An Old School Cricket Story

 Last Sunday we entertained our friends from Cropwell, a very nice bunch of lads who are big fans of bashing the ball hard and playing nice short 30 over games before retiring to the bar for a well earned couple of beers. 

Things were looking awkward for us as we only had nine players as we assembled at Kelham Road on a fine afternoon. However, a young lad, a major superfan and under 15s wicket keeper, was at the ground. He is desperate to play, but he is still "officially" too young to play senior hard ball cricket. 

However, things are slightly different on a Sunday, and on asking him if he fancied a game, and a quick call to get his kit driven over and for me to assure his family that Cropwell were a gentle team who had no bowlers who could kill him, he was in. 

I promptly lost the toss, and as feared, Cropwell decided to bat, where their big gun opening bat who has never failed to score 50 against us took to the middle, and with his partner, proceeded to wallop our bowling all over the park, with particular attention to the straight boundaries. 

I think they raised the 100 after about 11 overs. The chairman had a bowl, and finding no luck with his usual seam up stuff, decided to have a crack with his "sunday off spin" - actually googlies - but this resulted in more boundary peppering, although admittedly our fielding wasn't the best at times and we were a player down. The chief basher had got to his 50, but he was then replaced by another one.

Luckily, we had an old hand whose controlled medium pace I had decided was the right tactical move - that's one thing I've got right this year then - and he took three wickets with considerable skill. 

He knows exactly how quickly he is going to bowl, and exactly where the ball will land, which is entirely beyond my pay grade in this game. Our young guest, meanwhile, had taken over wicket keeping duties and was doing a stellar job, which augurs well for the third team next year, 

I had come on to bowl at this point, and was doing ok if not spectacularly, wickets, once again, evaded me, That was all happening at the other end, where the young second team opening bat was now proving highly effective with his rarely bowled off spin. 

Damn, they all make it look so easy.

So they closed on 199. 

Our innings did not start well, and we found ourselves in a very unwell looking position of about 40 for 5. However, the chairman, in conjunction with our young guest, proceeded to batter a fine 50 before the enforced retirement, a sort of "Sleep" in "Logan's Run" for batters in friendly games. 

The wicket by now was being rather tricky, so well done to them for scoring runs. It was very heartening for the young player's grandfather arrive in time to see him hook a head high beamer for four. 

I did get to have a little bat, I say little, I batted for 10 overs to score 13 not out. Lluckily for the watchers, the entertainment was coming from the other end. 

We lost, but it been all good fun.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 23.08.24

There was Quality in there Somewhere

 On Sunday, it was time for our return visit by our friends from Cropwell. For once, through no fault of my own, I was late for the game, and batting first we were already 88 for 1, with our opening bat just cracking a four to bring up his 50 and his enforced retirement as I arrived. 

We carried on batting rather serenely at about five runs an over, until with about 8 overs to go our other bat, now on over 200 runs in three games, also reached 50 and had to retire. 

This led to a passage of cricket that was, shall we say, a challenging watch. As ever, the problems of scoring runs against slow lob bowling on a slow wicket on our deck became very apparently, and there wasn't a lot of quality on view, with some ferocious swinging of the bat resulting in minimal ball movement. 

Hey, it's Sunday, it doesn't matter! All good. We still had 152 for 4 on the board.

However, we know Cropwell. Every time we have played them, their opening bat has always come in and slammed 50 very quickly before retiring for a beer, and ensuring Cropwell got the runs they needed. This time, however, our young opening bowler got him quite early on, and it was in fact his partner who started slamming the ball around, hitting one bowler over the pavilion twice. 

Their run rate was climbing rapidly. The skipper, desperate not to lose again, decided to deploy some first team bowling, including the division's leading wicket taker. This is generally regarded as being a bit "Un-Sunday-Like" and the Cropwell captain, himself a good bat as well, thought we were being a bit naughty, especially as the quick bowler seemed to be about twenty miles per hour for the Cropwell bats to even see. 

I did apologise, as they took four wickets between them in eight overs and killed the game stone dead, as Cropwell's remaining batters were clearly not up to much. Thankfully, friendlier bowlers were brought on for the the last 12 overs as we chipped away at the remaining wickets. 

I bowled some gentle filth myself, claiming another wicket with my speared in quicker ball, even if it was a full toss. 

There was time for a bit of peak village at the end, where our umpire allowed my last over, the final one of the game, to go on for about ten balls so the playing wife of one of the Cropwell players could score a run. 

She got one, from a ball I bowled at her left handed. Yes, it got to that level. We won by about 50 runs. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 25.08.23

Losing in the Drizzle

 Sunday saw us heading off to the beautiful village green surroundings of Cropwell, a ground that is part of a nature reserve, seems to be much beloved of the local swallows, and is surrounded by areas of wildflowers. We were also due to have an actual tea, which had caused a lot of pre-match anticipation as we don't get them very often in the post covid world.

A terrible pity, in the view of most of us. 

The wicket was immaculate, and try, but turned out to be rather slow. As was my fielding having already played on Saturday of which more anon. 

Cropwell are a mixed ability side, with a couple of decent players, and a lot of social players, which is absolutely fine for a Sunday side. We too were mixed, with a couple of very good players, with the standard dropping down to myself, and a couple of guys who came with one of our better players, one of whom was French and had never played the game before. But they were nice chaps, and unlike myself had the ability to move. 

We batted first in a thirty over game, and made an excellent start with our first team opener - as ever watched by his dog - and the player who had brought his friends with him, getting us to about 90 before drinks, and the enforced retirement of our opener on 50, a fine knock indeed.  

Our batting after that was a bit less fluent, but we still got to 148, helped by my hopeless flailing 2 before I deliberately got out to let one of the new players have a bat. And to get off the ground as I had lost my white trousers somehow and was thus reduced to playing in orange shorts. 

After descending on the tea like a pack of polite hyenas, we took to the field to bowl, and the same guy who had flayed us for 50 last year did exactly the same thing as the drizzle set in for the afternoon and the swooping swallows took themselves out of the rain. 

At halfway drinks they were on about 90 as well, and we knew we had a game on our hands, complicated by the fact that being a mixed ability side we kept having to "turn the bowling up and down", a commonplace event in friendly games. I came on and bowled like a drain for two overs, probably fatally for our prospects, before sorting myself out and bowling two ok-ish overs. Even unleashed my new quicker arm ball. Which I don't spin, not that it makes a difference. 

A tense finish ensued in the rain. Wickets fell, a soapy wet ball caused full tosses. Last over came up with Cropwell 7 down and four runs needed, which they did indeed get. 

Sad to lose, but it was a fun game, and we got free chips afterwards, so bad moods were soothed somewhat.

Apart from mine about by bowling. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 31.07.23

Ah yes, the "Art of Captaincy"

 With a few players missing, it was left to me to organise and captain a side to travel out to play Cropwell, a very very village team in the pretty village of Cropwell Butler, home both of stilton cheese and legendary Notts and England player Derek Randall.

"Rags", as he was always known, does occasionally trundle down to the ground to watch the odd game, but he didn't on Sunday. I don't think he would have been very impressed if he had done.

The ground itself was in a lovely rural setting with sheep bleating around the ground and various country byways criss crossed the site, which had an admittedly rather algae filled pond and was also designated as a nature reserve. The fantastic little scorebox would you make you think cricket had been played here for hundreds of years, but in fact they used to play at a colliery ground and have only been here for about 12 years. 

Seeing as we had arrived early for the game, and apparently looked like first team players - yes, me included - we were invited to bat first, at last, and so our somewhat makeshift side ranging in age from 12 to mid 70s had to suffer me inflicting a batting order on it. 

So, our 75 year old give or take first team umpire went out to bat with our 17 year old first team opening batter, with strict instructions about running between the wickets. The fact it was a 30 over game meant we would be retiring batters at 50, which doesn't go down well in all quarters apparently, but we do want to try and get everyone into the game.

The bowling was a lot friendlier than I was expecting it to be, making re slightly regret changing my mind about opening the batting myself. But it was reasonably accurate and not that easy to get away, although our young opener made a good first of it. Our umpire was stumped after 8 overs and 4 runs, raising his eyebrows a little at the decision, which I felt to be slightly ironic, and then our young keeper joined in, and runs began to come very quickly. 

We were 65 for 1 at drinks, and I gave the instruction to push on a bit as I knew Cropwell batted better than they bowled, and I wanted at least 160 on the scoreboard.

This they proceeded to do, until the keeper got out for 29, heavily annoyed as he was hoping for a 50 himself. The opener retired on 50, but we had some more young middle order firepower, helped by our star second team bowler, fresh off 9 wickets in two matches, who also knows how to wield the willow. 

Things went smoothly until about two overs to go, where my organisational ability fell aprt somewhat. I retired our number 5 on 35 to get a new bat in, but alas he fell first ball meaning I had to go out there with about ten balls left. 

I somehow managed to hack a run, but then the other batsman was bowled, and no-one was ready to come in, the chairman who had arrived late seemingly had no intention of putting any cricket kit at this moment in time, so we had to wait until we could get the 12 year old ready. In the meantime, our number 5 was unretired; he played an outrageous reverse ramp for 4 then got out.

I was trying some desperate hacks to try and get the young lad on strike for the last two balls, which I manaaged. He missed the first, but hit the second straight to the bowler.

I told him to run anyway, hping the bowler wouldn't run him ut, and he chose not to, for which I thanked him.

A bit chaotic, but we had indeed got to exactly 160. 

Now for the real test of captaincy. The fielding. 

I'd removed one difficulty, i.e. when to bowl myself, because I had hurt my already injured back the first time I had tried to wave the bat. The opening bowlers were easy, firstly it was the two players who hadn't batted, and secondly because the chairman would banish me from the club if I didn't let him bowl first.

It did not take long for me to realise that my hunch that Cropwell batted better than they bowled was entirely correct. They knew their wicket, they just put their hands through everything and smashed through extra cover. 

I was fielding at extra cover, and was fielding so badly I was banished to slip and replaced the the senior player we were hiding there. I just couldn't get near the ball, my co-ordination was hideous. Everything went straight through me while I got my legs in a tangle. 

Horrendous.

Without any actual idea of what to do out there to stem the runs, or even if there was anything anyone could do, I had to bring our gun bowler on but he went exactly the same way. The chairman was nearly getting wickets when he switched to his googly bowling but was still getting taken for boundaries. 

He insisted he was not to be taken off until he'd bowled out though. 

We did get the gun bats though, through superb outfield catching involving very loud shouting of names. And it turned out the other bats weren't as good, no sirree and we managed to drag ourselves back into the game after they had racked up 100 after just 12 overs. Our number 5 was bowing an excellent spell to go with his batting; wickets were falling, but the runs were creeping up. Our 12 year old got a good little bowl, and took a wicket too so that was a bonus. 

I wish I could say I knew what I was doing out there, but I didn't, not really. However with 6 wickets down, two overs to go and 4 runs needed, I did do something reasonably captain like, by bringing everyone in and trying to make the batsman hit over the top to win the game. And it worked too! Two batters got themsevles out trying to hit the winning boundary, and the next two were very nervous.

However it was not to be, Cropwell managed to pierce the infield and that was it.

However, it had been an excellent and very friendly game, entirely worthwhile to take part in and at 30 overs it hadn't taken an eternity like last week's match had. This meant we were able to retire to the pub around the corner, where the opposition players took part in strange rituals involving drinking pints with batting gloves on.

Hell's teeth, I'm clumsy enough as it is without doing that.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 23.08.22