Monday 20 September 2010

Rascals v's Walland Wanderers

The Curse of the Carnival

Before I recount the details of a thrilling afternoon on Sunday against the Walland Wanderers, I hope you will bear with me for a short cautionary tale.

The Roman Catholic Church moves in very mysterious ways and this weekend we were lucky enough to welcome the Holy Father (the Pope) to these pagan shores. He did cause chaos in London on Friday but it was my fault for only allowing 3 hours to drive from Westminster to Hawkhurst. Not important.

At the same time as Pope Benedict was beatifying Cardinal Newman on Saturday evening, the middle order of the Rascals team was attending a staunchly Protestant carnival in Mayfield, as the various bonfire societies’ parade through the village as a prelude to burning some fella called Guy Fawkes in six weeks time. It is not a comfortable occasion for a good Catholic convert like myself, but the hospitality of Angie Grigson has always made it bearable in years gone by. Remember this bit.  I will come back to it later.

We met at the pitch on a greyish and breezy Sunday as the owners of the Bull still don't understand that thirsty people like to be served within half an hour of going up to the bar. The occasion felt odd as there was no Teddy Skills plotting and scheming and shouting; surely the first game he has ever missed.  However he was on the ball enough to send us a text reminding us not to take any shit from Matthew, the oppo captain.   Last year, Teddy was horribly hoodwinked as before the toss Matthew had said how weak his team was, could he bat first etc etc. For some extraordinary reason, Teddy agreed to all his demands and inevitably we were soundly defeated. No repeat of such shenanigans would occur this year and well done Skills for reminding us.

The WW batted and we bowled and fielded very well. Our beloved skipper opened the bowling, peeled off two lovely overs, took himself off and was never seen again. Tarquin and Toby bowled beautifully, Ant and Robin T did fine and the WW scraped to 150 off their 35 overs. 

I must recount one anecdote. The best batsman for WW is Mark Russel-Vick and I know him as a parent at MHS and his son is good friends with my Kit. Last weekend he told me that he had got out in his last 4 matches by cutting to gully and I duly relayed this priceless piece of intelligence to our skipper. We chatted about it and my humble suggestion was to pack the gully area with loads of bodies. I am not sure where we went wrong but when Mark did duly chip it through the gully area at catchable height in his second over, there was no one there. Oh well. He only went on to get 60.  MI6 here we come!!

Tea was also rather bizarre as it was provided by the oppo instead of Mark and Carole. Delicious as it was, it is just not the same and not as good and I really don't know why. We are creatures of habit I guess.  And they put far too much SALAD CREAM in the TUNA sandwiches. Yuck.

So then it was our turn to bat. 150 off 35 overs.......easy peasy.  After much discussion in the dressing room it was decided to open with Will D and Tarqs. The only flaw in this cunning plan was that Tarqs, by his own admission, has completely lost the ability to either judge or run a single and this meant that it was a wee bit slow. Will D made up for the lack of mobility at the other end by playing a series of glorious lofted off drives and things progressed at a stately pace. 12 off six, 20 off ten.... That kind of pace.

Will went with 30 odd to his name. Top knock. 50 odd for one became 50 odd for 2 and then 50 odd for 3. I joined Jamie Flint and together we managed to get the score to exactly 100 with exactly 10 overs to go. 5 an over with 6 wickets in hand. In fact, perfectly set up for our Carnival Crusaders in the middle order.

It was a strong batting line up and the sight of Phil Richardson, Neil Grigson and Toby Clifton as 6, 7 and 8 would surely mean that we would make light work of the 50 runs we needed off 10 overs (that's 5 an over, Robin). However the presence of all three lads at the Mayfield Carnival the night before came back to haunt them in a big way. All three gone for nought in about 5 minutes. Never underestimate the revenge of the Catholic Church boys. The fact that beer wine and whisky were consumed at the Carnival in naval quantities is nothing  to do with it. It’s much deeper than that and we must learn never to go to a deeply anti-Catholic event whilst the reigning Pontiff is in the country ever again. Actually, that should see us all through as it tends to be only once every 30 years or so but just in case, never do it again. 

Suddenly, from a situation of total control we had experienced the Mother (holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen) of all collapses and defeat was staring us in the face. Surely we couldn't fuck this one up could we?

We now needed 40 runs from a last wicket partnership that consisted of Tom and Ant Lund, batting at 11 because of a bad toe. Tom managed to survive by using a very cunning strategy. He said that he did not want to hit the ball as that eliminates the possibility of being caught and it worked beautifully. At the other end Ant hit three huge sixes and made 29 of very few balls to bring us to the point of needing 11 off the last three overs. Tom survived the third to last by employing the cunning tactic described above and then Ant got the wrong club out looking for his fourth six and holed out at deep mid wicket. So near yet so far.

Whilst the last 6 overs of thrilling action was going on, our beloved skipper decided that he was best employed thrashing at a vicious bramble bush with a stump with his back to the play looking for one of Ants sixes. A very wise decision given the result but I don't know if he ever found the ball. Can someone PLEASE train a dog to take over from Neilo as I feel he would enjoy the day more if the onerous task of finding balls when the game is balanced on a knife edge was removed.

If ever defeat was plucked from the jaws of victory this was it. It was a remarkable effort to contrive to lose this game and I am quite convinced that the revenge of the One True Church was behind it.   Never mind. I will confess this week to a Priest and all will be well.

And as a final thought, the Chairman sent us a Latin blessing before the game which was simply incorrect.

In Nomine Patri et Filii et Spritu Sancti. Amen.

Have a cracking winter lads and here's to some heroes coming forward next summer. I love you all

Paul Ross

 

1 comment:

  1. And the prize for best match report of the season goeas to......... Paul Ross!!

    ReplyDelete