Wield vs Lynchmere, Sunday 26th September
Weather: Mere words cannot describe how cold it was.
“Villagers do not think village cricket is funny. ”
(John Arlott 1981)
And now I know why. John where are you when we need you ? Even your mellifluous tones calmly reciting the greatest moments of the 1937 Test against S Africa, delivered during a long spell of rain at the Oval in 1983, could not do justice to this day of……can I write the word…..cricket.
This day’s play, if one can actually use the word, made the Armada look like a triumph of combined ops and the Battle of Little Big Horn a brilliant vindication of cavalry tactics.
Or should that read Calvary ? It was a certainly a Via Dolorosa that Wield walked….
Any number of excuses can be produced. It was in weather like this that the final dinosaur breathed its last. Cold and thoroughly miserable, even Wield’s most robust predatory beast (Butlerlius Dougius) was wrapped in 7 layers to go to the wicket.
The day started unpromisingly with the skipper winning the toss, opting to bat and telling the only other Wield player there, our professional holder of the 11 slot, that he was batting number 2. Fortunately someone else got there in time to save Wield from that humiliation.
Slow was not the right word to describe Wield’s batting. Jurassic might be better, but that would convey an undue sense of momentum. After 8 overs we had advanced, like a stately Spanish galleon, to the massive total of 13, while the first boundary only came in over 13. Johnny Dennys took caution to a new height by taking fifty minutes to score his first run. This excess of activity stirred him so much that he scored another run in the same over and went on to score two runs on the offside, which has been entered to the Guinness Book of Records as PB – and world record - for him.
Dougie’s seven layers seemed to prove all those fancy ideas about inertia in the theory of mechanics, as he showed a great reluctance to run. Finally after scoring 24, he took off a sweater, and started to let fly. He created a Wield record by being caught outside the boundary with a fine 6 (and was therefore not out) and repeated the stroke, with the same result, in the same over. “Now Bill didn’t that last happen in the final over before tea at Trent Bridge in 1987 against Australia ? ” “I think, John you are thinking of that famous game…..”
With the score at 62, and most of the overs gone, Wield entered familiar territory, with the loss of 3 wickets for no extra runs. By the time 30 overs had been played, Lynchmere’s fielders were so close the halitosis was overwhelming. Wield were trapped, with little, save a fine cover drive by David Maltby, to keep the pulse racing.
Wield declared (for tea) at 99 for 9. Medical attention, in the form of excellent egg sandwiches (I had to write that, her indoors made them) and lashings of first class homemade cake from Jean Frost revived our spirits.
Worse was to come as a reluctant Wield took to the field. In three overs Lynchmere had put 22 on the board, and they were a third of the way to their target after six overs. The game dragged to an inevitable – and much wished for – ending, though an excellent wicket from Robin Hunt completely fooled the batsman and confirmed him as the Wield’s killer bowler. How such a predatory beast can manage to look like a gentle country herbivore I do not know. George Phillips took a wonderful high catch – without moving an inch, proving that economy of movement can be a virtue, at times.
The most active living object on the field was Brian Collins dog, which ran amok. Unlike Wield’s bowlers. Wield lost by 7 wickets and all went to the Yew Tree to recover. Not many chose to drink outside.
Philip Geddes
