Bonus Cricket Content - Victory in the Back of Beyond

 I haven't played any Saturday league cricket this year until this past weekend, on the grounds of good availability of miles better players than me.

But now it's August, and players with families are off on their holidays, and so I was brought into play in a game at Wymeswold on the Wolds, a ground in Leicestershire in the heart of cheese and pork pie country.

It was actually a very pretty setting, with views over the rolling Woldsian hills and an orchard, with house martins twittering about among the fielders. 

Inserted to bat on a rather tacky wicket where timing the ball was difficult, we struggled at first, but then some of our youngest players got it together and scored some good runs. Our number five, recovering from Dubai induced heat-stroke, was particularly effortless; his backfoot shots all played with a straight bat, a mark of high quality as he made 75 not out. 

I watched all this from the old fashioned scorebox; a wooden bird box of pulleys and levers that only I seemed to be bothered to figure out how it worked. I bet bats roosted in it. 

A dramatic 6 off the last ball took us to 190 for 5, a strong scored indeed but our opponents, no doubt fortified by pies and stilton, had chased down a higher one at the fixture at our ground, and indeed it became apparent very early on in their innings that they were not going to go down easily, despite the captain taking important wickets. One Wymeswold chap in particular, who had a good eye but an awful technique, was particularly determined to thwart us, and they just chipped and chipped away at our total. 

Knowing that this game was too important for me to have a sniff of getting a bowl, our third team being top of the league for the first time in recorded memory, I just tried to field as least awfully as I could, running far too quick for my old body to handle and leaving me absolutely wrecked for the Sunday match. 

It went down to the 38th over, when our spinner from Upton finally got the last man LBW. 

A great victory, and I was totally spent having actually done nothing all game. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.08.23