Boars @ Sanderstead: Touched By Serendipity

Serendipity: 

the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

Some wins are happy accidents; some can be planned and executed well; some come about by complete and utter surprise. Our first-ever game against Sanderstead fell into the final category. After years spent snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, it was an occasion when the exact opposite occurred…and only by dint of some serendipitous moments did it come about.

Firstly, a word about the previous week’s game, at home to Red Square Lions. They were a lovely bunch of players, some of whom brought their kids along, and the day’s cricket was enjoyable. Sadly, the now-notorious home pitch – wrecked by a heatwave and a total lack of curation – decided to live up to its reputation as a graveyard for all bowlers who can’t turn it a mile from leg to off, and was about as sterile as a vasectomy ward the morning after the big snip. One gun batsman, who scored a hundred despite batting with a damaged shoulder, was the difference between the teams (as was some seriously off-kilter fielding), and they won by 90-odd runs. Everything about the day, apart the pitch, was great…but I wasn’t going to blog about another day when we only took three wickets on a dustbowl in forty overs!

And so we moved on to the Boars’ inaugural trip to Sanderstead, and what a difference a week had made. Last Sunday had been the fourth day out of six where the temperature in London had topped 35 degrees; come Saturday, and either everyone’s games had been washed out or T20 games were being played instead as a way of guaranteeing cricket against the forecasted monsoons. I’d half-expected to receive an email from Tom Palfrey, my opposite number, telling me the game was off when I found out they’d had four of their five games cancelled on Saturday; thankfully, the inbox stayed quiet, and as we all arrived at their picturesque little ground, The Old Saw Mill, conditions for cricket looked good. The forecast had changed significantly – only showers were coming our way, so they said – and a whole day’s cricket was on the cards.

As Tom picked a fight with a pull-cord leaf blower and lost, and with the legendary Derek Rushforth sitting atop the club roller, bristling with intent and revving the engine every few moments, the Boars marvelled at the condition of the pitch. I was expecting a soggy pudding of a wicket, the kind that makes you say “we’ll have a bowl” upon winning the toss and not feeling guilty about asking your team to field first yet again; the pitch was smooth, covered with a nice, even layer of grass and rock-hard. I’d already decided to bat first if I did call correctly, but for only the fourth time in thirty tosses I didn’t…but I was pleased when Tom decided to have a bowl first anyway. The rest of the Boars, who’d presumably struck me off their Christmas card lists the previous week for erroneously bowling first against Red Square Lions, reacted with a mix of surprise and delight. Richard and I went to pad up.

A word about Sanderstead. For the last few seasons, they have established a thriving YouTube channel which had become home to dozens of highlights packages of their games, and it’s done a fantastic service to the recreational cricket scene as well as for their own club. Filmed by the inestimable Dan Allen, they’ve recorded some high-quality League cricket on Saturdays and some moments of utterly hilarious, totally village and always entertaining friendly and development cricket on Sundays. The whole world knows about Sanderstead; one of their clips has been used in the ECB Umpire course, and even the great Sachin Tendulkar retweeted one of their most talked-about clips to all his followers. During lockdown, their videos have been watched time and again, and – certainly for me – were a source of great comfort whilst the game was put in mothballs.

When other members found out that the Boars were playing Sanderstead, everybody wanted to play in the team…Instagram and Tik Tok might be the millenial’s craze of choice, but the prospect of being on telly is still just too much of a pull to resist. Appointments at hair salons were booked. Nails were manicured. Backs, sacks and cracks were waxed. The bit of space between the eyebrows was plucked and moisturised. Blusher was packed into kit bags. All, though, was to no avail; Dan had decamped to Beddington to film a development game instead (which also turned out to be a cracker), and freshly-coiffed fringes flopped sadly at the prospect of once again playing to no audience. In the absence of the camping Dave “The Demon” Barber and the working Rob “Typhoon” Turner came Jack Ayling and “Bertie” Basit Ubaid; Jack’s presence behind the stumps meant I had another day of grazing in the outfield, so I was a happy chappy.

Ben Carter-Martina bowled the first over: he is just thirteen, he is quick, and his length was excellent. Bowling down the hill, though, saw him develop a no-ball problem that blighted his first four overs, but he ran in with purpose and intent and gave Richard and I precious little to go after. His style was complemented at the other end by Milan, who came in off about four steps and bowled every ball on the same spot just outside middle and off. Sure enough, as soon as Richard told me to keep an eye on what Milan was bowling, I played the wrong shot to the wrong ball; it simply wasn’t full enough for the drive back over his head that I attempted, and the ball went high rather than far between mid-off and mid-on. At first, Stuart Elleray didn’t look like he was going to make up the ground, and when he did he juggled the ball four times before pouching it. One run was my solitary contribution, but our first serendipitous moment had arrived; Jack was now batting. His temperament is excellent and it needed to be, as the pitch – as bouncy and true as ours was untrustworthy and all over the place – was slower than I thought it would be.

Progress was slow. The bowling was excellent, and shots that on other days would have yielded runs were going straight to fielders. Richard and Jack had their defensive game in place and looked solid; we just needed a big over or two to loosen the shackles. They never came. Dev and Darren Budden replaced Ben and Milan and continued the squeeze with accurate slow bowling, and in the 15^th over Richard was trapped in front by Dev. 38/2 was the score and in came Andrew Counihan, and together with Jack the score crept inexorably up. But, after a thirty-run partnership and with only fifteen overs left, Budden bowled Andrew. Shakil came in and signalled his intentions with a booming drive for four, but he too got bogged down; with only nine overs left we were only on 95/3 – nowhere near setting a realistic target for Sanderstead to chase. As Jack kept on chipping his way, finally entering the forties, Shakil was cleaned up by Budden; two balls later, it was 95/5. Joe, promoted one place up the order to provide some fireworks, got a top-edge that flew to the gully area; Simon Clare hared around from point whilst Tom, as keeper, chased after it, and as they almost collided Simon took a brilliant diving catch.

That, serendipitously, brought Saurabh to the wicket and, after a slow start to his Merton career, opened his shoulders and started to score runs. Tom’s best four bowlers had, crucially, bowled out, and the legendary “Deadly” Derek Rushforth and Mark Hughes were to bowl the final eight. If we were to motor, it had to be now. The new bowlers weren’t able to replicate the accuracy of their predecessors, and Jack – batting like a man liberated – brought up his fifty with a drive through the covers. It was a deserved moment for him after narrowly missing out against Sopwith Camels a fortnight previously, but shortly after that came calamity: a mix-up between Jack and Saurabh saw them both at the same end after an attempted second run, and Jack had to go for a dogged, determined 57. He’d built the foundations; now we had to push the scoring on.

Cometh the hour, cometh Basit. I’ve seen him bat, and boy can he bat. He’s a livewire: bristling with energy and determination, and – in tandem with Saurabh – laid waste to Derek and Mark. Forty runs were plundered in three overs, including a huge six off Derek the ball after Simon had dropped Basit in the deep. 150 flew past, and finally we were posting a total we could realistically defend. Saurabh rotated the strike and Basit was finding the gaps previously closed to us, running hard twos and pressurising the field. The two of them brought up their fifty partnership with the first ball of the last over, but with the second ball Basit went for one big hit too many and was excellently caught by young Ben. The next ball saw Saurabh call for two when only one run was on, and the unlucky Ian Bawn found his wicket sacrificed at the altar of quick runs without facing a ball. Welcome to the Platinum Duck club, Bawny. Saurabh had time for one more pull shot for four before being caught off the last ball of the innings, a superb take by Dev on the square-leg boundary, and we had finished on a scarcely-believable 176/9. Sixty-nine runs had come from the last seven overs. Basit had finished with 30 and Saurabh an excellent 33 (plus two run-outs)…but all that running between the wickets was merely a precursor for more serendipity whilst we fielded.

Tea-time saw the now-regular inspection of Joe Gunewardena’s lunch box. This week, following on from his previous offerings of six digestive biscuits and six almond slices, he’d brought himself two packets of mini-Cheddars and what looked like four or five malted milks; we launch our “#FeedJoe” appeal this Friday.

Sujanan and John “Killer” Smither opened the bowling for us against Simon Clare and Ian Lemon, and Simon soon looked in good touch. Killer provided the openers with some moments of concern and they were very good off their pads against Suj, but it didn’t seem to matter how tight we kept it, runs trickled along. Just like in our previous games, toil and luck were about as far apart as Castlemaine and Castleford, and apart from Simon being perilously close to being run out from a direct hit, chances weren’t presenting themselves. Then, in the 12^th over, we finally made a breakthrough. It came the ball after Simon had chipped one wide of me at midwicket; I leapt at it and got my hand to it but couldn’t wrap my fingers around the ball, and it fell to the ground. Killer then bowled his worst ball, a full-toss right in the slot for Ian to cream for four…only the ball sailed to Andrew “Safe Hands” Counihan at mid-off instead, and he never drops those.

Then came another of those serendipitous moments. Saurabh, having chased a pull to the leg-side boundary and stopped a couple of runs, went to field the next ball and felt his hamstring go. Not only did that leave me with an injured player in the field (and we swapped him with Richard at slip), but it had robbed me of a bowler. Shakil, promoted up the order to get more batting time, was only supposed to bowl four overs; now, with Saurabh out of the attack before he’d started, he’d have to bowl a full eight.

Ian and Basit took over the bowling, and Basit immediately got turn and bounce from the pitch. A battle worthy of the Coliseum between Basit and Simon unfolded before us; Basit, turning the ball prodigiously across Simon, who either defended and missed or played the bowling well. Both would give each other a knowing smile from time to time. At the other end, Stuey Elleray was happy to rotate the strike which meant five runs an over were being scored without any discomfort, until Simon offered Joe a difficult skied chance on the boundary which Joe just couldn’t hold on to. Drinks were taken with Sanderstead 97/1 and in no trouble at all; the sun was shining and the light was strong, and the earlier showers that had briefly christened the ground had disappeared for good. The pitch contained no demons. Simon grew increasingly confident facing Basit, who received zero success for his excellent endeavours, and the fifty partnership was brought up as their score breezed past 100.

Shakattack was immediately into his groove bowling up the hill, while at the other end, Joe came on to bowl. He had appeared to have developed a new/old style of bowling: the Victorian, pre-Grace speciality of round-arm. As his first ball was smashed into Sanderstead High Street by Simon, I loudly questioned his style of bowling from long-off, and wondered whether he’d like to bowl over-arm instead. When he did, in his next over, the difference was immediate: Simon, on 75 and having been dropped one more time by Killer in the deep (running in to take a difficult diving catch, he had his hands around the ball only for it to spill from his grasp as he hit the floor), tried to paddle Joe around the corner to fine leg, only for the ball to loop up off the bat and into the grateful gloves of Jack. That was the 29^th over: Sanderstead were 139/2, needing 37 more runs to win. Game over…or so it seemed.

Joe was suddenly unplayable. His arm was high and his famed loop and air had returned; after conceding 15 off that first over, his next three produced a debit of just eight runs. Meanwhile, Shakil had placed a tourniquet around Stuey Elleray and Sofiane; the off-side was packed to compliment his off-and-middle line and length, and the scoreboard had ground to a halt. Basit and Suj had brought an astounding energy to the fielding that only comes with youth and a set of limbs untroubled by age, and as the boundaries dried up, so did the ones and twos. Stuey tried to take a run but was run out by a combination of Suj and Jack, but surely this mini-collapse was surely nothing more than that; Sanderstead needed 33 off eight overs, or 48 balls. We were never going to take the rest of the wickets, and surely were playing for nothing more than the opportunity to make them fight for every run they needed.

If that was the script, Shakil and the returning Suj simply ripped it up. Shakil conceded just nine scoring strokes off his entire eight overs, and finally got just reward in his seventh over when Mark Hughes drilled one back to him and he held on to a smart catch. At the other end, Suj was a different bowler. He returned to the attack full of fire and bursting with pace, and after beating Sofiane’s bat he cleaned him up with a ball that was simply full and fast.  Then, in the same over, Tom was stranded in the middle of the wicket as Basit’s throw was scooped up and the stumps rearranged. The 37^th over closed, and Sanderstead had suddenly stalled at 154/6. Twenty-three needed off eighteen balls. The tension was palpable. Ian Bawn returned once Shakil had finished with 1/16 off his eight overs, and only conceded one run from his first over back – Ben and Dev were at the wicket, twenty were needed off twelve balls. Ben can hit a mean ball and slashed at Suj’s penultimate delivery, sending the ball flying to the third man boundary to break the shackles, but only three more runs came from the rest of the over. With ball in hand, Ian Bawn had the final six balls to defend fourteen runs.

Ben started with a good hit for two, then blocked the next two balls. Thirteen needed from three. The fourth ball yielded a single whilst screams for a second run to be taken rent the air; it was now or never: twelve from two balls. Dev was good enough to hit two sixes, we all knew that, but Ian’s fifth ball was flatter and Dev could only hammer it into the leg-side outfield where Basit was prowling; it was soon back in Jack’s hands, two runs had been taken, and they needed ten runs from the final ball. All Ian had to do was avoid bowling a wide or no-ball, and we’d won. Dev was cursing himself; he hadn’t realised it was the last over, and thought there was still a couple left in the day. He knew we’d somehow contrived a win from a losing position. Defiantly, Dev struck the last ball of the game powerfully over the fence towards the scorebox; through its small window it sailed with a loud wooden clatter, almost decapitating the scorer in the process. From Sanderstead needing just 36 runs to win from their last ten overs, the Boars had won by just three runs having conceded just 21 runs in eight overs leading to the finish. We’d turned it round in a manner we’d never done before, certainly not in my six years’ captaincy. Sure, as I said at the top, we’ve thrown away lots of advantageous positions in the past against all manner of teams, but the dice had never rolled in our favour. Tom and his players were as gracious and classy in defeat as we’d expected them to be, and a twinge of sympathy was felt for Simon, who’s 75 looked like it had paved the way for a cruise to the finish line.

Everyone had made a difference: Killer had made the first breakthrough; Suj’s second spell was death bowling at its fiery finest; Basit provided control with the ball, fireworks with the bat and urgency in the field; Shakil had strangled the batsmen into unconsciousness; Joe had provided the decisive moment by dismissing Simon; Jack’s 57 paved the way for the later acceleration and Saurabh’s 33 – and some fantastic fielding on one leg in the slips area – was another link in the chain. As for Sanderstead, they were extremely unlucky. Ben is a bowler who’s pace will be causing some intestinal quivering in two or three years, and I’ve had nightmares about Milan ever since. Dev and Darren Budden had us nailed to the floor, Simon and Stuey batted with a calmness and fluency that had sucked all the hope out of us at one point, and their fielding had been on point.

Back at the clubhouse, the beer was cold – very cold. The two teams grouped side by side, happily chatting away, laughing and joking as the light drew in and the dusk settled over the Old Saw Mill. Once again, it had been a fantastic day’s cricket; we’d been at a lovely ground and played a great set of players. Here’s hoping for a repeat fixture next year…and the salons of Merton will once again be called into action.

Boars v Sopwith Camels: (Sod's) Law and (Batting) Order: Criminal (Pitch) Intent

 

It isn’t often you get to play cricket at a venue that reeks of grandeur and splendour. The moment I heard from Mat Flint, the long-standing member of the Sopwith Camels Cricket Club, that our game against them was to be played at a place called ‘The Warren’, also known as the Metropolitan Police Sports Ground, I did what every club captain does: I hit Google, and it looked like we’d hit the jackpot. An aerial image of a former stately home, surrounded by the kind of lush, leafy greenery that offered more than a hint of a miniature Downton Abbey to the image beaming out from my phone screen, was swiftly shared around the Sunday Boars WhatsApp group. “Cor, look at this!” was the underlying message, “we’re going to Bromley for a slap-up game of cricket”. No council estate park this, with pigeon feathers and dog and fox shit littering the square, and an outfield about as level as a corrugated iron roof being thrown around Alabama by the latest oddly-named hurricane. The kind of creatures you see only in zoos these days would be patrolling the boundaries and beyond, grazing on the grass, making all sorts of strange noises; Freddie Flintoff’s voice urging “Mind the peacocks, Tino” came into my head. I imagined chairs cushioned with something other than a thin layer of plastic to sit on, none of those dark green garden chairs we have at the home ground that my arse, which this year is roughly the size of a shire horse, would demolish in about five seconds with a splintering crash. I visualised, in days gone by, butlers bringing out drinks on a tray, glasses clinking against each other with every precarious step taken by Jeeves, or Hudson, or whatever butlers were called in the twentieth century. I don’t think even Coronavirus would have stopped the Bromley set from enjoying a glass of something sparkling – reading through tales of cricket during the Edwardian era, players weren’t satisfied with a plastic beaker of warm orange or blackcurrant purchased four months previously from the cash and carry. Those that had survived the First World War were only too happy to stick their middle fingers up to anything that wasn’t as horrifying as mustard gas attacks and walking into a hail of bullets at the Somme, and so only something fizzy and alcoholic would have passed muster, and consequences be damned. Apparently, the England bowlers Sydney Barnes and Frank Foster took a sip of champagne every time either of them took a wicket on the 1911/12 tour of Australia; seeing as England won that series 4/1 and Barnes and Foster took a stack of wickets between them (Foster, apparently, invented Bodyline on this tour, not Douglas Jardine twenty years later), they must have spent most of their days on the field pissed out of their minds.

 

Fast forward to the 2020 season, and if the Boars had celebrated every wicket with a drop of alcohol we’d be virtually tee-total. To say that we’ve found it hard to take wickets on pitches bone dry, un-rolled and starved of moisture would be an understatement; the drier the summer, the more the bowlers toil, and the less rewards they reap. This truncated season has begun to mirror 2018, when a heatwave baked the home ground so hard that 1990’s football pitch markings rose to the surface when the outfield hadn’t been cut for a while, whereas last year was not as warm, with more rain during the summer weeks, and we as a team bowled other teams out on a regular basis. This season, so far, we’d taken three wickets against Cheam, six against Trinity Oxley, and seven against Banstead in a combined total of 122 overs. Discounting extras, that’s a wicket every 46 balls. Rob Turner, Suj Romalojoseph, Shakil Ehsan, John Smither – all have bowled well and with distinction, for virtually zero reward.

 

Come the morning of the match, and for a brief period the game was in real jeopardy. Injury and illness had struck the Camels, and they were down to just eight players – including one that had apparently fallen down the stairs. My mind travelled back to last year, when we played the Camels at the Roebucks ground, and Killer had blown away their top order on the way to the Boars greatest-ever performance with the ball, dismissing them for just 64; blimey, I thought, they’ll do anything to get out of facing Killer a second time. But no sooner had Mat given me the grim news, he was back in touch to say replacements had been found and the game was still on. A collective sigh of relief swept across the team; with more great weather forecast and the clock on this mini-season just starting to tick down, the prospect of losing a Sunday had been too awful to contemplate. I, for one, had cleaned the oven enough times during lockdown, thank you very much.

 

For the Boars, there were three changes: back came Saurabh Bhargava and Richard Ackerman for the unavailable Ian Bawn and Rhino-for-the-day David Floyd, and in came Jack Ayling, Saturday 1^st XI captain (and, happily for me, wicket keeper for the day) for Tom Allen. In normal circumstances, Jack is too good (and, alongside Suj, too young) for the Boars; when he’s played on Sundays previously, he’s played for the Rhinos, but having played all his cricket to date at the home pitch – which has offered the kind of playing conditions to justify the club paying for the square to be blown up in September – he was keen to get away from the place and have a game on a better wicket. We were a tad light on bowling but only playing 35 overs a side, which was a blessing, as surplus overs were to come from Dave Barber, Andrew Counihan and myself – none of whom had bowled since indoor nets in March. I prayed that the Camels’ stand-in players weren’t league ringers.

 

On arrival at The Warren, the place didn’t disappoint. A long driveway through wrought-iron gates led to the sumptuous, red-brick country pile from the photos on Google. A rumour went around that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, had once owned the place, but that turned out not to be true; he was certainly mad on cricket and once played for the same team as W.G. Grace, but he lived not too far away in Sydenham instead. No, the Warren was built in the 1860’s and it’s last owner, an MP by the name of Preston, was so supportive of the Metropolitan Police that he bequeathed the place to them in his will. For the last few decades, it has been a place for retired officers to come and relax, have a few drinks and watch the cricket. In more recent times, The Warren has become a venue for weddings and functions. Young families were at their cars, unpacking scooters, fold-up chairs and picnic baskets from the boot, ready to find a spot somewhere on the other side to relax and enjoy what was a lovely, warm, sunny day.

 

Our first view of any greenery was the bowling green, positioned to the side of the building. It looked like a luxuriant green postage stamp, as level as a snooker table; if the cricket field was anything as well-curated, I’d be tempted on winning the toss to announce the Boars would break first rather than bowl first.

 

Alas, the cricket field was not like the bowling green.

 

Given that newly-married couples regularly celebrate their nuptials at this venue, The Warren and its other surroundings were more like the marriage of David and Victoria Beckham or Kim and Kanye whatshisname: glamorous, eye-catching, something to murmur about, whether for good or ill. The cricket field was more like the marriage of Stan and Hilda Ogden from Coronation Street of yesteryear: grim in appearance, attritional-looking, not a hint of joy in sight. Two strips looked like they’d be cut and marked at some point in the last year, but not recently; they were barely distinguishable from the rest of the field. One of them had three large fungal-looking black stains at one end, just on a length, that covered the width of the wicket, and my mind was instantly taken back to a game we’d played at Wandsworth Common in 2018 – that pitch looked like it had been dropped in from the moon, with a crack the length and width of the San Andreas fault running across the crease at one end. These pitches had clearly been played upon at some point as well. The lack of rain, and also - it turned out - of an appointed groundstaff, meant the wickets were a Colombo-style dustbowl starved totally of any watering (it hadn’t rained heavily or extensively for weeks either), while the outfield had that burnt-brown hue and was as hard as concrete, pitted with hundreds of bare patches. The ground also sloped from top to bottom, with the square on the kind of gradient that gives learner drivers reverse-parking nightmares.  A lovely old scorebox was positioned in the shade of some trees alongside the pitch, but next to it was, I presumed, the pavilion – or rather, had been. It clearly hadn’t been used in several years; the windows were smashed and its wooden boards rotten and peeling. This being a ground hosting retired coppers every day of the week, it wouldn’t surprise me if this dilapidated old hut wasn’t housing  the dead body of one of those secretaries that had been the local doctor’s bit on the side in an Agatha Christie novel, or a flighty shop assistant who’d flirted with the local psychopath in an Inspector Morse story, her life extinguished by a sharp pull on the neckerchief swathed across her windpipe, sending her dreams of finding Mr Right and settling down to the grave with a choke and a gasp (a bit like the Boars innings, sometimes). And with Killer Smither in our ranks, as kindly and sociable as any other person but apparently a real wiz with a boning knife, a supply of gaffer tape and a shovel, and proficient at – to quote Ebeneezer Scrooge – decreasing the surplus population, anything was possible. I half-expected the Camels to produce Miss Marple as one of their guest players.

 

The Camels themselves were hard at work undergoing their pre-match conditioning and hydration: relaxing around the tables, waiting for us, beer in hand. The stalwarts were instantly recognisable - JP, Merton’s bete noire on so many occasions in the past, was shaggier of hair but heartier of laugh; Hughie, the Camels’ wily old fox, looked ready to unpick us again with his wobble-seamers, Al was wearing his traditional white vest and shorts (he wore it to bat last year, and umpired topless); Scooby looked as cool as ever in his trademark shades; Ed was sat like a coiled spring, ready to leap into action. Also with them was young Sam Meakin, flying the flag for the younger generation, but missing was Harry Deans – an emerging talent – and Vinay, who appeared to be the one who’d picked a fight with the stairs and lost. That was a crucial loss for them, as Vinay is another who has done us a lot of damage in the past. In to the team, as the short-notice replacements, were Duncan and his young daughter Emily, fresh from a game of age-group cricket in the morning. That still left them one short, but they were playing the Boars…a numerical advantage on our part, no matter how great or slim, counts for nothing.

 

With everyone present and changed, ready to play, Hughie and I tossed up. Yet again, heads won it for me, and in to bowl we went. Rob “The Typhoon” Turner and “Killer” Smither, still buoyed by the memory of slicing and dicing the Camels a year ago (5-26), took the new ball, and as I watched Jack keep wicket to balls lifting shoulder-height or threatening to shoot along the floor, I was thankful I was back in the field and not wearing the gloves.  JP and Ed were opening the batting, and JP in particular was merciless on anything short. Rob was bowling down the hill into those ugly spore-like patches and they simply sucked the pace out of every ball he bowled, enabling the batsmen to play anything outside off-stump as late as possible. The pitch was ridiculously slow, with the kind of uneven trampoline bounce at both ends to destroy a batsman’s form and confidence. Killer was arguably bowling better than he did when he took all those wickets, but this time around JP and Ed were equal to him; we were, for the first time in a very long time, very ordinary in the field as well, and Killer’s figures suffered through some dubious attempts to stop the ball. The outfield was like a sheet of glass too, which meant if a defensive prod went past a fielder it usually resulted in a boundary.

 

Rob was unlucky not to snaffle the adventurous JP when he pulled a ball straight to Suj at midwicket; the speed of the ball surprised Suj, who got both hands around the ball but couldn’t hold on. Ed kept finding the fielders with his cuts and drives but JP was scoring freely, and not long after the fifty partnership had been notched his innings came to an end. Suj and Shakil replaced the luckless Rob and Killer, and Suj got JP to top-edge a ball straight back to him. Drinks came on 18 overs with the Camels at 74-1, and Suj and Shakil had really put the squeeze on: the pressure to start scoring at more than three runs per over had increased to an extent that, as soon as the drinks break was over, Ed called for a single to Saurabh at mid-off that really wasn’t there; Saurabh fizzed the ball expertly back to Suj, who threw the ball behind him and knocked down the stumps. Prashant had been the unlucky batsman, run out for 1; next in to bat was Ash, the Camels wicket keeper, and he too found batting very heavy going – one good-length ball from Suj zinged three feet over his head and flew to Jack behind the stumps. But, as the score slowly crept past the hundred mark and with Suj and Shakil – wicketless again - bowled out, it took a fresh batch of left-arm pies from me to save the scorebox wickets mechanism from rusting up totally. My first over, a maiden, was tidy enough, and at the other end, Dave Barber was having his first-ever bowl for the Boars – it went for just two runs, and he really looked the part with ball in hand. Then, in my second over, I hit Ed on the front pad as he tried to push me round the corner to leg. Whether it had pitched in line or not, I was certain it had hit him in front (I could see leg stump as the ball made impact), and so I loudly asked the question of Al, umpiring topless once more. He had a think as the ball ran down to fine leg, then – to my delight, as I kept my eyes from being distracted by his nipples - raised his finger. That brought Sam to the crease, who’d heard me moaning earlier in the day that I was having to bowl a few overs without ever wanting to do, and as he pulled his first ball straight to Dave Barber at mid-on I’m sure he thought I’d been kidding him. It was the kind of pie Hansel and Gretel’s witch had been fattening them up to make – I’d wanted it to pitch yorker-length, only to see a knee-high full-toss leave my hand. Dave swallowed the catch, and as Duncan came out to bat, the field came in for the hat-trick ball. As Rob positioned himself at silly mid-off, I saw an enticingly large gap between Duncan’s bat and pad, off and middle stump beckoning me like a sea siren to an enchanted sailor. I willed myself to bowl it full and straight but my bolwing hand has long since stopped doing what my brain tells it to do, and it pitched just outside off instead; Duncan prodded at it, the ball looped up towards Rob who dived full-stretch and just about got his fingertips to it, and as we all gasped, the ball hit the turf. It had been agonisingly, teasingly close, but just not close enough.

 

We didn’t take any more wickets, but Dave came close in his third and final over. We’d effectively abandoned having a slip fielder as the ball was doing zero off the pitch, but Dave drew a defensive edge from Ash that would have arrived at a nice height for a first slip. Andrew Counihan also had a bowl and recorded six dots in his first over, before Rob and John returned to bowl the final five. They yielded just fourteen runs between them, and the Camels ended their innings on 144-4. It had been attritional and far from easy on the eye, but the pitch was to blame for that rather than the batting style; our bowlers had also been skilful in stopping the run rate from getting any higher than four runs per over in the face of the pitch and a lightning-fast outfield.  

 

Having spent the interval wondering whether any ex-coppers would try and arrest a couple of us for impersonating a bowler – when it was the pitch, so dead in places, that could have done with a chalk line around it – Richard “Snakehips” Ackerman and I padded up and went out to start our innings. From the start it was perilous, illustrated by two balls to me from Hughie in the same over: one bounced no higher than my shins, but the slow, trampoline bounce ensured I had time to jam it away, and another cut me in half whilst driving but bounced waist-high over the stumps. He was bowling into the ugly black spore-like patches, and every ball was akin to a lottery draw. Hughie opened with two maidens, with only byes coming from Sam Meakin at the other end, and it wasn’t until the fourth over that we managed to find the boundary. Richard and I traded boundaries to get the scoreboard going until I thought I’d kept a straight one out from Hughie, only to look back and see it bounce into the stumps. For the second week in a row I’d managed to deflect the ball onto my stumps, but that pesky Hughie Deans had got me yet again.

 

Jack Ayling strode out to the crease, and immediately creamed a short one from Sam down to the deep square leg boundary, but runs were not being allowed to flow. Richard looked strong at the crease once again, following his return to cricket a fortnight before at Trinity Oxley, and had to be at his patient best against the stuff being bowled into the fungus patch, but once Hughie was bowled out – 1/19 off seven overs, and ten of those runs coming in his final over – the shackles were loosened, but batting was still fraught with danger. Like the murderer in a Hercule Poirot story, waiting in the dark, silk scarf knotted around his knuckles, waiting to strangle some pretty young socialite for laughing at the size of his willy, the bowling still had the ability to shock. Young Emily stepped up for what could have been her first-ever bowl against grown-ups with a red ball, and after using her first couple of balls to get used to the length of an adult pitch, settled nicely into a groove. Anything bowled short was got after by Richard and Jack, which saw the score move past fifty, but when she got the ball pitched-up and straight, it was gun-barrel straight. A lesser batsman than Jack would have lost their middle-stump twice during her three overs, and she got better with every ball she bowled. At drinks, we were almost exactly where the Camels had been at the same time in their innings: 72/1, and half way to our target. Jack and Richard were batting well, and although the pitch could be spiteful – Jack was rapped on the gloves more than once – it was offering no movement at all to the bowlers. The batters were looking patient, untroubled, and putting away the bad balls when they came. Jack was showing the qualities that make him a Saturday 1^st XI player, while Richard was hitting the ball hard. We were motoring smoothly and harmlessly to our victory target.

 

At the other end, up the hill, Prashant had shown promise bowling seam-up, but had sprinkled each of his first three overs with a four-ball; that changed after drinks. He was suddenly finding the right length and looking a threat. JP, our friend always but nemesis with the ball in his hand, couldn’t find any rhythm at first and three fours in his first two overs helped the score past the hundred mark. We were 101/1, with twelve overs left to score the remaining 44 runs to win.

 

Ten minutes later, we were 102/5.

 

Jack, on 45, used his feet to a shorter-length ball from Prashant; it popped up on him, brushed against the face of the bat like a tennis ball against a brick wall, and ballooned back to Prashant. Catch taken, deadlock broken. Jack had batted really well and deserved a fifty; his partnership with Richard had yielded 76 runs, and he’d seemingly set us on course for a trouble-free win. But we, of course, are the Sunday Boars, and the wickets column suddenly started revolving as quickly as the body count in Midsomer Murders. Oli “The Ox” kept out his first ball, then had a swish at his second ball and was bowled, and Prashant had two wickets in the same over – finally, a bowler was getting a bit of luck to go with their skill and effort. JP had found his radar; now he rediscovered his passion for taking the wickets of Merton batsmen. Saurabh was unlucky to scoop a full-length ball to mid-on, before Dave – whose birthday it had been the previous day, had had a nice debut bowl and had even brought us cakes, which made him the perfect murder victim in any crime story  – perished, attempting a big hit off one that popped up and gave JP a regulation return catch.

 

The legendary Boars wobble was in full swing. We’d gone from being HMS Invincible to SS Titanic in ten short minutes. Nine overs remained to knock off the 43 runs required, and the prospect of a second straight win over the Camels was evaporating; the ending seemed to be a Camels win, as obvious as the ending of any murder story containing a shifty-looking butler. Only a ‘Line Of Duty’-style twist would save us now, and in Richard Ackerman we had our Ted Hastings – only one that talks of “hitting bent bowling” rather than “nicking bent coppers”. I was umpiring, and gloomy about our prospects; he simply said “but Andrew’s coming out now”, and indeed, he was. Andrew Counihan started with a boundary and never looked back. Each of the next four overs went at four an over, meaning that – with 30 balls left – we needed 24 to win, or around five an over. Still nip and tuck. I still didn’t have us as favourites. But then, when it was 23 runs needed off 24 balls, Andrew produced the moment that finally loosened the Camels grip on us. Scooby dropped one short, Andrew rocked back, and crashed the ball over the boundary and almost into Kent for six. You could hear the team sigh with relief; it was the moment we knew we were going to win.

 

In JP’s next over, Richard banged one through the covers for four and the cheers rang out from the Boars on the boundary; Snakehips had notched his half-century, and what a brilliant innings it had been. He’d mixed an anchor mentality with an attacking one, to claim his first 50 in at least four years. Just for good measure, he pulled JP’s next ball for four as well; not for the first time, JP greeted his own bowling with a cry of “Oh, shit!” before the ball had even been hit. Typical of the great sport he is, though, he’d been the first one to congratulate Richard.

 

Into the 34^th over we went, and under darkening skies, we needed just four runs to win. Richard played out Scooby’s first ball, then pulled his second ball to the boundary – and we’d won. With just ten balls remaining in a match that saw just two no-balls bowled on a dog of a wicket, we’d secured victory by five wickets. Andrew and Richard had put on 43 in 44 balls, and Richard was 56 not out. What an innings from Andrew, who now has a reputation for keeping a cool head in a crisis. His 22 not out contained three fours and that smoking six, and without his unflustered, attacking approach I doubt we’d have chased that target down. It had been a pulsating game, with nobody outright favourite until that big six had been hit, and an absolute pleasure to play in. The Boars have had plenty of these defeats, but they never hurt: a great day’s cricket has been enjoyed. You don’t get that when you’re asked to chase 400 in two hours.

 

Richard Ackerman clearly likes batting at The Warren. The last time a Merton team had played there had been 2015; I remember the day well for all the wrong reasons, as it was my first day as captain of the Sunday team that would soon adopt the ‘Boars’ moniker. We played at home, against Hook and Southborough, and were bowled out for 53 chasing 170 (we had been 32/9). This was the days before WhatsApp and Facebook updates, so we knew nothing about what had happened to the other Sunday team, led by Bob Egan, down at The Warren against the Camels, until they returned to the clubhouse. As we enjoyed our third or fourth post-match beer, they wandered in and regaled us with tales of a ten-wicket win. I thought they were joking; they weren’t. Richard Ackerman and Graham “Faz” Fazackerley had chased down 164 in 33 overs, Richard finishing unbeaten on 86. Which meant that, in the two innings Richard had most recently played at The Warren, he’d scored 142 runs and not been dismissed, and shepherded his team to victory on both occasions. Additionally, he hadn’t looked like being dismissed either.

 

The ex-coppers had all gone home by the time we’d packed our bags, cleared our rubbish and strolled back to the bar area; those that had watched some of the game had obviously thought the cricket to be criminal, supped up and left. Both teams had beers or soft drinks on order, and the air was filled with cricket talk between the two sets of players (who are, and hopefully always will be, good friends). Then, via WhatsApp, came the shocking news that both the Rhinos and the Eagles had lost…meaning the Boars had been the only Merton team to win over the weekend. There is no competition between the teams as we want all Merton teams to win their games, but it was a little smidge of icing on an already-attractive cake. Boars? Top dogs? For one day, just one day, it was nice to bask in the glow.

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…

Boars v Banstead 3rds: Strife In The Slow Lane

It was the former Spurs and England player Jimmy Greaves who coined the phrase about football being a “funny old game”; cricket, at times, can be even funnier. If you’re on the right side of the funny, great; if you’re on the receiving end, the funny tends to be gallows humour, something fans of cricket – especially those of an English variety – have been excelling at for generations. Earlier this season, after a run of endless defeats at the hands of Sopwith Camels, we shot them out for 64 and recorded a most remarkable – and unexpected – win. On this day, against a Banstead 3^rd XI that weren’t showing that many changes from the team we beat by nine wickets exactly a year ago, it was us that copped a bit of a hiding. A funny old game, indeed.

Last year’s game, despite the end result, was anything but a stroll. Timed cricket was something this captain had precisely zero experience of; we bowled first, and I spent most of the Banstead innings scratching my head at slip, wondering what on earth was going on, when we were going to finish, who should bowl the longest, etc. We bowled well and we fielded tidily and restricted them to 211-7 from 41 overs, at which point they declared. Bowling with the older ball, nothing happened for their bowlers; Waleed Sajjid and I opened and racked up 94 in no time. When Waleed departed, in came Ian Bawn, and we didn’t lose another wicket. 213-1 was out end total off just 31 overs, to record the biggest win of my time as a Merton player. The following week, we batted first against Ewell and were bowled out for 40. A bloody funny old game.

Banstead Cricket Club is picturesque and laden with history and tradition, and has hosted cricket for 177 years. It’s near enough to the high street to enable you to pop to the shops, but far enough away to keep the scream of traffic insulated from cricketing ears, and when us Boars began to arrive we found to our happy surprise that we would be playing on the front pitch. Last year’s wonderful game was played on the back pitch, which was enjoyable enough, but there’s always something special about playing on a club’s “show” pitch. Ominously though, our Sunday Wolves team had been playing the Banstead 2nds on the front pitch at the same time we were putting their 3rds to the sword…and lost.

It was a fine day. The sky was blue and mostly cloudless, and a nice warmth embraced Banstead as James Harper, their skipper, and I went out for the toss. I called correctly yet again (oh, if only I won a grand every time I won the toss I wouldn’t have to shop at Sports Direct for my cricket boots), and had no hesitation in batting first; this season’s four wins have all been won when bowling second, and with Pranav Pandey returning for his second game after spinning his web around the Park Hill top order the previous week, the first part of the plan had, well, gone to plan – which was, bat first, get as near to 200 as possible, unleash Pranav and Ben from the start and tie their batters up in knots. Team-wise, we were – as always – much-changed. Andrew, Suj and Ben came back to the Boars after Rhinos duty; Rob was playing his first game in a month due to injury; Johnny “Steriliser” Milton was back in the ranks and we also welcomed a brand-new player, Azam Khan, who my fellow captain – Tom Allen – had reported, and I quote, “was a bit nippy in the nets”. Tom Allen also thinks Aston Villa are going to finish in the top four this season.

SUNDAY BOARS: Neil Simpson (capt, wkt); Aleem Sajjid; Andrew Counihan; Johnathan Milton; Dave Barber; Pranav Pandey; Azam Khan; Sujanan Romalojoseph; Bob Egan; Ben Drewett; Rob Turner.

As the clock above the changing rooms struck one, Aleem and I strode out to the wicket to open the innings. A good start was essential, I said; I’d made 92 not out in the win the previous year, but knew runs wouldn’t be easy to come by this time around. I wanted 180 on the board as a potentially winning total; it would be down to myself and Aleem to lay the foundations. The first ball of the innings, bowled by Bill Early, went a mile down leg side and bounced at ankle height. The second ball I can’t remember facing; the third ball pitched on leg stump, so I played forward…only for the ball to move late, beat the edge, and knock back my off-stump. If my head were a balloon, the sound of air screaming out of it would’ve deafened the locality; as it was, after a slow, doleful look at my shattered stumps, I was trooping off towards the pavilion for another duck. 1:02pm, and most of my day’s work was done. Ninety-two to zero in one year is reminiscent of the engine of a once-reliable car blowing up and spluttering to a crappy halt.

Andrew Counihan came out to bat, and discovered for himself that the ball to dismiss me was no fluke; every ball bowled was wicket to wicket, landing on a perfect length, and for those of us who can barely move our feet in the bath, let alone at the crease, a sort of torture had begun. Mustafa bowled the second over and was pacy, getting good bounce out of the wicket; neither Aleem or Andrew were being allowed to bat expansively, and we had eked out five runs from the first five overs. Andrew finally got our first boundary by edging Mustafa through an empty slip cordon, but after pulling him for four in his next over and taking a single, Mustafa claimed his first scalp. Of the three fielders positioned on the off-side, Aleem had the misfortune to pick out the middle one as he cracked a short-length ball with some ferocity; it went down Read’s throat, and we were 20-2.

The pitch was proving to be very slow; the bowling slower still. Local knowledge was paying dividends for Banstead. Johnathan joined Andrew; the scoring still resembled a person with chronic constipation in urgent need of a laxative. Surely they could find a way to collar Bill Early? No chance. Over after over he wheeled away; dot after dot, maiden after maiden. Runs were coming off Mustafa at the other end, but Early was saving the scorer a fortune in pencil lead by tying up our batsmen in all sorts of knots. Johnny and Andrew were finally able to exchange a couple of boundaries, as Mustafa made way for Neil Sunderland, who – naturally – was a slow bowler, and notched a maiden with his first over. Eight balls later, Andrew was cleaned up by Sunderland; he reached a little too far forward to play defensively…and the stumps were knocked back. 41-3 after 15 overs became 50-4 five balls after drinks; Johnathan was well dug-in, but Dave tried to get a bit of power into a lofted drive, miscued and scooped it up to the waiting Harper.

Pranav came out to bat; the two youngest players were now at the wicket. Alan Lester had replaced Bill Early, whose eleven overs had included six maidens and only yielded an unbelievable five scoring strokes; once he’d bowled his customary maiden first over, Lester struck. Johnathan by now had become strokeless; his feet weren’t moving and he was drawing nearer and nearer to playing across the line. When he eventually gave in to temptation, Lester’s delivery was far too straight, and for the third time in our innings the stumps had been broken. Johnny had played really well for his 21, showing great patience and power when he’d had to chance to break free from the shackles before frustration had overcome him.

Azam came in and looked to push the scoring on. He miraculously kept out a Lester yorker that was taking out middle stump until the bat edged it a cigarette paper’s-width past off-stump and down to third man for two, but in the next over he went the way of Aleem, seeing a perfectly good hit go straight to a fielder – Harper again – who doesn’t appear to drop anything. 64-6 in the 28^th over was at least forty short of where I wanted us to be; Banstead’s bowlers were on the kind of strangling spree that gets serialised and shown on Netflix, and my hopes of declaring with a reasonable score had evaporated. Someone had to go big; sadly, it wouldn’t be Suj. Only two more runs had been scored when he played all round a straight one from Lester, and I had no choice but to raise the finger. At least I wouldn’t be alone in the Duck Club; he was the 34^th Boar duck of the season, and we were 66-7.

Pranav was still battling away, showing great maturity for his young years, but he had been backed up well and truly into his scoring shell. Bob joined him and hit a great boundary, but then became the third batsman to pick a fielder with a good shot: this time it was Sunderland taking the catch off the bowling of Nick Hunt. Bob and Pranav’s 21-run partnership was the joint-highest of the innings, which couldn’t have told the tale of our innings more eloquently had Stephen Fry been reading it. Nearly 38 overs had been bowled, and we were barely getting the ball off the cut strip, let alone the square. An anxious glance at the clock saw the long hand dropping to 3:20pm; we didn’t have any batters left to go big, so we’d have to suck up our low score and try to defend it as stoutly as possible. I told myself that 3:45pm would be the cut-off point for our innings, regardless of where our score was. Besides, I’d remembered how nice the sandwiches had been the previous year; if we couldn’t attack their bowling, surely we’d do a better job getting stuck into the teas.

Ben came out and kept Pranav company; Pranav didn’t seem able to open his arms and get expansive, but he didn’t look like getting out, either. Naturally, we were keeping an eye on the England/Australia Test match at Old Trafford, and I reckoned one or two Pranav’s could’ve kept England in the game. Pranav clipped a lovely boundary off his legs and Ben pulled Hunt for four, but then Mustafa returned, refreshed and revitalised. Despite having done a load of bowling in the League the day before, he’d lost none of his pace, and the ball to dismiss Ben was a beauty; quick and straight, it clipped the off-stump with such force that the bail went skimming halfway towards the boundary and the ball ended up nestled against the sightscreen.

That was with 42.5 overs gone; Rob stepped out as the last man, and I confirmed our innings would end after the next over. That over, bowled by Hunt, was started but not finished, as Rob lunged forward and was stumped by Beaumont. He became member no.35 of the Boars 2019 Duck Club. We were all out for just 103 in 43.3 overs, or 262 balls (with one wide), in 165 minutes. Banstead had bowled an astonishing 15 maiden overs; almost a third of all overs we’d faced. We hadn’t done ourselves justice with the bat, but I did have seven bowlers to call on – bowlers who could exploit conditions of turn and bounce. To win from here would’ve been more of a miracle that anything Ben Stokes can do, or indeed ourselves a year earlier…but remember, cricket is a funny old game…

And the tea was as sumptuous as I’d hoped. Crab meat, pulled pork and sausage and brown sauce sandwiches. Deep fill. Having to open your mouth really wide, just to take a bite. Cookies as big as a munchkin’s face. Butterfly cakes. Onion rings. Chewable, easily digestable pizza. Such things are what dream teas are made of, and I made sure nobody – well, me really – went hungry. On the telly, England were sliding inexorably to an inevitable defeat, having done that horrible thing of raising all our hopes earlier in the day. Being shot out for 50 at about noon would’ve been better for us England fans to see; we could’ve just got on with the day and let the Aussies celebrate. To have them drag it out until the sun was going down is akin to cricket waterboarding. I’m sure our human rights are breached whenever England are chasing down Australian targets. Or maybe they’re all honorary Boars; after all, our team motto is “It’s the hope that kills you”. Only an English team could come up with a motto like that and keep smiling.

Back to our game, and the Boars bounded onto the ground, keen to make quick inroads and get a foothold in the game. For the third game running, I chose to open with our own slowies, Ben and Pranav, to bowl to openers Stott and Sultan, and we almost made the perfect start from the very first ball of the innings. Stott attempted to pull Ben square but it went to where Pranav was standing at leg gully; agonisingly, it missed his fingertips by mere centimetres. What a start that would’ve been! At the other end, Pranav was getting prodigious spin and beating Sultan’s outside edge, but Sultan had quick wrists and when Pranav dropped one just a fraction too short, he was on it like a flash to pull it powerfully for four.

It set the tone for the first ten overs; as they looked to score predominantly to leg, the batters were either flailing and missing or hitting the ball into the gaps, a problem exacerbated by the fact we’d been playing with only ten players since around 1:30pm. And the luck was with the batters: time and again, chips and edges went either side of fielders, or dropped behind them. I smiled ruefully from behind the wicket, as I remembered how well our batters had picked out their fielders with an accuracy the pre-shitstorm Tiger Woods would’ve been proud of.

And then, a breakthrough. After Pranav rapped Irfan on the pads for an unsuccessful lbw appeal, Ben struck at the other end. It was Stott pinned in front, and the umpire’s finger went up. 

The scoring rate was four an over but, with 39 on the board, we’d chalked up a wicket. The unlucky Pranav had been replaced for a debut bowl by Azam, and here’s where Tom’s “he’s a bit nippy” comment had us turning the air blue. Expecting him to move the ball around a little at slightly quicker than medium pace, slipper Bob and I positioned ourselves about fifteen paces behind the stumps and waited for his first delivery. It arrowed towards new batter Harper like a rocket; startled, Harper hung out his bat and got an edge that went past me like an 80 mph tracer bullet. Bob didn’t try and take the catch as much as put his hand in the way of the ball, shaking his hand vigorously and counting his fingers as he watched the ball sail on its way to Ben at third man. A bit nippy, Tom? Moves it around a bit? Azam is seriously, seriously quick, and his howitzers were either just about kept out or let go by the batter to thud heavily into my gloves. In the next over, shortly after Dave had had a shoulder injury scare, the same batter edged the same bowler through to Bob on the volley; it was so quick, I didn’t even see it fly past me, or the parry Bob got in to take the fire off the ball. All I saw was Bob sprawled on the floor, the appreciation of his team-mates (and his own swearing) filling his ears, wondering what on Earth was going on, hoping his hands would still be able to hold a pint glass at the end of the game. Meanwhile, the score had flown up to 78-1 in the 15^th over. Dave was next to cop a hand injury, as Harper cut a Ben delivery with such force it effectively hit Dave on the hand rather than Dave field the ball. A word beginning with the letter F hung loudly on his lips for an eternity as he screamed through the pain. Unbeknown to him, he’d also saved three runs.

Rob replaced the excellent Ben, and immediately blew away four weeks of injury misery by making a breakthrough. Firstly, Irfan brought up an excellent fifty; his innings had been full of power and precision, and rolling his wrists to put the ball where our fielders weren’t. But it was 50 and out when he tried to turn Rob’s third ball through leg gully, only to find Pranav standing and waiting to take a fearless, unflinching catch above his left shoulder. It had been a long time since we’d heard Rob’s celebratory pirate cry of “Aaaaaargh!”; it was great to hear it again. And there was more joy in the very next over; Azam finally got reward for his searing pace, getting an unplayable straight ball to rip through Harper’s defence and clatter violently into the stumps, reminiscent to this cricket viewer of a certain Steve Harmison (without the height or North-East accent). That made it 78-3, and drinks were taken; we’d put the brakes on their innings and the faintest nibble of a comeback was visible. Just twenty more maidens, and we’d win. Could we? Could we?

Rob couldn’t be got away, conceding just seven runs from the thirty balls he bowled and really tying up an end, but – with Read and Ives at the wicket – Banstead weren’t to be denied. As Suj came on for the last few overs, it was Ives who hit the winning runs, pulling a great shot for four in the 25^th over. At least we’d taken them as far as we could; the luck wasn’t with us in the field, but we’d paid the price for being at least fifty runs short in our own innings. A better performance with the bat would’ve made for a thrilling finish and undoubtedly a classic encounter, but it wasn’t to be our day. We’d squashed their hopes a year earlier, this time the roles were reversed. As Jimmy Greaves once said, it’s a funny old game.

And England had, indeed, lost; but at least we’d expected it. The beer at Banstead was great, the ground was bathed in that beautiful, slightly watery sunlight you only seem to get in September, and we’d had a good day. Back at the clubhouse, Joe Gun enthralled us with tales of his latest wonderful discovery; lettuce in a tuna sandwich. Christine, the Merton CC tea-lady, had provided this culinary marvel, and Joe had reacted to it like an African child seeing snow for the first time. We were lost for words; how could we tell the great man that Christine has been putting lettuce in sandwiches since, well, she started doing the teas? Joe, though, was in raptures. We expected tears of beatific joy to roll down his face at any moment, like a nun seeing a statue of the Madonna weep tears of blood.

He’s led a very sheltered life, has our Joe…