Wield vs Whiteditch W, Sunday 22nd September
Weather – Autumn-ish!!
Match summary – 13.00 Start!!!!
A game of two halves with the correct result!!!!.
A meek sun hung in the sky over the cricket field as Mrs Tiggywinkle and Brock the Badger lumbered out to the crease. Wield had won the toss and opted to bat as their star bowler, the lanky Philip Peewit, had not arrived in time for the one o’clock start. The game began. Brock asked politely for a guard and commenced digging. He turned round and squatted, as badgers sometimes do having dug a hole, got up again and wandered two yards down the pitch. He asked for a guard and commenced digging again. The fielders, young and fit and waiting, sat down. Mrs Tiggywinkle at the other end asked the umpire whether the game could start. Brock finished digging and looked around him as if to say, “what on earth am I doing here? Who are all these people?” The bowler grunted and ran in.
This continued at the start of every over for the next hour and the score hesitantly stopped and started, but mostly stopped as umpires and drinks came and went. Mrs Tiggywinkle brutally swatted away a large white butterfly and curled up into a ball. A buzzard passed over the ground and did not even bother to comment. The bowlers continued grunting and groaning and the original smattering of chat and applause died down to silence. Philip arrived at around 2.15 and woke up the waiting batsmen. After two hours Brock had reached his half-century and wild cheering broke out as we realised we might get to a hundred before tea. An over later the slower ball removed Brock’s middle stump and Mrs Tiggywinkle was joined by Jack Kitten. The run-rate picked up as Jack started hitting the ball around the ground and Mrs Tiggywinkle uncurled herself.
The tea-ladies arrived and the score, no longer hesitant but confident and full of vigour, swept majestically past one hundred and further. Mrs Tiggywinkle began to hit boundaries as she did not want to run anymore and tea arrived with her carrying her bat on 65 no while Jack Kitten was pressing her on 39 no.
The first half of the game was over as we shook ourselves out of our somnolent torpor and made for the egg sandwiches and sausages, lemon drizzle cake and tea. The sun still hung wan in the sky, but now we were about to enter the field of battle in defence of the honour of Wield. You see, around half of the Whiteditch players had been recognised as the team that had inflicted the ignominious defeat on Wield at Herriard in the early summer, in the place of moss and red kites.
Ken opened the bowling and found some bounce. Robin was mortified. Dean was not to be out-done and did the same from the other end. The batting onslaught began and Yorkie calculated how much longer Wield could hold out – thirty minutes or so. Casualties mounted and then Ken broke through, stalling the rampage momentarily. Now, like the Saxons at Hastings it was clear to us that the Normans were on the run. However, as we knew our history, we could not quite believe it so we held back and Wade and Robin came on to bowl. And it all went horribly wrong for Whiteditch.
In a frankly beautiful piece of a captain-inspired combination of bowling and field placing (very unusual for Wield), Wade bowled, their star batsman hit and Yorkie caught on the boundary. Tony behind the wicket dropped his arms as his mouth fell open in amazement. The batsman shook his head, bewildered by his change of fortune and the rest of the Saxons cheered their heroes. Two down and the wickets begun to flow freely, like the blood of the Saxons in a past battle, now avenged on the playing fields of Wield.
A brief interruption then occurred from one of the camp followers. A daughter was going to have to go to A&E. Fine, because the player had house keys. Apparently the wrong answer. The son was left at the ground and the fingerless daughter left for A&E. The damage would be cleared up later, the match was beyond the tipping point.
Philip was put on at the Upper Wield end and more wickets fell, Dean taking a catch at square leg. At the Yew Tree end Robin forced another catch which bounced once out of Rupert’s hands and then back in. Two wickets left with their captain at the crease - determined to make a game of it Yorkie replaced Robin with Rupert. Two swift LBWs later and the game was over, well under Wield’s score and another victory chalked up.
Rupert Cazalet
(Head of Utter Nonsense, Bradley Institute of Gibberish)
