Sunday Match OFF-

Today's track. @HXCricket pic.twitter.com/Q4EaJ03WeP
— Brian Adam Fraser (@beefrazor) August 10, 2014

Some might say...a shame the rain didn't arrive 24 hrs earlier

2nd's v Penicuik (away)

Me next Saturday (Dougie keeping wicket)

When the 1's played at Marchmont a week past Saturday, I inside-edged the fastest ball of the season (at any level) onto my shin. It smarted somewhat (understatement) and has been playing up through various sizes and colours ever since, even necessitating a lovely wee trip to A&E (160 mins processing time, sort it out Broonster) to enquire as to the completeness or otherwise of the shinbone (technical term) last Monday evening (after 2 nights of drinking had failed to mend the injury).

Therefore I had to sit it out last weekend.

Even a strangulated text from the hero of the selection process claiming we were struggling for numbers (tell me something new) couldn't break my resolve. I was fairly confused about the enquiry "will you be fit enough for the 2's then?". Is anyone?? What is 2's fitness exactly??? Does 'Unfit for cricket' = '2nd team regular'????

In the meantime, the 3's game was abandoned a day early and so the availability issues must have eased.

Serendipitously the 2's were visiting my home village of Pennycook, somewhere underneath Edinburgh on the border of The Borders. Splendid I thought. A few cheap sherbets in a lovely setting whilst our battle hardened veterans smoted the countryside whippersnappers. The teas are usually well worth plundering too. All good. Might be worth getting injured more often...

As you drive up Kirkhill Road, you get a glimpse of the ground through the gate, before you pass the wall, view the field and then the scoreboard. As I passed the gate I caught site of a baggy green in the field. Must have won the toss looking to blast the home team to smithereens. Clever!!!

Past the wall and a quick neb at the scoreboard - WTF - PCC 40 odd for 1 chasing 61. Good grief, gadzooks and once more, WTF. I was out the car and hopping round to the scorehut faster than you could say Oscar Pistorius. Hector, a permanent fixture in the Penicuik scorehut, long ago christened 'Hectors Hoose', showed me the damage. Some of the top order had reached double figures, then the home side cheekily introduced a spinner called Pace who took 5-for and ripped through the Cross tail. Superted and all!!!

"Missing a few regulars?" Hector politely enquired. "Eh nut" I responded counting at least 7 bona fide 2nd team regulars in play.

My eyes didn't deceive me either, there were only 10 men. If the 3's were off, and the 2's had 10 men, and McGill wasn't one of them, it could only mean one thing. Yes, Colin McGill was surely deid. Reeling from this news I was distracted as the Cross made a breakthrough and a team mate of mine from my previous life at Kirkhill, Cliff Hutt, was sent back to the huttch (so sorry) by Lord Admin. Could our spinner now match the earlier feats of Mr Pace?

No, no he absolutely could not!!!

In no time Penicuik had passed the total. The only actual part of the play I can recall is the final ball when the scores were tied, bowled by Lord Admin. It arrived at the batsman about spam height and was hatcheted in the direction of midwicket. The batsmen didn't even need to run. Later, as I rammed a mini sausage roll into my gob, I enquired after Lord Admin "what was going on with that last ball ya fanny?". To which his Lordship responded "I thought if I'm ever going to bowl my wrong'un, that was the time". So next seasons Division 5 batsmen, you have been warned.

All over by 4pm.

After almost witnessing such a terrible performance, with some amount of trepidation I asked "are you guys safe". Being a serious situation, the actual meaning bypassed the downhearted troops, "oh yes" said Smujinder, "we've won all our home games and lost all our away games". Fortress Arbo indeed.

And which fate had befallen poor Coco??? It was more gruesome than I could ever have imagined. He'd been drafted into the 1's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hx-cricket-tweeters

Those who wish to follow the narcissistic outpourings wit and wisdom of the growing band of Crossers on Twitter can now do so here:

https://twitter.com/#!/HXCricket/hx-cricket-tweeters

1sts v Watsons 2's - Skipper Arrives Early For Next Seasons Match

Quick Quiz Question (answer at end of report):

Which letters are missing? A, B, D, F, G, J, K, L, N, O, P, Q, R, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.



The skipper at around 1pm on Saturday???

The first sign that things weren’t all they should be was when I received a text from Bainbridge at 12.57 saying “Starting, I won the toss”. Worrying. The skipper had asked me during the week if I could keep wicket, so I knew vice-skip Simon wasn’t playing, but where was The Skip?

One minute later, when I arrived, I discovered I was one of the lucky few to keep my place after the Parks Trophy victory three days earlier. Out went Pickering, Webb, Gaware & Lynch in a Romanov style cull. In were Morcom, Jones, Killey & Trewartha. Nick Jones, who I’d never met before, had his pads and gloves on ready to keep. So I assumed he was a Watsonian and thought we must be batting. That we only had 10 men and no match ball, batting would be the only sensible choice really. Until introductions were made and I realised my assumptions of normality were going to be tested to the max. Our 12^th game of the season and our 4^th keeper in the ongoing mass rotational experiment that we call Selection. And we were bowling.

Bimbo, now with a 100% record of winning tosses, immediately ceded control of proceedings to Frazerio. A dumb move. Any fool (or uncle Jo) knows that as soon as you get a sniff of power, you hang onto it and begin plotting the downfall (or preferably death) of any close rivals. If he’d held on to the mantle of power, he could have been opening the bowling for years to come. But as soon as I resumed the role, all the old insecurities of high office came flooding back. Immediately spotting the threat of Bainbridge to my acting position of command, I had to put him in his place (deepest fine leg and not opening the bowling).

With Lynch and Warsnap somewhere else and Bimbo in purdah (definition; the seclusion of women from the sight of men) on the boundary, I chucked our ‘borrowed’ ball (for we had none of our own) to Bonfire and asked Gary ThreeforFourforFiveforWartha (a name of Cornish origin apparently) to take the second over.

Papa Bonfield, suffering a bit from writers block struck with his very first ball (is that too obscure a cross-reference from last Saturday’s report?) enticing a snick that Jones happily snaffled and the Cross juggernaut was on the road again. Bonf proclaimed the virtues of the very short lived innings as, usually, the East League hackers aren’t good enough to nick his pearlers. About time somebody was good enough to do so!!!

Our favourite Watsonian now entered the fray and struggled against Trewartha, edging a couple through the burgeoning slip cordon before tickling one to your vice-vice-skipper at gully. Flannigan was next to go, tied down by Trewartha, he had a flail at one and missed, before losing his off stump next ball.

Er, still no skipper at this point. Brian ‘the one-armed bandit’ Fraser was in attendance in spectator mode and offered to do sub fielding duties. However this just reminded me of an old family story. My Grandad once told me, over a Werthers Original, that during the Second World War, one of his brothers was late back to his barracks after a period of leave. His CO had uttered the immortal words “I’d rather go into battle a man down than take Fraser”. The regiment then went off and were almost wiped out in one of those glorious futile gestures. So Brian was given a Coms role as we requested he found out where the F the skipper was. Difficult as he wasn’t answering his phone (/awake yet).

On the battlefield, the carnage continued. Yellowlees was next up. Looking good, he became ‘engaged’ in some ‘chat’ with a simmering Bainbridge (the ghost of the Bish alive and well?). When the Bimbo replaced Bonners, he thought long and hard about which of his arsenal of deliveries he’d deploy to dismiss his verbal nemesis. He decided on a hybrid of the half tracker and the long hop. A gleeful Yellowlees threw his bat at it, but could only chop it onto his timbers and off he went wondering if there were better ways to spend a Saturday.

The wireless operator reported at 1345 that contact had been made with the skipper and he sounded “groggy”. He was at his folks and would be going to Arbo to get his car and kit and should be half an hour.

Gary T scalped another in the meantime and the hosts were 41 for 5 against our charging one man Light Brigade.

After 3.5 overs of mediocrity I decided to relieve Bainbro of his toil, before he produced the first good ball of his spell to end his fourth over. Cue the first Hissy Fit of the day when I thanked him for his contribution. The tiara was thrown to the ground as he wailed something or other about just having found his rhythm. Dabbing his tears away I agreed to allow him to continue while Killey replaced Trewartha at the other end.

Sim & Boorman had now began a counter offensive. Defying the evidence of what went before, although the ball was quickly losing its shine in the drizzle, they continued to play shots when they could and kept the score ticking along at a healthy rate. Hissy Fit #2 arrived in the form of young Ellis. Asked to bowl at the Colinton Rd end, he was inconsolable. So Dougie offered himself up instead allowing Precious Prince Charles to get his way. I’m going soft in my old age.

Drinks came and went, but still no Dear Leader, until, in the 27^th over, our spirits were lifted. Out of the drizzle appeared that small red fanny magnet (the MR2, not Euan) and our cup winning skipper, like Marty McFly emerging from the DeLorean (Back To The Present???), arrived pitchside. In the 28^th over we were a team again.

Scrabbling around looking for a partnership breaker, I decided to ask Morcom to bowl an over, but first tried Gary T who still had two overs left. Three wickets later (figures of 6-39 for Trewartha), Morcom’s brief was truly defunct, though he still got one over as consolation anyway. Watsons had made a more than useful 92 for their 6^th wicket.

A further change recalling Russell and Bonfield was enough to take the final two wickets in 9 balls and Watsonians were all out for 145 in the 38^th over. Considering we had 10 men for most of it, a changed team, no office bearers and the quality of the opposition, I thought we did pretty well, although there was a murmur or two that we should have got them for less. If only I’d brought myself on 1^st change eh…

A mightily splendid, but disappointingly meagre Tea was then taken at Myreside where the increasing rain chased their 1^st XI off at Myreside just as we settled down to watch some ‘proper’ cricket being played.

And that was it.

In summation, another great performance by Gary T, averaging less than 7 with the ball and a strike rate under 12 in all 1^st XI games this year (it also transpired that Gary scored his "first" hundred against Watsons, not bad for our number 11). Shannon getting a batsman to nick a ball also deserves a second mention. Good efforts in tough conditions by the other bowlers too. And yet again in the field, it doesn’t seem to matter who is playing, our fielding was excellent once more, the only drops were two toughies behind the stumps by a useful looking stand-in keeper. The total lack of nets seems to be paying off spectacularly!!!!

S. Bonfield     6.3-2-16-2

G. Trewartha 10-1-39-6

Bainbridge     7-1-25-1

Killey             3-0-23-0

Russell           5-1-17-1

Ellis               6-0-17-0

Morcom         1-0-7-0

Quick Quiz Answer: E.C.S.M.I.T.H.

"It was one of those nights that just gets away from you and you can't bring it back"

From The Archives: HX vs BAF!

[from KF]

Joining the erstwhile glance back at HX games from yesteryear, can there be a much more priceless gem in the archives than this, extracted from the scrapbook of B Fraser?

The year was 1992. The venue was Arboretum. It was a Sunday in May. The visitors were a strong Penicuik XI. The ten man home side contained the evergreen Coco McGill and the everwilting Doogs Russell. Those lucky enough to be present were about to witness an astonishing 3 over burst of bowling.

Penicuik made a formidable 235-3 including 75 from WI pro, Phil Johnson. In reply, the Cross batsmen struggled to make good with the chase. The tail, including McGill at 6 and D Russell at 10, were ripped to shreds when 16 year old Brian Fraser announced his arrival as one-to-watch with figures of 4-15.

That batting card:

PCC

A Penman st Russell b McGill 74

D Keay b Conn 22

P Johnson lbw b Mitchell 75

M Marshall no 34

M Yan Hip no 3

R Waites, A Law, S Dagless, ex 24

B Fraser, M Allen, G Leslie DNB. 235-3

HX

I Mitchell st Law b Keay 31

F Suttie c Keay b Marshall 6

C Neil st Law b Allen 7

A Robb c Law b Allen 0

C McGill c Law b Fraser 20

D Vettese c Johnson b Fraser 3

R Litster st Law b Fraser 7

N Dingwall c&b b Leslie 0

A Conn b Fraser 0

D Russell no 3

Ex 3

80

There is no truth in the rumour that McGill has subsequently adapted his bowling style to mimic the (then) youngster's action. And, when Brian got hold of The Scotsman the next day to see his name in print, it was reported thus; B Fraser 4-115. Last night B Fraser was heard to mutter “f***** h***, if they’d had eleven I could have had a five-for."

Naming Shame?

Geoffrey Wheatcroft bemoans the declining standard of the nicknames used by members of the England cricket team here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/17/english-nicknames-humour-irony-wit

Have the Cross suffered a similar decline?
This roughly chronological list of nicknames might suggest so:

King
Coco
[Ferret]
Two Dogs
Deadly
Butchie
Shifty
Smudger
Bradders
[Rocket]
Slasher
The Dr
Bonfire
Ziggy
The Professor
Spickers
Beast
Coastal
Jezza
Ozzie
Senior
[Shambles]
Killer
Milley
Sharpey
Bimbo
Popey


Certainly Crossers of more recent vintage have tended to fall into the lazy habit of merely appending ‘ey’ to the end of names (this reached its nadir with EC’s tendency to describe a former 1st team skipper as ‘Ianey’-though I seem to recall he called him something different after being run out by him as he neared a century vs Edinburgh CC…). The club also has a somewhat unimaginative tradition of ‘nicknames’ that merely use initials. e.g. EC; BAF; PVB; HJK; JLRB; JB; KF.

Am I wrong? Surely a good nickname should have an air of mystery about it and take some time to explain (e.g. classics such as Two Dogs and Shifty)?

Midweek Crossers Bitten by Pirani in (Yet Another) Last Ball Thriller

Coco signals to BAF that there's one to come in
the over.

In an entertaining and good-natured friendly (the last of the season) at Arbo:

Edinburgh South 120ao (19.3 overs)
A.Lal 24, P. Reddish 26
R. Bainbridge 3/9 (2 overs)
C. Ellis 3/20 (4 overs)

Holy Cross 117/7
R. Bainbridge 16
C. Ellis 64*

After the early bowlers struggled to control one of Coco's special swinging balls, we kept them to a par score. After an early collapse (44/5 off 10), we recovered and eventually required 10 off the the last over to win. However, talented all rounder Amin Pirani bowled it well and we were unable to get him away (needing 4 from the last ball, we could only scramble a single).

Highlights of the game include Michael's first ever run (punched through straight midwicket) before being welcomed to the Cross ranks in the traditional manner (getting run out by a member of the Ellis family), and Calum's lofted drive (though he forgot that he needed to run for balls that only look like they're going to the boundary).

Lowlight was - after being controversially given out stumped by the keeper standing back - McGill's 'foul mouthed tirade' (in which none of the main swear words were overlooked) directed at the umpire (BAF).

Thanks to ES for an enjoyable game and for providing sub fielders for those who didn't turn up...
(come on chaps; these games are an excellent way of finding form before league games).