Boars @ Banstead: The Early Bird Snaffles The Boars

It was early one evening, as the month of July was getting into full swing and everyone was readying themselves for the return of club cricket, that I received a message from Simon, the captain of Banstead’s third XI and our hosts at least once a year for the past two years. They had an open slot on Sunday the 26^th, he said, would the Sunday Boars be interested in a game of cricket? If he’d been present in the room he’d have needed to write his reply with his toes, such would have been the speed that I’d have bitten his hands off. A visit to one of our finest friends on the Sunday friendly circuit, cancelled presumed completely due to lockdown? Hell, yeah!

 

We were due to play each other as the season-opening fixture, way back in April. Gloomily, Simon had told me at the time that not only had that fixture gone to the wall (as had everyone else’s), but the Banstead 3rds – made up, at the time, mostly of guys of the age who were now being told to shield indoors for twelve weeks – had written off their entire season as a precautionary measure. We’d already pencilled in our fixture for next year, too, so to actually get the fixture back up and running was a very happy post-lockdown bonus.

 

Our previous two encounters couldn’t have been any more different; a nine-wicket walloping for the Boars in 2018, chasing down 213 for our greatest-ever win, was followed by a six-wicket canter for Banstead in 2019, when the Boars batted first and resembled someone sitting on the toilet, desperate to poo, but who’d spent the entire week eating hard-boiled eggs. Our crawl to 103/9 off 43 overs was mind-numbing in the extreme but we simply never got going, pinned to the floor by an attack that specialised in the kind of austerity that gets human rights activists jumping up and down. There were more maidens bowled than you’d find in a drama about Henry VIII, and the bowler’s economy rates looked more like the Coronavirus ‘R’ number.

 

It was destined to be a nice cool day to play cricket. We arrived at Banstead Sports Ground at one o’clock just as two colts games were being played to a close, and threaded our way through the pockets of watching parents as they sat at socially-distanced intervals all around the boundary. We were due to play on the back pitch, the scene of our triumph two years previously; Ian and I, who shared a partnership of 120 that day, were most appreciative. Above us, the weather couldn’t quite make its mind; the light grey clouds had blown somewhere else, and strong warmth beamed upon us from skies of unblemished blue. The football fans among us were on tenterhooks: Dave Barber and Tom Allen, fans of Watford and Villa respectively, were anxious about their team’s prospects on what was the final day of the Premier League season, knowing that one of them was certain to get relegated to the Championship by 6pm. Dave was desperate for us to bat first, knowing that we’d be in the field while the games were being played out. The Manchester United and Chelsea fans were crossing their fingers for wins that would cement their Champions League places for next season, while this Wolves fans was praying for a win over Chelsea or for Spurs not to get a result so that we could bag a Europa League slot. Rob, the ever-optimistic Arsenal fan, just wanted a nice win.

 

After finding a five-pence piece buried deep in student Tom’s pocket, Simon and I held the toss. Yet again I called heads, and yet again I won, meaning my record was now something like 25 out of the last 28 tosses won. It was to be a timed game and we were jam-packed with a variety of bowlers, and the pitch – although firm and in good nick – was topped with a lush, verdant layer of trimmed grass, so I decided to bowl first. Some cloud cover had rolled over as we took the field and helped Tom to swing the ball up the hill, drawing a play and miss from openers Gopa and Jason. Rob was just as probing down the hill, keeping the ball straight, not giving the batters anything wide to chase. The bounce and carry were prodigious, almost Perth-like, and the openers could leave the ball with confidence, but offered nothing for Tom and Rob in terms of movement or deviation. The Boars fielding, for the second week running, was sharp and accurate, so runs weren’t coming quickly; only one boundary was mustered in the opening overs as Gopa and Jason had to apply themselves. Still, they were proving very hard to dislodge, and offered no chances.

 

Shakil and Ian Bawn – Suj had one over but felt discomfort in his shoulder – then took over, taking the pace right off the ball and giving the batters something extra to think about, but at that point the sunshine vanished; in its place came grey skies and drizzly showers, totally un-forecast, but for the Boars they couldn’t have timed their arrival better. The pitch now had a little juice in it, and the ball suddenly began to pop a little down the hill. Ian’s late swing made every ball a threat, and as Gopa and Jason brought up their fifty partnership, one that stayed gun-barrel straight had Gopa pinned in front of the stumps for a plumb lbw. That brought Simon Read, the Banstead skipper, to the wicket, and after shepherding Jason to a very well-made half-century, steered a full-toss to “Killer” Smither at backward square leg; the ball looked to be dipping to the ground as Killer ran in, but all of a sudden the ball was in his hands and a brilliant catch had been taken.

 

Jason, for so long a pillar of concentration, then paid the price for his only lapse of focus during his innings. David “Wily Coyote” Floyd had taken over strangling duties from Shakil and was happily applying his own tourniquet when Jason rushed down the wicket, heaved at a ball that sailed past him into my gloves, and found himself stumped. Unlike the real Wile E. Coyote of cartoon folklore, David does indeed snaffle his prey; the full, flighted ball that fools a batsman into thinking he can smash him all around the ground is his box of Acme bird seed that successfully blows up in the batsman’s face. John and Stott were the new batsman at the crease, and John in particular was looking to play positive, but when he too charged a Floyd delivery and missed, he was bowled before he could be stumped.

 

As the overs ticked by at a rapid rate, Killer replaced Ian (2-28) and struck in his first over – but not before another brief shower had livened the pitch up some more. Stott, who had played straight to every ball he faced, did the same to one that popped up at him; Killer, seeing the ball loop up in an arc about three feet to his left, leapt sideways and plucked it one-handed for a superb caught and bowled.  Not long after, five down became six down as young Daniel Read received the same ball; this time it ballooned up to mid-off, where Oli “The Ox” Miller held on to his first Merton catch.

 

Nick Hunt and Lewis Still then dug in as the overs continued to whizz past, mixing defence with the odd lusty blow. Between them they raised fifty-four runs with the bat, and after Tom got Hunt to chop the first ball of his second spell onto his stumps, the innings was declared. 164-7 was the total from 42.1 overs; we would have around ninety minutes, plus twenty overs from 5:45pm, to hunt down 165.

 

‘Evergreen’ is a word used, in most spheres of sport, to describe someone who’s been in their profession for ten to fifteen years. Roger Federer is evergreen, as is Jimmy Anderson. Ryan Giggs was evergreen, too. Compared to Banstead’s Bill Early, however, they are mere striplings; babies, even. If this were school, being Jimmy Anderson’s age would get you dragged in the toilets and your head shoved down the bowl. In my team, anybody under the age of twenty-five looks like the team’s carer, stretching his legs before bringing the minibus back round to take us all home again. So, just how do you describe Bill Early, looking at least twenty years younger than his eighty-five years, and still going strong with the ball? And not serving up pies, either: you disregard his apparent frailty and pensioner status at your peril. Last year, in the corresponding fixture, I arrived here with the memory of my 92 not out from 2018 still fresh in my memory, confident of a nice, long innings, only to have Bill Early send me back to my kitbag with the third ball of the game. Bowled, having virtually left a straight one. I’ve had nightmares about it since. Bill induced panic in our team that day; there were about eighteen maidens in our innings out of forty-three overs bowled, and they were mostly bowled by him. Bill has probably never watched an Eli Roth film, and probably just as well, but his bowling style is similar to the torture scenes prevalent in those movies. He ties you up so you can’t move, then whittles little pieces off you every couple of overs. You wait for the bad ball – you wait, and wait, and wait…surely, he’ll drop a half-tracker in soon, or one nice and wide outside off-stump…but no. Every ball is wicket to wicket, you don’t play back and across, and you don’t give him the charge. So, he’s perhaps less of an evergreen and more of an old oak. And it didn’t take him long to be up to his wily old tricks.

 

 At the other end, Lewis Still cranked up the pace. At times, the bounce was too good – anything short of a length would never trouble the stumps – but then it was too good for me too. My rustiness was apparent as I tried to crash him over his head first ball and got away with two runs after Dave had got off the mark with a lovely straight drive for a single, but when Dave tried to shovel Bill to leg he left himself no room to manoeuvre at the crease and was bowled. Ian came in and concentrated on nullifying Lewis, whose deliveries were now flying off the surface and through to the keeper. We’d already decided not to even try and score off Bill, such was his accuracy and our propensity to give him our wickets, but knowing that we had so much time to chase down 165 gave us the confidence to not worry about the runs not coming quickly. Lewis and I enjoyed a proper contest: he would have me on toast, swinging at balls and missing, and then I would then break the shackles with a boundary.

 

Ian was looking in no trouble at all when he was suddenly lbw to Bill, who then bowled “The Ox” three balls later. 25/3 then became 32/4 when Lewis picked up a reward for a fine spell by spearing a yorker straight into the base of Sujanan’s off-stump. We needed a partnership, and next in was Andrew Counihan, a man renowned for sticking around. I’d seen off Lewis, and Bill had been given a breather, and both were replaced by Neil Sunderland and Nick Hunt. Time to knuckle down again, and lay a platform; the overs were clocking up but I estimated there to be about 30 left. If we needed 80 off, say, the last 20, it would be game on. Typically, the change in the bowling brought an instant breakthrough. Having dealt with Hunt’s first three leggies, the fourth one hit my pads in innocuous fashion…only to deflect onto my stumps. Deflated doesn’t cover it. I saw the bridge in front of me burst into flames and crash into the sea. That left us 47/5 – 47/6 really, as we’d lost Shakil – but, with Andrew and David at the wicket, we were still in the game. Andrew has become skilled in the art of whipping the ball strongly to the boundary, enabling him to mix attack with defence. David wasn’t averse to hitting fours either, but as the score reached 70 Andrew departed, bowled by Sunderland. Rob was unfortunate enough to face Nick Hunt, whose leg-breaks were really turning off the pitch and into the left-hander. But Rob was far from all but sea and smacked a classy boundary, until Hunt snaffled him with a beauty of a ball. Looping one up a bit higher, Rob advanced down the track to hit it over the top, but it turned sharply through the gate, was scooped by the waiting Andy Beaumont behind the wickets, and Rob was stumped.

 

We’d started the final twenty overs of the day by now, but the result was no longer in doubt. David was caught, and Killer had his leg-bail sent skyward by Daniel Read to confirm Banstead’s win. On a pitch that looked for all the world like a road, both teams had struggled to score fluently, 74 overs having been bowled on the day for an aggregate just shy of 250 runs. Bill Early had bowled another six maidens (he must have bowled about 30 against us in the last three years), and had been backed up by the other bowlers. Nick Hunt’s leg-spin was, after an over or two of getting loose, right on point and was as threatening as any we’d faced over the years. 78/9, effectively 78 all out, was our final total, although it didn’t feel like an 80-run shellacking. It had, once again, been a fun day’s cricket against one of our friendliest opponents, and – very importantly – the hangover from the Cheam game was now completely gone, exorcised from our system by two Sundays of great friendly cricket.

 

Cold beer and talk of fixing up dates for home and away fixtures next year featured heavily post-match, and as the breeze strengthened and the sunlight began to fade, we couldn’t have been more relieved that our season was finally back on track. Oh yes, and Watford were relegated and Villa stayed up; Man United and Chelsea secured Champions League places, and Wolves didn’t. Dave was understandably glum (as a Wolves fan, I know his pain), Tom understandably relieved, Oli, Suj and Killer were happy, while I shrugged my shoulders. Wolves have always liked achieving things the hard way – just like the Boars…

Boars @ Trinity Oxley: For A Few Dollies More

One week earlier: July 12th, 2020

Oh, the joy. The euphoria.  After ten barren weekends spent doing a variety of things such as degreasing the oven, cricket was back. I could hear that song by Andy Williams in my head, the one that goes “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”, that gets played endlessly every Christmas and pops up in scores of Hollywood films. Well, for club cricketers, this was it: the most wonderful time of the year. For Sunday cricketers up and down the land, July 12^th 2020 was Christmas Day come early. It’s always boiling hot Down Under on Christmas Day, or so it seems, and the day cricket returned was just as warm; so, for one day at least, we were all a little bit Aussie.

Merton Cricket Club’s Sunday Boars was to be led by me again in 2020, alongside our two other Sunday teams – the Rhinos and the Eagles. During the week, the other skippers Tom and Ben discussed the strengths and merits of the three teams that ours were scheduled to face; the Boars were to play Cheam, while the Eagles were to play Old Wimbledonians and the Rhinos travelled to Cobham Avorians. One of the Saturday teams had spanked OW the previous day, and they’d admitted that their Sunday team wouldn’t be strong either; a far cry from whenever the Boars travel there, as we always seem to have been carded against the stronger team in error, leading to a heavy defeat so regular, the fixture ought to be sponsored by Dulcolax. Should we switch the teams around, we pondered? The Boars were to play Cheam who had advertised as a Sunday 2^nd XI and so would be stronger than us but not uber-strong; should we play OW instead? The decision was ‘no’; it was too late in the day to switch around now. Besides, Cheam wouldn’t be that strong. Would they?

Regular readers will guess what happens next. It’s like when you watch an episode of ‘Casualty’, and within the first five minutes you see a frazzled-looking mum frantically packing things into the boot of a car and screaming at her noisy children to get in and put their seat-belts on. “I’ve got a long drive”, she’ll say, but we all know where they’ll be heading. It’s scripted. It’s signposted. And so, unfortunately, is the outcome of playing a team we’ve never played before who describe themselves as Sunday 2^nd XI who have been told that the playing standard of our team is weak. Like logging onto a website entitled “Thai Brides For You” and thinking you’re talking to a 20 year-old in Bangkok who really dreams of spending eternity with a fat, bald, white bloke in England, when in reality you’re talking to a fat, bald, white bloke based somewhere else in England who wants you to wire “her” $1000 so she can get an airplane ticket and join you in the sun-kissed seaside resort known as the London Borough of Merton. Not that I’ve tried all of that, of course.

Yep, you guessed it: we ran into a pack of ringers. An ambush. Saturday 1^st XI players looking for a tune-up, and boy did they get it. Under a spotless blue sky and enveloped in bright sunshine and the kind of heat only produced by saunas, the Boars spent two and a half hours fetching the ball from the bushes that surrounded three-quarters of Cheam’s back pitch. Rob “Typhoon” Turner and John “Killer” Smither were smote for an eye-watering 158 runs from their 14 overs, hands and brows perspiring freely and not a drop allowed to be used on the ball due to it being a “natural vector of disease”. Cheam’s batsmen were young, cocky and dismissive; egging each other on to hit 24 from an over, giggling at the ineffectual bowling or goading the next batter to hit the ball further, they teed off from the first over and never let up. David Floyd came on for a bowl and their eyes lit up: old guy, slow bowler, let’s see how far we can hit him and have a laugh about it in the process. I would say it was Sunday cricket at its worst but it wasn’t Sunday cricket at all. Sunday cricket is two teams who play for enjoyment first, where winning is the happy by-product of that approach; friendly cricket where the opponent is respected; where ringers are frowned upon, and when half a team of them are about as welcome as a bowel movement in a packed elevator. Batsmen wanted to retire early so the next one could come in and have a jolly old smash of the bowling, egged on by shouts of “Come on bro, go big!”, and they duly racked up 324/3 from their 40 overs. It wasn’t a contest, of course, but at least we kept them in the field for 33 overs and thumped some sixes of our own.

I didn’t allow it to cloud my judgement too much, despite coming off for tea wondering why on Earth I was still playing the game. After so long in mothballs, it was just great to be back out on a cricket field, playing the game we all love dearly. When you have a full 22-weekend season you can take the game for granted as the fixtures come and go in a sun-drenched haze, but I for one was determined to drain every drop from a season sliced in half by Coronavirus. Having said that, maybe we should have started the season a week later!

After a week spent licking our wounds and musing over whether we should either send a team to Cheam the following year packed with ringers of our own  (it’s very hard to hit sixes when the ball is trimming your nostril hairs at 85 mph) or simply not play them again (I think we’ve settled for option 2), the Boars travelled to the Cricket for Change Centre in Wallington to play Trinity Oxley. It is a fixture that only began the previous year and was such a lovely day we’ve both ensured to keep it in the calendar. The result wasn’t anything to write home about - they racked up 230 thanks to a brilliant 94 from Tony Springer and we folded for less than half of that – but they were great people and, as Sunday friendly fixtures go, it ticked all the boxes. Sadly, we lost our home fixture against them due to lockdown, but thankfully we didn’t lose the away fixture. The ground looks deceptively small as you approach it from Carshalton; as you walk over the railway bridge, the green dome that holds the ground’s indoor net facilities looms into view and, beyond it, a cricket field that appears no larger than a postage stamp. In the distance, the distinctive IKEA chimneys point upwards at the sky. At ground level, though, the field is large, and we were to play on the strip at the edge of the square farthest from the clubhouse.

 It was much cooler when we arrived, having rained over this part of the world for much of the morning, but the ground was so dry a monsoon wouldn’t have threatened the game. It was eerily quiet, too: it’s a venue renowned for regularly staging children’s birthday parties and functions, but with lockdown shutting down everything, only the toilets were open and not to the general public. Tony Springer, our nemesis from the previous year, was their captain for the day, while no less than three Sajjids – Aleem, Kaleem and Waleed – were playing against us for them. Comments about how that meant Trinity were already three wickets down rang merrily around the ground, but they’ll always be friends of the club and it was great to see them again. The Boars were dealt a blow on the morning of the game when Rob Turner had to withdraw due to an illness in the family, and so new player Scott Wesselo stepped in for his second game for the club. Joining him in making his Boars debut was Nick Bursey and Saurab Bhargava, with all three forming the batting order’s ‘engine room’. Returning to the team were Richard Ackerman and his two brand-new hips, and Joe Gunewardena after a couple of happy years in the Rhinos. The rest of the team included Killer, David ‘Pink’ Floyd, Sujanan, Ian Bawn and Andrew ‘Safe Hands’ Counihan. Having a paucity of batsmen allowed me the luxury of dropping myself to the bottom of the order, also enabling me to rest my knackered frame after 40 overs of keeping wicket, and after losing the toss to Tony we were asked to field first.

As our pockets bulged with travel pack-sized bottles of hand sanitizer, we took up our positions on the field. I ignored Joe’s protests not to bowl him (“I haven’t bowled in two years”) as he and Ian Bawn took the new ball; only Sujanan and Nick, as I was to find out later, possessed real pace in our attack, and I’d remembered how ineffectual pace had been  the previous year. Ian was due to take the first over but Joe wanted his first bowl out of the way; a genius move, as the fifth ball of the match proved. Aleem, watchful but keen to get off the mark, prodded his first ball into the path of Sujanan in the covers and tore off for a run that was never on. Tony, at the non-striker’s end, knew that too. Aleem was more than halfway down the track when he changed his mind, but by that time it was too late: Suj had gathered the ball and calmly returned it to me, and I duly broke the stumps. Aleem had run himself out and they were 1-1; a great start. From the other end, Ian was producing some lovely swing away from the batsman, subtle enough to draw the shot and beat the bat. Tony, however, seized on anything slightly short or tossed up full, and ominously dispatched those looser ones to the boundary. Chris joined him at the wicket and, although not as punishing as Tony, proved as obdurate. Between them a fifty partnership was steadily notched, dominated by Tony’s power, but the contest between bat and ball was even. It was a far and welcome cry from the previous week’s shenanigans. The Boars fielding was sharp, and there were no freebie runs being offered to Trinity.

Joe had a breather and was replaced by David, whose control and ability to turn the ball subtly off the pitch was quickly in evidence. Tony was respectful but always looking for runs, whereas behind the wicket I tried and failed to get a string of Pink Floyd-themed remarks going. Mentioning that his bowling promised ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ was met with a deafening silence, lost in the ‘Echoes’  that swirled around the ground, so I gave up straightaway. ‘Time’ and again his bowling was on the ‘Money’, and the next breakthrough came when Chris uncharacteristically heaved across the line to one that kept a little lower and was bowled. Waleed was in next but failed to trouble the scorers; again it was a cross-batted heave, but this time it cannoned into his pads bang in line and Kaleem, umpiring, raised the finger. Drinks came with the score at 85-3, Tony having completed his half-century, and we were pleased with our efforts. Tony, although going aerial on occasion (he has the knack of putting the ball where the fielders aren’t), hadn’t given a chance as yet and was clearly going to be the most decisive player on either side. Getting him out would be an enormous  fillip.

Then came one of those surreal interludes that contribute towards a cricketing  Sunday spent laughing and smiling. An ice-cream van pulled into the car park, not playing the usual jingle such as ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ or ‘Greensleeves’, but the theme tune to ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’. Everyone fell about laughing; it was hardly the kind of music designed to get children raiding their parent’s pockets (for A Fistful of Dollars, perhaps?) and running across the road for a portion of dairy. Its composer, Ennio Morricone, passed away recently too – perhaps the sound of him spinning in his grave could also be heard if we listened hard enough.

As the score neared 100, one of those pivotal moments came forth that can ultimately decide a game of cricket. The excellent David Floyd, each and every dot ball he bowled Another Brick In The Wall, took a breather, and his control and guile was swapped for the pace of new player Nick Bursey. As we ruminated upon after the game, it’s never easy as a wicket-keeper to gauge where to stand to a pace bowler you’ve never played with before; Nick’s first couple of deliveries were quick, but he was merely shaking off the rust. In his second over, bowling to Jenkins, he bowled a streak of lightning that took the edge of the bat; I heard the nick and felt it hit my hand, but I didn’t actually see the ball until it was on the floor. After that, every ball seemed to find the inside-edge of his bat and either squirt through his legs to fine leg or he turned it extremely late off his pads; just when we thought he’d play onto his stumps, another French cricket-style cut would whip past me and down to the fine leg boundary. In the olden days, such batsmen’s tools were described by bowlers as having “more edges than a broken piss-pot”, and together with Tony he added 71 runs until Killer – having replaced the excellent but utterly luckless Sujanan, who surely one of these days will get the wickets his bowling deserves – got one to pop up at Jenkins. He tried to pull it but found the edge, which ballooned up towards me behind the stumps; this one stayed in the gloves and we’d taken our fourth wicket at 140. That brought Raj to the wicket, playing straighter than Jenkins but possessing the same positivity and intent. Tony went to 95 with a pull to square leg off Killer – one more than he scored against us last year – and, off the next ball, contrived to throw away another chance of a century. He mistimed his drive to the long-on boundary where Scott was rushing in; breaths were held all around the ground. Scott covered the ground brilliantly and wrapped his hands around the ball…but, as his elbow hit the ground, his hands popped open and the ball rolled to the floor. Tony escaped with a single, and everyone breathed again.

He duly brought up his century by steering the returning David to the Dark Side Of The Moon (a.k.a. the square leg boundary), and was rightly applauded by all. It had been an excellent knock, thoroughly deserving of three figures. Raj, who had helped steer Tony to his ton, tried one big shot too many off Killer and gave Scott a second successful chance at taking a catch. 188/5 quickly became 201/6; Tony was fed a full toss by Killer and thumped it to Andrew Counihan at backward square leg; “Safe Hands” doesn’t drop those. Tony was finally dismissed for 115, and after the last couple of overs saw Bhatt and Wilson give what Sir Ian Botham used to call some “humpty”, their innings closed on 226-6. Wickets-wise, Killer had been the pick with 3-59, his figures tarred slightly by the last couple of overs, while David Floyd and Sujanan were the most economical. The fielding had been fantastic and the Boars spirit good. We went into the interval feeling a lot happier about proceedings that we’d done a week earlier.

Joe revealed what was possibly the worst packed lunch ever seen on a cricket field, and surely worthy of a club fine. Having told us he’d been offered pizza and other lovely things by his wife, he’d turned that down and decided, instead, to bring with him six digestive biscuits. We offered to go to the shops to buy him one of those Dairylea Lunchables you find kids tucking into at school, but he wasn’t having any of it. As things would transpire, though, maybe six digestive biscuits is the recipe for success.

With so much batting in the team, and with three new guys in the middle order, I pulled rank and dropped down to the very bottom of the line-up, allowing my knackered body a nice rest after all that keeping – much to the chagrin of Andrew, who likes opening the batting as much as he likes watching England win The Ashes. His suggestions that I open the batting while he came in at number six fell on deaf ears as I sharpened my scorer’s pencil and familiarised myself with the Trinity Oxley electronic scoreboard. Andrew’s opening partner would be Richard, the Earl of Purley and of Merton, and proud owner of two new hips. It was terrific to see him back at the crease; he hadn’t played for a year, and when he had been playing regularly it was clear not all was right with those legs of his. He and Andrew watchfully saw off the first few overs from Nair and Kaleem, and then hit their stride. Andrew hit the first boundary, a searing drive to leg, before Richard cracked two straight fours off Nair. He looked totally revitalised; body balanced when facing the ball, not falling to the off-side when trying to cut or drive, and when he hit the ball it stayed hit. The pitch was providing no help to the bowlers, and the running between the wickets was sharp and intelligent.

After ten overs we were scoring at four an over, and in the 16^th over Andrew and Richard registered a very fine fifty-run partnership. But the bowling had changed; Raj Deol – who did a lot of damage against us with the ball the previous year – and the enjoyably excitable Bhatt were now on, and getting the ball to do things. Runs became harder to score, and it was Bhatt that made the breakthrough. Richard went for a big drive but got more height than distance, and Jenkins held on comfortably to the catch. Trinity Oxley had been quietened ; now they were elated. Richard, looking better than he had done for years, had gone for a sparkling 29, and was rightly given a great ovation as he left the field. That brought Scott Wesselo to the wicket, and he wasted no time in unfurling some superb shots for four. Wristy and powerful, the ball zipped regularly to the boundary and he’d caught up with the becalmed Andrew in no time.  But no sooner had he raced ominously to 29 than his wicket was broken in freak fashion. By all accounts, Bhatt bowled one on the line of leg stump; Scott played forward, the ball hit a crack or divot in the pitch, and took off instead on the trajectory of off and middle. Or it might have been the other way round; I don’t think anybody quite realised what had happened. It sounded like a ball Mitchell Starc bowled in the Ashes a couple of years ago. All we knew was that Scott had gone, cut off in his prime, having threatened to make huge inroads into the target. Indeed, another six or seven of Scott could well have proven decisive. Bhatt and his team-mates were elated; they knew they’d hooked a big fish.

Saurab was the next new cab off the rank, having not picked up a bat for nine years, and was unlucky to receive one straight and true after just two balls that rocked back middle stump. Bhatt had three wickets and had turned the game their way; two overs later, we were five down for 101. Andrew still looked solid despite the runs drying up, and it took a piece of utter brilliance from Alex Wilson to dismiss him. He took a single off Bhatt’s bowling to Alex at midwicket, who – with one stump to aim it – broke the wicket with a direct hit, with Andrew short of his ground. It was the finest run out against us I’d seen during my six years as skipper, and “Safe Hands” was gone, and possibly our chances of seriously threatening the target. Nick came to the crease and also showed immense promise, mixing power with skill, but after a couple of fine boundaries was castled by Bhatt who now had four of the five wickets to fall.

Still, as Joe and Ian took to the crease, both on nought, we had a solid platform. Joe instantly launched a couple of ferocious drives and, like Richard, looked more composed and solid that ever before; when Joe gets going, outcomes the long handle and he can hit a mighty ball in between swinging and missing, but there was no chasing after everything today. The straight stuff was blocked out, and anything slightly off line or length got carted, including a humongous six off Raj in his final over. Ian was looking to move the ball into the gaps while Joe upped the scoring rate, but – in the 30^th over -was undone by Waleed Sajjid. He simply played a little early in trying to steer him down to fine leg and was bowled. David strode to the crease, having taken ‘A Nice Pair’ of wickets earlier, and helped Joe bring the target under 100. Time was running short, though, and the light was started to fade; it had been murky for most of the day, but as the clock swung towards seven o’clock the sun had decided to pack up and try again another day. A couple of Joe’s straight drives swished to the long-on boundary past Bhatt, who wasn’t picking up the ball at all well, but David then lost his wicket. Having thumped Seymour for four, he was stumped by Springer; off he went to ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ (or, at least, the pavilion).

Two overs later, Killer came and went without troubling the scorers, bowled by Seymour. Neither time nor wickets were on our side now, but Sujanan and Joe sparkled in the gloom. Two sensational straight drives from Suj bisected mid-off and mid-on, while Joe found every gap he aimed for and, as the overs ticked down and as the target sailed into the sunset, another four brought up his fifty. Smokin’ Joe the Smoking Gun had batted superbly and was well-applauded by everyone.

With just four balls of the match remaining, Sujanan popped up a return catch to Kaleem to leave us 189/9; a single from me, squirted Jenkins-like past the leg stump, took the score to 190 before Joe blocked out the last ball. We’d lost by 36 runs, but what a terrific game it had been. Bhatt had been the pick of the bowlers, taking 4-41 when we seemed on course to chase down the target, and the game had glittered with some fine individual performances. It was only a shame that those of who like a beer after a day’s cricket couldn’t retire to the bar and wind down in their time-honoured fashion, but it’s a small and acceptable price to pay for keeping safe and getting the game on. Those of us who resemble a keg on legs could probably do without the extra ballast, too.

After the shit-show of the previous week, pride and honour had been restored. We’d rolled over against Trinity Oxley the previous year, too: this year, we’d been a real threat. All in all, it was a superb game of Sunday cricket that was enjoyed by everyone, least of all the new guys. Now I’m off to the drawing board, to make a plan for Tony Springer for next year…