Monday 15 September 2014

Rascal's v's Moose (match date 14.09.14)

The day of the last match of an odd season broke with a clear blue sky and all set fair.  Came downstairs to find a brace of industrious Beattie’s slaving away over various sandwich fillers and purring proudly at the enormity of the lemon drizzle cake that had been birthed the previous day.  By mid-morning clouds were gathering and a stiff wind had picked up but hearts were set on fine last day of the season.  At 12.30 Beattie and Keeling were in place, as instructed by our captain, having secured our drinks at the Bell.  Wonders will never cease, but almost an entire team of Rascal’s had gathered by one o’clock, the possibility of a 1.30 start seemed, unbelievably, achievable.  There is though the strange ‘Bell Effect’.  An illness seemingly passed directly from the Bull, but with a slight kink to the symptoms: It takes a large part of an entire millennium to obtain a drink there.  Where the Bull used to resemble the Marie Celeste, it is quite extraordinary that so many people can find themselves standing on the serving side of a bar, with such remarkable lack of end product.  Inevitably 1.30 came and went without an obvious exodus from the pub to the pitch, but we did manage to get our captain onto the field for the toss with a 2 o’clock start looking possible.

Cries of ‘what are we doing’ were answered from the square by Neilo with a beautiful mime of a classic forward defensive.  We groaned as the discussions before the match were clearly that we would much prefer to chase.  When we gathered that Neilo had won the toss, we were flabbergasted.  It transpired though that Neilo was deploying a far higher level of mime than we gave him credit for; just prior to the batting action, artfully hidden in the back swing, he was pointing at the opposition captain.  What a bunch of duffers we were not to have spotted this!

Matters started out in reasonable nick, with their opener falling for the old ‘long hop’ ploy in the first over and popping up a simple enough catch to Berthon at point (lovely to have that lovely boy, back in the fold!!).  From here things went rather downhill.  The Moose seemed to have a line-up of youthful ‘naturals’, who, while not necessarily in a very pretty way, proved extremely effective at clubbing the ball, hard and far.  Was it the ceaseless assault from the Canadian seal farmers or was it end-of-term blues, but a cloud seemed to descend on the team?  Affected by this strange malaise, our fielding became somewhat erratic; some superlative high points (a Mackwood catch & Clifton stop) were followed (and slightly more often than the former) by some absolute howlers.  My best guess is that at least 30 runs went through our legs and a lot catches spilled horribly.  All of which only darkened the mood of our team.  All this along with accusations of ‘on-field’ abuse of the captain (something that actually fired him up to take two wickets successive balls) and rows with the umpires made for a somewhat scratchy first half of the match.  Tea was taken after completion of their 35 overs with the Moose on 248 for 6.  Neil’s bowling figures of 3 overs for 14 runs and 2 wickets, being the pick of not very competitive bunch as the Moose had generally put our bowling averages to the sword.

Fabulous tea, thanks mainly to Mark, Carole and Van, but ably backed up by Jo and Kiki I believe.

With just more than 7 runs an over required, we still had to believe we had a chance, but somehow it felt like a large mountain that we had before us.  Opening up with Drew and Ross, matters ticked along quite nicely with Drew falling for 18 with score on 48.  Ross went on to top score for the Rascals with an interesting 47.  Interesting in as much that he seemed to play a ‘backwards’ innings; normally it is expected that batsmen gets himself in, starting with a few loose shots before becoming freer and more confident.  Ross seemed to struggle with his timing the longer he stayed, much to his own obvious frustration.  When the second wicket fell for 90, we were still, if distantly, in touch and with Tarquin striding to the middle our hopes were buoyed at the prospect of some rough treatment for their bowlers.  The speed with which these hopes were dashed and Desoutter was despatched back to the pavilion was something to behold (or not as a miss timed blink would have spoilt the view).  It certainly caught our captain on the hop, who got so entangled in jock strap, pads, conversations with various spectators that I suspect the Moose thought we had all gone home.  Perhaps we had?

Other than the highlights of Mackwood’s (25) and Berthon’s (21) cameos at the crease, the low lights of PK giving the Chair out LBW and  a brief spat with one of their bowlers (‘I’ll keep giving it as a wide until you pipe down’), we practically had gone home.  All out after 33 overs with 172 posted on the board, it was perhaps not our finest hour?

But, as ever, and most importantly, we repaired to the Bull (unbelievably little debate as to whether it be the Bell or Bull, in some things at least we are in no doubt of our improvement) in fine spirits having thoroughly enjoyed the day and the season as a whole.  Even if there was only one rather lonely victory contained within it.  Anyway, who needs to win when we can all cheer ourselves up with the fact that Phil Richardson was never out for the entire season and therefore has an average if infinite!!  Suck that stat up you Mooses and Northiams!!

Hussar for 2015, and thank you to all of you took any responsibility for organising and making possible this season (Messrs. Beattie, Grigson, Ross and Skilbeck [if there is anyone else I have forgotten, I can only offer up my most abject apologies to them])

Wednesday 10 September 2014

Rascals v’s Northiam (match date - 07.08.14)

A 1 o’clock start was always looking shaky for a Rascal’s team, but the prospect of a prompt start was rocked to its foundations by an 11.30 call coming in from our captain letting us know that he was going to be late (I hear you gasp in horror at the very idea of Neilo being late).  This in itself was not exactly earth shattering news and actually pretty par for the course, but as the call came in from A&E where he was tending to his son’s double thumb dislocation, it looked like the delay might be of more than a few minutes.

Most of the rest of the team, working on ‘Rascal’s Time’ did manage to muster at the pitch (some were already there (shrieks again!!) for a creditable 1.20 and we were all set to go at 1.35.  Tossing duties were shouldered by Skilbeck who, having been given clear advice that we fancied an overs match and batting second, won the toss and returned with the news that he had opted for a timed game and batting first.  Incredulity was followed by the dawning realisation that he was probably, annoyingly, right. With the captain missing for at least half the match, a pretty thin bowling line up anyway, there was little option in reality, so good call Eddie.

Eddie and Geoff Knight opened up for us and, though scoring slowly, saw off their opening bowlers; a rather useful and pacey pair of 15 year olds.  Geoff finally capitulated having demonstrated an amazingly complete set of cricketing (air) shots that the extended edition of the ‘Cricketer’s Complete Guide to Batting Stroke Play’ would have been proud of.  The strike rate did pick up, and Eddie and the ‘Dos Paulos’ (yet another 100 partnership by the Rascal’s with little return on the victory front?) took it to within a few overs of the allotted tea time.  There was a small clattering of wickets at this point, but all in the cause of taking us to 232 for 5(?).  A fairly respectable score and one we felt would be enough to make a game of it.  Phil Richardson was though overheard during tea to muttering darkly that we were ‘7 or so runs short in my view’, ominous and prescient words perhaps?

Ant Lund made an early breakthrough, but this was followed by a hiatus in wickets and a steady, if not flamboyant, flow of runs.  All changed with the arrival of one Zak Keeling.  Having requested a fielding position that was unlikely to see a catch as it is ‘my least favourite thing in cricket’, he strode up to the crease with his first ball of the season in all forms of the game, delivered a medium pacer of perfect length to James Fielding (a scorer of more than one century against us in previous years).  James was defeated by the bounce and hit it firmly back into the (very safe, it now seems) hands of Zak.  One more wicket, a fine snick to the safe hands Mackwood, our faithful and youthful keeper, saw him open his account for the team with a double wicket maiden.  Two overs later he had another in very similar fashion and the Rascals were cock-a-hoop and scenting victory. 

From here on though matters did not go quite so well; excellent fielding, some very solid bowling support (Grigson, Skilbeck, Keeling J and P) and a number of exceptionally close calls on appeals not withstanding, they managed to ease past our total with 4 overs to go. 

Other than a small spat that involved querying if their third umpire (if they indeed had one) might have lost the faculty of speech and that, with the two on-field umpires, they would have made a perfect team of sensorially challenged primates, the match was played, as ever, in the best of spirits. There was of course their much appreciated supper laid on at the Rose & Crown.  When Jasper and I left the pub at 8.45, Eddie and Rosco were still haggling over the last fiver for the tea-money, Phil looking for the last answer to his crossword and Neilo was late for work on the opposite side on the M25. Aaah, Halcyon Days!!

With one match to go and the glorious return of our errant Chair, we can still look forward to doubling our victory tally for the season!!


PK