Rascals v's Donkey's Impediment (away) Match Date 02.07.17

We won, taken there with a huge Ant Lund six!! So much more to report, but that will follow later.  For now the images that matter:

With exams over, it was with relative ease that the team came together and a week before the match we had a squad of 14 for the selectors to chew over.  Oh the embarrassment of riches! We ended with 3 Prykes shouldering their arms and filling the reserves and, in the team, 3 Cliftons with relatives in the form of a Grigson and a Mackwood, a brace of Ross, 3 Keelings and a lone Lund making a healthy sounding team (7/8 bowlers, 2 keepers and batting all the way down the order.  With our usual zealousness the warm up session was set for 1 at the Bell and, while the team manager and his son were there on time, there was no sign of another player until 30 minutes before the match was due to start at 2. 

Of course, during all of the above shenanigans involved in putting together a team of rascals, there was the other small matter of the parallel negotiations over the tea: would there be any, should we bring our own and do we pay for it?  All these weighty and pressing matters had been resolved though, Nigel it seems has broken the caterer’s strike and would provide tea. Furthermore he would accept no payment for this service (and an excellent tea it was!!).  It should be noted by the board that, as part of the negotiations, it has been agreed that, from this match on, the Donkey’s Impediment will attend our ground as honoured guests and vice versa when we attend them.

By 2.10 we were at the pitch (well seven of us were).  If that were not exceptional enough in itself, this paled into insignificance when we realised we were there with not a member of the opposition present, shrieks!! Mea culpa, mea culpa, I apologise profoundly to all those who could have got in some more ‘practice’ at the pub.  Nigel did duly appear saying that he had it down as a 2.30 start, not what I recalled, but who was I to argue? There I was in another man’s house after all.  A toss was discussed, deemed surplus to requirements and the Donkey donned pads while we took to the field.

Someone later described the match as game of two batsmen.  While there is no denying that there was more than a kernel of truth in this, it does not quite do the game justice.  Will Collier knocked a mighty 106 not out, but with the rest of the Impediments only mustering 86, we were not given too terrifying a target to chase for their 35 overs.  For their ‘Collier’, we had a ‘Ross’ who knocked up a more than respectable 88. The Rascals had a broader support base in the batting department (notably a welcome return for Fred Keeling from the Dark Continent who hit a lovely 23) we managed to pass their score with a couple of overs to go.

Other moments of note on the day:

• Raul & Rufus Ross opening the batting together and putting on a stand of 30ish
• Jude Clifton making his debut for the team
• Fred Keeling coming back from a 3 year break and bowling, batting and catching brilliantly
• Toby Clifton dropping a catch off his son’s bowling – shame on you and shame on me for mentioning it
• Jamie Mackwood kept wicket and Zak Keeling remained standing on no sleep whatsoever from the night before
• A large number of the opposition had been out the night before too, but made an awful lot more noise about it than our two soldiers.
• Being given tea by the opposition (should happen more me thinks?)
• Ant Lund closing the match out with a mighty six
• Getting our hands back on the trophy!
• The score book being kept so badly that we are not 100% sure exactly what happened.  Neither side was blameless here.  They recorded Neil as having bowled 7 overs (we were limited to 6 per bowler).  They had this wrong, of this I am certain, and that throws doubt on their entire record.  Of course we can do no better as Zak admitted that he had unilaterally decided that it was not worth keeping a record of their bowling!?!  It was slightly embarrassing when we were asked how many overs young Spedding had completed.  I was convinced that he had already completed 7 (taking both mine and Fred’s wicket in the 7^th), but we said 6 and just hope it wasn’t 5 and we robbed him of one.  Oops.

Anyway, we won with ease, the sun shone and the mood was upbeat all day.  Just how it should be.

As we attended the Bull in the gloaming, as is our norm on a Sunday night, Neil was not alone (but loudest) in complaints regarding an early start the next day, the following occurred to me: When we play at Pear Tree Hill, is there any reason why we do not play on a Saturday???  It would only be once every 2 years, but it would be jolly nice to that and not have to go work the the next day.