Merton Sunday Boars v Plastics XI: A Hope Opera

If ever a game existed that highlighted the difference a year can make in the travails of a Sunday social cricket team, it was this one. Last year, in the corresponding fixture, we were in the middle of a weeks-long heatwave that reduced virtually all cricket pitches to roads for the batsmen and heartbreak highways for the bowlers; and our game was no exception. Plastics – admittedly, with a couple of ringers in their team – piled up 298-7 from 40 overs on a baking-hot day, with Ian and Abdul conceding 140 runs off their combined sixteen overs and Jake and my three combined overs going for 50 runs…although it was Jake’s famous over that lasted longer than “War and Peace” that make more of an impression than the whiplash I suffered watching my lollipops getting slammed over my head and into the bushes by the sightscreen. In reply, we mustered 165 thanks to the combined efforts of myself, Abdul and Extras. This year, the gap between the two teams would reduce dramatically, but could the Boars get one over the Plastics and atone for the previous year’s crushing?

Firstly, the weather. There will be no talk of heatwaves when reminiscing about 2019. The batsmen who were feasting on all bowling last year are struggling to lick the crumbs from last year’s table; the squares have been greener than a cannabis farm for most of the season, especially on Saturdays, when the League batters have been reduced to batting averages that look more like bowling averages, and Sunday pie bowlers – whose averages are normally just about higher than their ages – have been the ruin of many a weekend. Flat is the beer and stale the cheese and cucumber when you’ve been bowled under your bat by an 11 year-old/ 60 year-old/ 80 year-old….which is why the tonnes of rain that fell during various times during the week threatened to reduce yet another weekend of cricket to games of over-arm skittles. Just for the fun of it, Mother Nature threw down another load on the morning of our game that hadn’t been forecasted, and dreams of playing on a decent pitch turned into a nightmare.

Then came the availability snags. A fantastic fillip for the club was the ability to field three teams on this Sunday, but the downside is receiving the dreaded “Sorry, skip” WhatsApp messages and e-mails that instantly puncture a hole in your line-up. I was two players down until the Saturday afternoon but, crucially, saw a young lad called Kosta at our home ground when I went to watch a bit of the Saturday 1^st XI in action. He’s been coming down the club all season, watching the cricket, taking part in a little bit of the practice, showing that he’s capable enough of playing…and so I asked him – and his mum – if he wanted to play. Yes, he said. Great. One down. Sunday morning came, and I was still one down…so it was time to play the Daughter Card. Hannah is fifteen, likes the game but doesn’t play it often (always badgers me to pick her, though), but she made her debut in one of the worst games I’ve ever helmed two years ago at Trinity Mid-Whitgiftian and more than held her own. All sorted, I reasoned. I had my eleven. It was also the first post-Jake “The Cat” Curnow Boars game; his runs would be missed, as would his athletic, never-say-die fielding. The challenge was laid down to the team; his shoes would need to be filled.

Thankfully, as we got to the home ground, the rain had passed over and been replaced with bright sunshine and warmth. The outfield glistened but would dry quickly enough; I was more worried about the uncovered pitch. Sure enough, it was damp; a few rolls from the super-soaker lifted a little of the dampness, but not enough to squeeze it dry. No matter, I thought; I didn’t have a great deal of pace in our bowling attack and had already planned to bowl the slowies from the start anyway. I merely resolved to ensure I won the toss and bowled first; if we’d batted first, we might have broken the record for earliest finish of a Merton Cricket Club game (which we’d set against Ewell the previous September). Plastics arrived; Charlie, their skipper, and I duly went out to toss, and between us decided that – as I was intending to bowl first if I’d won, and he was intending to bat first if he won – we would field first. We tossed the coin anyway, just for show, and he won. If the game now went tits-up, I could legitimately claim to have lost the toss.

BOARS LINE-UP: Neil “The Fridge” Simpson; Abdul “Silver Fox” Hameed; Ian “Steel Testicles” Bawn; Oliver “Marauder” Miller; Andrew “Safe Hands” Counihan; Bob “The Dark Lord” Egan; Sujanan “Quiet Assassin” Romalojoseph; Kaleem “Special K” Sajjid; Shakil “Shakatak” Ehsan; Kosta Miskou; Hannah “Captain’s Daughter” Simpson.

At the stroke of 1pm, and under warm, blue skies, the Boars took the field; Plastics skipper Charlie and Mark were the opening batsmen. I’d asked Ian and Shakil to take the new ball and hopefully exploit the damp conditions and the general use of the pitch; sadly for us, Rob Turner had pulled out due to injury, but he’d have wasted his time bowling on what was a pudding of a pitch for the first hour or so of the game. Ian took the first over from the Kingston Road End and a full-toss got slammed to the boundary by Mark, but that was the last of his freebies as he settled into a probing line and length outside off-stump. Shakil’s first over from the Clubhouse End started with a ball that fizzed from off to leg that had the whole team purring. His fifth ball pitched in line with middle and leg and didn’t turn; it carried straight on, our appeal was imploring, and the umpire’s finger went up. Charlie was on his way for that Sunday Boars speciality – a duck. 4-1; what a start.

It got better in Ian’s next over. Bob now reminds me of one of my favourite footballers, Ruben Neves of Wolves: Neves doesn’t score simple tap-ins inside the box. Oh no. Neves only deals in twenty-five/ thirty-yard howitzers that rocket into top corners, and Bob doesn’t deal in straight-forward slip catches; not for him the stand still, hands cupped, yawn while the ball reaches you approach to slip catching. All of his slip catches this season have been tumbling, diving, sprawling moments of magic, and our second wicket was probably his best catch of the season so far. Ian elicited the outside-edge from batsman Bob and it flew low past me to slip, where Boars Bob brilliantly scooped it up off his bootlaces whilst diving to his left. No one could quite believe it, but we suddenly found ourselves on a roll: new bat Alex played for spin but Shakil cunningly bowled one that held its line and cannoned into the stumps. While Mark was somehow surviving at the other end and picking up runs where he could, 20-3 became 24-4 as Shakil’s rip and turn back into Phil forced him to chop the ball onto his stumps.

Kaleem replaced Ian from the Kingston Road End. “Special K” is in the bowling groove of his life and, time and again, he hooped the ball from off to leg, beating the outside edge. In a classic over, he set up batsman Jimmy brilliantly by bowling him two widish inswingers outside off-stump, which had Jimmy puffing out his cheeks in frustration, before bowling him one much straighter. Jimmy couldn’t resist the heave across the line, and departed to the sound of middle stump being knocked back. Meanwhile, the fielding was matching the bowling; Oli and Ian were proving hard to beat at point and square leg respectively; with “The Cat” now residing in Malaysia, these two were battling it out to become “The Tabby”. On top of that, young Kosta pulled off two brilliant stops at midwicket and had a run-out opportunity with a direct hit.

Pete Bishop was now at the wicket, and one of his first tasks was to needlessly run out Mark. The opener wasn’t looking that comfortable but was set on 30 when called through for a single to a push straight to Andrew; he returned the ball to me perfectly over the stumps, and as I broke them Mark was three yards out of his crease. Were we cock-a-hoop? Hell,yes! Plastics XI were 44-6; I’m not sure which set of players couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

That brought Joey Anderson to the crease, and he set out his stall immediately with a full-blooded pull off Kaleem for four. He wasn’t going to die wondering and I knew we’d get him sooner or later; what I didn’t realise was a Plastics batting revival had just started. The ball was also leaving Pete’s bat like a pistol crack, but on the stroke of drinks, and with the score at 78, Anderson tried one pull shot too many off Sujanan; the ball rocketed a mile in the air, Shakil steeled himself beneath it, and held his nerve – and the ball – to take a brilliant catch. Big, big wicket. Drinks were taken halfway through the 20^th over; I was pinching myself. Getting them out for around 100 was a very serious possibility; three wickets were all we needed. Three balls, out of a possible 123. Surely, surely this was to be our day?

Young Kosta stepped up for his first-ever Merton over. The first ball turned off the pitch and sailed past new bat Peter’s outside edge; the second ball hit a bump in the pitch and rolled agonisingly close to the stumps. His fifth ball was wide, but full, down the leg side; sensing an easy boundary, Peter gleefully had a go at it, only to top-edge it to square leg. Kaleem put his hands together, the ball bounced in, then out…and then he pouched it safely on the juggle. Peter was out, they were 82-8, and Kosta had taken his first-ever wicket with his fifth ball. Everyone in the team rushed to congratulate him; it was a fantastic moment.

Little did we know, that was as good as it got.

The sun had been out for a while now and the pitch was drying nicely, which was also making batting easier than in that first hour or so. Jamie joined Pete at the wicket and looked like a wicket-in-waiting as he just about managed to keep out stumps-bound yorkers and full-length balls at the very last moment, but he soon proved to be the immovable object to our irresistible force. His obduracy was giving the in-form Pete licence to play his shots, and they were coming off; seeing he favoured the pull through mid-wicket, I pushed Andrew back ten yards from that very spot…you can guess where Pete’s next pull shot went. Agonisingly for us, it landed at Andrew’s feet instead of in his hands.

As much as everything had gone our way before drinks, everything was now going against us. Twice in the same over, Bob found Pete’s inside-edge, but on both occasions the edge was too thick and flew past me down to fine leg. In his next over, the luckless Bob induced a wild swing from Pete that went slicing over slip and gully to where no fielder was, and a shout for caught behind was also turned down. We also found ourselves powerless to stop Pete from farming the strike, and pinching singles off the 5^th and 6^th balls of an over became the norm. Pete brought up his fifty, and shortly afterwards the 150 came up. The innings finally closed on 171-8, and Pete was 86 not out; it had been a brilliant knock, probably the best I’ve seen at our ground all season. The game had now swung firmly in their favour in the space of 123 balls.

“It’s the hope that kills you” is now our new Sunday Boars motto.

After tea, Abdul and myself went out there to start the run-chase. The batting conditions had improved the more the pitch had dried out, as Pete and Jamie (who’d finished on 11 not out from his 20-over crease occupation), so it was up to us to do nothing silly and get ourselves in. We were settled in relatively quickly; Saril couldn’t get his line right and we knew we could score off his bowling as a couple of fours demonstrated, but Jamie at the other end was a different prospect altogether: slower, bowling to the end where it could either ping you between the eyes or roll under your bat, we decided to just keep him out and not take any chances. His first two overs were maidens. It was a good ploy; the runs began to flow from the other end. Abdul and I exchanged boundaries, a crunching extra-cover from me bested by Abdul’s giant six into the top of the bushes near the school. My four brought up our fifty partnership (we bat well, us two: the last time we batted, against Kensington and Chelsea, we put on 109), but then I allowed my concentration to lapse for just one ball, didn’t quite cover a straight one, and was bowled by Milburn. I was gutted, but we were 59-1 – more than a third of the way there.

Ian came in and soon mastered the art of the one’s and two’s. Anderson was bowling rippers down the hill, pitching on off and called wide as the balls keep turning nearly off the cut strip towards slip, and Abdul had dealt with him well…until the stroke of drinks. To be fair to Abdul, there was nothing he could have done about the ball that got him; extra bounce saw the ball balloon off his glove and into the keeper’s gloves. 81-2, but Abdul had looked really good. That brought Oli to the crease, but his stay was brief due to a piece of brilliance from bowler Newhurst, who somehow turned Oli’s rocket shot into a safely-taken return catch; Davies then came on down the hill and put his team firmly in the driving seat. Turning the ball from off to leg, he got a beauty to lift and caress Ian’s bails from their grooves; three balls later, he did exactly the same to Bob. 82-1 had become 90-5.

Hannah joined Andrew at the crease, and there came another magic moment: two balls after a push from Hannah had been caught on the bounce by a close-in fielder, a pull shot brought her her first-ever run. The cheers from the clubhouse could be heard in Raynes Park. She’s the first-ever female to play for Merton CC, and she’d just scored the first run ever by a female player for a Merton CC team. History had been made, and the moment seemed to rub off on Andrew. Where he’d been previously watchful, he suddenly became Andrew the ‘Ammer by smashing three fours and a six down to the boundary near the school. Between them they added 28 runs for the sixth wicket, but it sadly came to an end when Andrew was bowled by the returning Saril, and a decent shot from Hannah was caught safely by mid-on. 119-7 became 126-9, as firstly Sujanan was caught behind off Charlie and then Kosta – who also scored his first-ever Merton run, and looked more than handy with the bat – was run out.

That left Shakil and Kaleem at the crease; Merton’s last stand. 46 runs to win, 36 balls left in the match. Milburn and Davies were the death bowlers, and dot balls were dominating. Shakil was looking to go big, though, and several big swings had missed…but he didn’t miss for long. The bowlers were struggling for consistency, and no-balls were swelling the Boars total; Shakil then reeled off a succession of fours and a monster six, that left us – improbably, but not impossibly – chasing 17 runs off the last over. Kaleem was on strike; he went for a mow at the first ball and hit it straight back to the bowler for a dot ball, then made contact with the second ball. In the air it flew, seemingly wide of mid-on, but the fielder there had broken into a run and smartly took the catch, on the move, to end the innings and the game. We were 155 all out.

The margin of defeat was just sixteen runs; a far cry from the 140-run shellacking of last season. True, the pitch and conditions had been a very good leveller, but once again our bowling and fielding had been top-rate. Yes, we were disappointed not to wrap the Plastics up for around 100-120, but if you’d offered me 171-8 at the start of the day I’d have snapped your hand off. All that stood between us and victory had been Pete Bishop’s great innings and Jamie sticking with him while he scored them, and the fact that Pete isn’t a ringer in disguise softens the blow. From what a couple of his team-mates said, it was his finest-ever innings: sod’s law he makes it against us. Maybe next year we’ll get him for a duck. But to run a good side close, with an XI that featured an 11-year old debutant and the captain’s daughter who normally buries her head in memes and YouTube videos, is something to be proud of. The fact she’d also scored more runs that day than the 2018 Player’s Player of the Year caused much merriment inside the clubhouse; the beer never tastes flat when you’ve just taken part in a terrific game of cricket and had a lovely day.

It’s the hope that kills you: never a truer word has been spoken in jest. Every Sunday team like us should have it as their motto.

The Return Of Energy Exiles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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