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 12th 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 2nd 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 2nd
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 1st 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 16th 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 30th
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…
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