WEEKENDERS SEAL ONE WICKET VICTORY WITH ONLY FOUR BALLS TO SPARE IN BEAUTIFULLY PACED CHASE
In your dreams, boys.
Actually:
By Captain Choke
Most of us would rather follow any available yellow brick road to see Captain Birdseye do a 90 minute workout whilst hoisting his main sail rather than have to follow in the footsteps of the great bard from Barnsbury Street to write a Weekenders match report but nevertheless that’s what I’ve been charged to do. Where to start? What to say? How to be funny? Luckily for me though I was told by 7 or 8 players that this match report wrote itself. Which was true enough until I realised just how much added pressure that brought. And then I choked. Again. Pressure. The one word liable to push any Weekender into a bottomless doubled-barrelled pit of despairing rudderless doldrums. And some.
After a season’s personal best from the Aussie boys for pointless emails clogging up the UK’s broadband super-highway for several hours on Tuesday (does anyone actually work in this team?) Mike Harvey appeared outside d’Inverno’s house in a hired car which only cost a hundred quid between the four of us. A hundred quid? Wow, these aussie boys travel in style you’d think. Respect and big up to them, innit? Unfortunately, it was actually the car was only a little bigger than the third record-breaking pavlova Marvel Harvey had consumed at Chippenham a few weeks previously, and at one point when Mike was getting increasingly hungry and nearly broke the 55mph barrier I was truly worried for us ever getting the deposit back. Half-eaten cars don’t get you to the pub in time either. What was worse was that fate had dealt a cruel blow in what would be a long line of cruel blows that day (big thanks to fate) in that both Morty and PJ had been out the night before and wanted to be violently sick early doors. In fact they were in so many pieces from their exploits that the only way they could be got into the car was by the driver using a dustpan and brush.
Nevertheless we made it to the ground in a record-breaking 140 minutes with a good hour to spare for cheeky ones, only to be undone by the total lack of boozers in that part of Bury. What do they do round there? Country walks? Reading? After another 30 minutes in publess, joyless country lanes we finally managed to find a roundabout and a pub, and subsequently most of the boys made it there for a late lunch and a just a couple of sharpeners. Tidy.
You might think that leaving the pub at 1.59 was a little ambitious for a prompt start 2pm start and you’d be right. Nevertheless, we were greeted by a mixed bag set of grunts from the Bury team, who were mostly sat riveted to the TV watching Freddy’s progress. Strangely though, just on Ceefax.
The Bury captain took the skipper to one side and said ‘I can’t face walking all the way to the middle. What do you want to do?’ Well, normally this would throw many of us. No tossing? What do you mean, no tossing? We haven’t travelled 2 hours in the world’s smallest car for this? Unquestionably this has been one of the strong points of our game this year and to have it taken from you like that almost made us get back in the Punto and play sardines for the afternoon. Sadly no one could find any olive oil so, reverting to auto pilot, the standard Weekenders captain’s line that has worked throughout the ages of ‘You’d better bat first, we’re crap’ did its trick again and hid our swollen mountain of discontent.
A very tight opening spell from PJ ‘no poles by June’ Harvey earned him a not unsurprisingly impressive tidy noughtfer. Taking himself off after a mammoth 6 overs (it was 4 last match, but with a much redder face) he retired to fine leg to throw up. At the other end the young boy Sackville was getting pounded round the park but then, as ever, by about the fourth over, he started to find an excellent line and length and had the opener caught behind by the impressive Vickery making his Weekenders debut in gloves. Puss in boots? Give me Mort in Gloves any day. Needless to say he was outstanding, and helped by the kind of focus only a Fosters-inspired hangover can give you, he didn’t miss a trick. Just one or two more Husaini-inspired meaningless ‘wind it up, boys’ and this boy could be the finished article.
As on so many previous occasions we didn’t do to badly in the field if you don’t count the five fours that went though our misplaced tentative mits. (‘Regulation stops those’ a despondent slip fielder was heard to mutter.) This was largely due to the return of Steve Dunne who’d warmed up for his first bowl of the season by spending three days at home lying on the couch watching the test. If only some of us others could put in this kind of training, perhaps we could dig a bit deeper when called upon to do a job, eh lads? Not only did he once again define line and length (look it up in Websters gentlemen and you’ll see the great man listed as an example of both) but took a preposterously brilliant left-handed waist-high reflex catch that sent the Weekenders into howls of delirious deliriums. Most delirious of us all was the returning Lyons, who’d after spending two months at the dentist’s, had just managed to fumble a catch at second slip to the same batsmen not three delivery’s earlier. What was especially heart-warming though was the way he hung his head in his arms after the drop. It was a brilliant display, and, technically, absolutely flawless.
A terrific spell from Dunne, along with the ever-improving Sackville, and a great tight little toad from Lyons held Bury in check and tea was taken at 156 for 8.
Lyons, realising the skipper’s perennial problem of everyone wanting to bat at 5, graciously volunteered to open. Only to be undone by a straight one early doors. Completely unfair tactics if you ask most of us but a straight one it was. Harvey and Emmett then went about building a solid platform, and after Emmett’s departure Whitehead came in and played brilliantly only to see utter madness begin to unfold at the other end. Mike `better give Vickery a go’ Harvey, played a shot too far, Andrew `I don’t want to be a thirties merchant’ Vickery, reached 30 and next ball ran down the track to the first ball from the opposing skipper to be stumped by a cool 19 yards. This started the only too familiar triple wicket maiden and suddenly there was pandemonium as Sackville, due to bat at 8 and communing with nature, was blissfully unaware of the drama outside and got caught dreadfully short.
At the other end, previous skipper Whitehead, who had seen this all this sort of thing before, stood implacable and immovable. He wasn’t going to let a simple triple wicket maiden affect his psychology, or his batting for that matter. But yet again, fate dealt a cruel blow, as the jock strap which had been in his family for 148 years finally gave way, and fearing the worst for the future possibility of some mini Whiteheads, came off the field for major repairs. Deeply upset by this tragedy, he never fully recovered, and soon had to repeat the same walk from the wicket, but this time for good.
Dunne shepherded the tail as brilliantly as any Weekenders tail can be shepherded and with Sackville and PJ striking some excellent blows suddenly the hope kicked in again. 21 off 25, 18 off 23, 11 off 13, 9 off 11. But what Michael Frayn neglected to say in his Clockwise script was that ``sure as eggs is eggs, hope will only lead to choke’’. If he’d written that, then none of us wouldn’t be able to collectively not take our hats of to him, would we? But he didn’t, did he? Almost certainly because he hasn’t seen WCC chasing a not immoderate target.
So with nine wickets down Captain Choke walks to the crease, and this time with both pads on and a bat, so optimism’s currently running pretty high in the camp. Eight balls left and only 4 needed for victory. After a great swipe across the line from the first ball was met by non-striker Dunne’s understated ``don’t do that’’, the skipper went into his shell for the next ball only to be massively late on a head-high full-toss that could so easily have been swiped to seal victory. No ball, though. Joy! 3 to win off 7.
We’ll do it in no-balls, the captain strategised internally.
After a very tentative block, there we were left with an over to go. Three needed and Dunne facing. And Hargroves nowhere in sight saying ``it’s in the bag’’. What could go wrong now?
Dunne punched through the infield first ball but one run was all there was to be had. Two needed. Five deliveries to go. Easy street. A widish delivery saw Captain Choke have a slash. Thick outside edge through third man, and, not unnoticed by the oppo, straight into the air. ``Run’’ shouts Dunne, and as he runs all the number 11 can do is look at the faces of the oppo to know his team’s fate.
It wasn’t pretty. Caught at short third man.
Whitehead tried to console the skipper with manifestly untrue lines like ``9/10 times you’d have got that skip’’ but it didn’t help. Captain Choke had led his team to one of the most famous chokes on record. Weekenders Cricket Club had lost by 1 run.
Many positives can be taken away from this day though, Jennifer’s scoring was so brilliant that Bury’s scorer wanted to become her newest and bestest friend, the boys played a blinder at the barbecue waiting for the inevitable drop of prices of burgers from a pound to 50p before collectively charging down the servers white-knuckled and bare-teeth and, finally, in a brilliant piece of ``afters’’, Whitehead taking the wrong kit bag accidentally on purpose.
Alas, the oppo found out and contacted Lyons half way down the M11. But this started a sequence of events that saw yet another Weekenders record to fall in what has already been a quite remarkable year. It came to pass that between Whitehead, Lyons, d’Inverno and some of the other boys, there were 43 distinct mobile phone calls (missed calls are included) and all within a little over 22 minutes. Surely, a new record for a returning journey?
Fate hadn’t left the table though; and most certainly hadn’t finished dealing. Harry finally pulled over on the hard shoulder of the M11 to check the contents of the kit bag, and in one last cruel blow, was absolutely choked to discover it only contained dirty washing.
Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory again.
The choke in more detail …
Bury St. Edmunds 156-8 declared
Sackville West 10-1-46-3
P Harvey 6-1-16-0
Dunne 13-1-49-3
d’Inverno 4-0-23-1
Lyons 6-2-18-1
Catches: Vickery, Dunne, Emmett, P Harvey.
Weekenders CC 155 All Out.
M. Harvey 15
Lyons 1
Emmett 16
Whitehead 38
Vickery 30
Desmeules 0
Hart 0
Sackville West 7
P Harvey 12
Dunne 21*
d’Inverno 0
Weekenders lost by 1 run.