right glove, and finally Keith's defiance had been broken. 33 overs he'd been there for his 54, patiently taking singles, rotating the strike with a succession of right-handed batsmen, frustrating all of us in the field.

It was the first of three wickets in three overs: Rob, in the last over of his spell, finally got Jonny to glove one to me for a fine 41; Suj finished his spell with a delightful inswinger that had Jibs swishing at thin air, with nothing but the sound of his shattered stumps to keep him company on his way back to the pavilion. 163-3 had quickly become 166-6. Bernard and Jam crashed the ball to good effect against Kaleem and Sam, until Bernard tried one heave too many off 'Special K' and spooned it up to the waiting Johnny M, who pouched his second catch of the innings. The final over was left for Sam to bowl - who, for his second spell, had parked the pace and brought leg-spin out of his locker instead - with the Exiles on 198-7 and looking to go after every ball. But their single off his second ball was the last run they scored; his third ball sailed past Jam's flailing bat and crashed into the stumps, while his fourth ball was launched into orbit by Faisal, who tried to run two while it dropped to Suj at wide-ish mid-off. Suj nervelessly held onto the catch, and - with the youngest player, Evan Roberts, now at the crease - Sam was sensing a hat-trick. With the whole field brought in for the hat-trick ball, young Evan repelled the 'Widowmaker' and the one after that too - the final ball - which brought the Exiles innings to an end on 199-9.

It had been a terrific, committed, whole-hearted Boars fightback with the ball and in the field, epitomised by point-blank stops close to the wicket from Kaleem and Rob. We'd halved their run-rate after that first ten overs, from eight an over to under four an over, and taken nine wickets for 119 runs. Against the odds, we'd restricted them to under 200. There were only three genuine catching chances, none of them easy, and we'd taken them all. Kaleem had finished with 3-30 - having been 4-2-2-2 during his first spell - and Suj 3-34. Those two bowlers had spearheaded the fightback, and got their rightful rewards.

After another wonderful tea break - during which your correspondent downed a cold lager in one, as cups of tea and squash just weren't going to cut it - we padded up for a bat and looked to chase 200. Tellingly, a couple of us looked very drained after two and three-quarter hours in the field, but nevertheless Jake and Aleem walked out to open the innings. But Jake wasn't long out there; haven't belted one ball for four, he went for a big hit and was bowled off his inside-edge. Andrew 'Safe Hands' C was promoted up the order to three to allow me to recover a little longer, but after stoutly defending his wicket against some sharp and accurate bowling, he slapped one to square leg and was caught. Dave 'The Demon' suddenly found himself out in the middle against an opposition with their tails up; Aleem, at the other end, looked untroubled as he started to find the boundary regularly. Faisal had dismissed Andrew and now came for The Demon, trapping him in front lbw.

I joined Aleem in the middle and found the bowling to be accurate but the pitch as spongey as earlier in the day, so it would be a question of waiting for a loose ball to hit. An ugly top-edge off Faisal flew high over gully for four to get me off the mark, but Aleem was transformed; hitting some sparkling fours, and looking like a man back in prime form. I took four from Jam with a straight drive before reverting to type and shovelling a full-toss straight down Keith's throat at mid-on. Unhappily for me, it was a carbon-copy of my dismissal the last time I'd played the Exiles in 2017, and we were 59-4. Even worse was to follow, when I discovered my youngest daughter had eaten the meat from all the pork pie quarters and put the pastry cases back in the dish.

Johnny M banged a couple of crisp, well-timed fours, but went across the line to the next ball and was plumb lbw as the ball smacked into his pads. Kaleem joined his brother at the wicket and almost knocked him flying as they collided going for a run, but they safely negotiated the next two overs. Drinks were taken and we were 90-5; maybe we weren't too far out of the game, after all...

Four balls later, in skipper Bernard's first over, disaster struck. Aleem hit his first shot that could be called catchable, but catch it Ahmed did at deep-ish mid-on, and Aleem had gone on 49. That seemed to be it for the run chase, but we still had wickets in the bank. Bernard was weaving some kind of bewitching spell on the batsmen from the Clubhouse End, and after Sam and Kaleem had picked up a boundary apiece, Sam went big against him and was bowled. 104-7 became 105-8 next over, bowled by young Evan, as he got Rob to try and tickle him down leg; all that moved was the leg-bail as the ball sent it spinning to the ground. The young colt was engulfed by his ecstatic team-mates, and when he'd recovered Bob pulled him violently to the long-on boundary for four.

Next over, next wicket: Kaleem tried to flick Bernard to leg, sent the ball about forty metres into the air, and the wicket keeper pouched it safely. Bob delayed the inevitable as Suj joined him, by punishing some loose stuff to notch three boundaries in what was the penultimate over; Bernard, predictably, wrapped it up by trapping Suj lbw. 122 all out saw us lose by 77 runs, and Bernard had the scarcely-believable figures of 4.1 overs, three maidens, one run, four wickets. You could argue that we hadn't really applied ourselves with the bat, but the fielding had taken a lot out of us and the Exiles had bowled very well. Aleem was our stand-out batter, and Kaleem the stand-out bowler. However, it was one of those days when, once again, we'd shown our Boars spirit in the field when the chips were down and we were getting spanked to all parts; we stuck to our guns and gave ourselves a target to chase. The fact we didn't is a moot point; I was consoled by the fact that England had bowled like an utter drain against Australia at Fortress Edgbaston, and there was a large supply of cold lager behind the bar to slake our thirsts. Happily, as a club, we've also rekindled a friendship with a long-standing opposition in Energy Exiles, and we look forward to pitting our wits against them next year...

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