And so the season rolls into September – the final month of
our cricket season. May to August always seems to whip past in a blur of games
and sunny weather; you lose count of the amount of beers consumed after the
game on a Sunday (enough to balance out the entire year’s recommended alcohol
intake in some cases), and sometimes you struggle to recall all the games that
have been played without being prompted by a glance at the scorebook. September
always seems to sharpen the focus on the final games, because they are just
that – the final games of the season. Alongside the return of “The X Factor” and “Strictly” on
telly and the appearance of £5 tins of sweets in the supermarkets, the run-in
to season’s end brings home the unedifying fact that winter isn’t that far off.
Time, then, to savour every moment, and rinse every drop, from what’s left
ahead of us, before the kit bag goes in the loft and the cricket whites get
folded and placed in the hibernated darkness
of an unopened drawer, not to be touched again for months.
On this, the first of the final five Sundays of the season,
the Boars made the trip to Bromley Common to face our old friends Sopwith
Camels. Last year’s game was an early-May affair and, for something like the
third year in a row, was affected by rain. It was also memorable for Alex
Bridgeman ‘photo-bombing’ a catch about to be taken by Ian Bawn, appearing ‘in
shot’ at the very second the ball was about to drop into Treadstone’s hands and
distracting him enough to spill the catch – and breaking a couple of Alex’s
fingers in the process. As it was about ten minutes into the game it wasn’t
exactly the greatest omen for the rest of the day, but we bowled well and only
fell short in the run chase by 21 runs. This time around, the weather was
lovely; blue skies and an ever-present sun, with a nice warm heat that was
nothing like the oppressive conditions we’d been playing in during the
heatwave. The back pitch at Bromley Common, which backs onto land and stables
that are home to a small group of horses and where we always play the Camels, was
looking very trim too; the outfield was lush and green, and the wicket in
excellent condition.
A couple of Sopwith’s regulars, Scooby (who was captain for
the day) and Hughie Deans, were welcome sights for those of us who’ve played
them regularly. Scooby explained that they had a couple of unknown players in
their team, friends of friends, which seems to be the way a lot of nomadic
clubs are going these days; indeed, we were parachuting friends of friends into
our own teams during August, when numbers were short. Everyone is still on
holiday, apparently; don’t these people know there’s an austerity drive still
on? I thought everyone was still skint???
The Boars were looking in good shape for the match-up.
Andrew “Suggs” Suggitt, Dave “The Demon” Barber, John “Killer” Smither and Shakil
“Shakattack” Ehsan returned to the line-up. Had I won the toss I would’ve
bowled; as it turned out I lost the toss, and we were asked to bowl. That’s a
lost toss to me, but if I were Jose Mourinho I’d have claimed the win as we
ended up doing what I’d planned to do anyway. He held up three fingers at a
journalist during a press conference in the week, to denote how many
Premiership titles he’d won; I’ve lost three tosses this season out of fifteen
and could’ve copied him, but I know for a fact only the horses would’ve been
bothered.
Bromley Common’s back pitch has always been on the kind of
slope pace bowlers dread being asked to bowl from, as they all have a mortal
fear of the word ‘uphill’. Only Shakil,
of our attack, bowls slow, and so I cast my beady eye around the rest of the
bowlers to see who I’d be annoying by asking them to cart themselves up the
hill. Rob, from the top end, was a no-brainer, and I plumped for Sujanan, “The
Quiet Assassin”, to open up the slope alongside him. Both bowlers opened well;
Rob got an early wide out of his system before settling down and bowling a
tight line, and Sujanan was producing a prodigious amount of swing through the
air. Dom and Ricky opened the batting for the Camels and, with the score on 15,
Sujanan drew first blood. Ricky didn’t quite time his drive, and the ball
looped back towards the Assassin who smartly pouched a return catch. A couple
of sharp chances went to ground before Rob struck next, eliciting the drive
from Rob that took the edge and landed safely into Aleem’s gloves behind the
stumps.
Nikhil came out to join Charlie at the crease; Charlie was
their best batsman, and unfurled a couple of crisp shots for four off balls
that weren’t all that bad. Kaleem replaced Rob at the top end and proceeded to
bowl one of his best – and unluckiest – spells for Merton. Firstly he
dispatched Nikhil back to the clubhouse with a ball so fine it didn’t want to
sully itself by hitting the stumps, but merely caressed the leg-bail out of its
groove like a feather falling from a nest. He then went on to have either
catches dropped – no easy ones, mind – or catching opportunities drop just
short of fielders. Meanwhile, Shakil replaced Sujanan and was immediately in
the wickets, removing the prized scalp of Charlie. Finding a patch of green
just in front of his off-stump, the ball bounced a little more than the others;
Charlie went for the drive and edged to Suggs at slip who took a quite
brilliant catch above his head. Suggs has made this kind of thing his
trademark; he’s one of the best slippers at the club. Shortly after that,
Shakil clean-bowled Vinay for a duck and the Camels were teetering on 59-5. The
fielding and bowling had been excellent, and everyone seemed determined not to
let the Camels off the hook.
Sean was now at the wicket. Now, I’m sure somebody had said
he’d either never played cricket before or hadn’t played for a large amount of
years. Well, as he groped at the first ball Kaleem bowled him I guessed it was
the former, but when the next ball was clubbed for four over Killer’s head at
point I suspected it hadn’t been that long since his last game. Suggs almost
pulled off another blinding catch at slip off Kaleem’s bowling by diving to his
left and just failing to hang on, while also having second slip Sujanan trip
over him in his own attempt to take the catch and nearly be kicked in the head
for his pains. Raminder joined him and helped blunt our bowlers for a few overs
until Shakil accounted for him, a looping drive to mid-off taken smartly by
Jake “The Cat” Curnow running in from midwicket. That was 80-6, which brought
young Harry to the crease. More frustration followed as he and Sean hung
around, not just surviving but scoring runs too. Johnny Milton was on at the
top end and when he bent his back got the ball to really zip through; Harry,
however, took a bit of a shine to long-on and put a couple of big drives down
there for four. Then came one of those moments that make a Sunday captain punch
the air; a field change that directly brings a wicket. Taking advice from
Aleem, I pushed Shakil to where Harry had been hitting the ball, Johnny M
bowled him another one, and Harry hit it high and long…towards Shakil. It
seemed to take forever to come down but, as we all stopped and watched, down it
came – into the bucket hands of Shakattack. I literally leapt in the air, went
to chase after Johnny M, stopped and chased after Shakil instead only to find
he’d gone, and so turned back and jumped on Johnny M, who told me he’d given
the departing Harry his death stare – his new trademark.
Sean and Harry had put on 32 runs and taken the Camels past
100. With only seven overs left I was confident we could keep them below 140
and set up an exciting run-chase, providing we kept our focus and got the last
three wickets. Enter Killer from the bottom end, a man for whom putting up a
plaque bearing the words “Rillington Place” over his front door would be
disturbing to others but ‘paying homage’ for him. For asking him to bowl up the
hill I thought I might become his next victim, soon to be propping up a
concrete pillar somewhere, but what a mini-spell he went on to bowl. Ten balls,
eight dots, three wickets, five runs conceded. His first victim was Gagan, who’d
looked to push the scoring on. He’d has the impertinence to hit Killer for
four, tried the trick again, only to sky the ball towards me. I took the catch
but not easily; the ball missed my waiting hands and nestled between my ample
boobs instead. Finally, a few deliveries later, the lynchpin Sean was gone,
offering a straight bat to a low full-toss which bypassed the bat and thumped
into middle stump. Two balls later, it was all over as Scooby pulled a higher
full-toss straight to Shakil at square leg. We all eyed the umpires, expecting
to see a signal for no-ball, but no signal came – they’d been happy the ball
had been below waist height – and so the ultimate “death bowler” had mopped up
the tail and Sopwith Camels had been dismissed for 132. All of the bowlers had
taken at least one wicket each, and the fielding had been superb; one of the
best team performances of my four years’ captaincy. But the even harder work
lay ahead; chasing down their score.
After a lovely tea and a catch-up with the England/India
Southampton Test Match, Andrew and I went out to bat. The plan would be, as
always, wait for a bad ball and put it away, while keeping everything else out;
get to 30/40, establish a solid base, kick on from them.
There’s something about the best laid plans…
I survived the first over from Hughie; he has a knack of
bowling a ball that looks like a full toss but dips alarmingly on a good length
and drops just in front of you. He gave me nothing to hit in those first six
balls; I squeezed a single away without knowing I’d actually done it. I wished
I hadn’t. Vinny bowled the next over from the bottom end, gave me a nice bouncy
one outside off-stump with his first ball, which I duly spooned to the close-in
fielder for catching practice. I hadn’t stopped shaking my head when Suggs was
dismissed, playing “Bairstow-like” in his own words, bowled for nought. A bad
start got worse as Jake lost his bails to the bowling of Vinay, and we were 8-3
on a pitch that was slow and to bowling that was as accurate as anything we’d
faced all season. Dave joined Aleem, now nicknamed “The Scorpion” as they’re
one of the hardest creatures on Earth to kill, and managed to repel Vinny’s
excellent bowling by taking blow after blow on his arse. Scoring was proving
impossible; after ten overs, we were just 14-3 and the target of 133 looked as
distant as the Moon.
After seeing off Vinny, Dave then fell to the traditional sucker
punch of the new bowler. Eyeing up a bouncy one outside off, he played the
drive only to take the edge and was dismissed by a brilliant diving catch at
second slip. There wasn’t much Dave could’ve done about a catch like that, but
it prompted a bout of his ‘Batsman’s Tourettes’ and he exited the crease amid a
flotilla of the choicest Anglo-Saxon swear words he could think of. That brought
Johnny Milton out to bat, on the back of some assured stays at the crease this
season. He rotated the strike well with Aleem, who pushed and cajoled Johnny M
into a steady stream of singles, and extras were also now coming in droves to
bump up our total. Maybe, we thought, the chase could still be on, and when
Johnny M played the shot of the season with a beautiful, crunching straight
drive to the long-off boundary, it still seemed possible. Shortly after,
however, he perished to the bowling of Nikhil, to be unluckily followed by Rob –
run out by a direct hit from about fifty yards. There seemed to be some
confusion over whether or not Rob had made his ground or not, but Rob
sportingly took the slow walk back to resolve the matter.
As the overs ticked away and our hopes became as gloomy as
the fading September light, Aleem kept on pushing on and reached another
deserved fifty, lifting himself past 800 runs for the season. Firstly Killer then
Sujanan kept him company until they were accounted for by Harry and Nikhil, and
as Shakil took a single off the last ball our innings finished on 98-8. We
simply never recovered after that bad start, with both myself and Suggs
betraying our recent good form with failures to score. Credit to Hughie and
Vinny too; their combined twelve overs cost just sixteen runs and picked up
three wickets. Nobody recovers quickly from being strangled – ask Killer – and the
same applied to us. Johnny Milton was third top-scorer with eight, behind
extras on 18, and again Aleem was the stand-out batter on 59 not out.
The sun vanished quickly behind the tall trees bordering the
grounds, and so we all made our way to the clubhouse by the front pitch for a
beer and a yarn. It was twilight when we all said our goodbyes and made our way
back to Merton, ensuring we said our proper goodbyes to our old friends the
Camels and looking forward to returning to play them next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment