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.
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| The skipper at around 1pm on Saturday??? |
T
he 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 12th game of the season and our 4th 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 27th 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 28th 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 6th 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 38th 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 1st change eh…
A mightily splendid, but disappointingly meagre Tea was then taken at Myreside where the increasing rain chased their 1st 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 1st 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"
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