400% Improvement

Today we played host to the Nottingham Tigers, a team whom we've had some good games with in recent seasons although they've always just been that bit better than us, with their star player usually on hand to see them home with the bat.

We made a mistake by getting him out cheaply, but more of that later.

They batted first and myself and the new young first teamer opened the bowling. He knocked over their opening bat with his first ball of the match - something I did a few seasons back - and we were full of joy.

I was really up for bowling today, feeling almost pain free, and my first two overs went ok. There then followed an absolute horror story of a third over, with 5 wides and two boundaries. It was another "Please ground, swallow me whole" moment. It seems to be caused a technical issue with my body falling away as I'm bowling splay footed, and to the universal relief of everyone I was banished to the outfield.

I wasn't unhappy though, as I was fielding slightly better today. It was ungainly and clumsy, but I was able to stop most things with some part of my body or other. I was feeling pretty good about it.

Until I dropped another howling catch. Off the captain's bowling. He didn't look very happy.

Better bowlers and fielders were on hand, and we  - or rather, they - were doing really well, taking wickets regularly including that of their dangerous captain who fell straight into the cow corner trap that had been set for him. We had them about 100-8, and this is where things started to go a bit mad.

The 9 and 10 for the opposition were not, shall we say, the most limber looking of folks, with one of them really slow and the other not interested in running at all. This culminated in them knocking the ball for what should have been an easy single, only for them to stand in the middle of the pitch yelling at each other. "Run! RUN! WHY WON'T YOU RUN???!!!" as everyone, including their team mates, fell about laughing.

Less funny was one of our players getting hit below the eye when trying to make a catch. It was already swelling up during the game, and no doubt the poor guy will be sporting a handsome black eye tomorrow. Then one of the batsmen got hit in the face with the ball when it was thrown in from the field.

It was all happening out there.

Comedy they may have been, but these two guys batted for 15 overs, keeping us steadfastly out while adding another 50 runs that effectively took the game away from us. My return to bowl the second last over didn't change a thing, although my bowling had mysteriously sorted itself out.

Batting wise, we started ok, but soon found out where had made a tactical mistake. Normally the Tigers' captain doesn't bowl in matches against us, usually because his bat had already done the talking. But no, because we got him out cheaply he decided to unleash himself upon us and by golly he is pretty quick for our level.

He wiped out our middle order in no time at all, greatly appreciated by the keening family of buzzards who sailed around the ground as the afternoon got warmer and warmer. He killed the game stone dead in 5 overs, and while we carried on batting time and giving the youngsters a chance to have a good game - which they did - the corpse could not be resuscitated.

I did get to bat though, way down at 11 as always, and I even managed to score 4 runs, an improvement of my best score this year of 400%. Of course, I would have to get out in an utterly stupid way, hitting the ball into the ground whereupon it bounced off the back of my leg into the stumps.

Bloody. Typical.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.08.20

Just Mooching About at the Cricket

Yesterday was a difficult day, as the news of a Covid spike in the town set me on edge and made me suddenly get very angsty about all the maskless car sharing going on in the car park and an insanely daft finger buffet another team decided to have.

A fine idea at times like this.

So it was a relief to get home.

Today I wasn't playing, but I did take myself down the cricket ground for a few hours to watch our first team to play Gotham. Sadly Batman wasn't playing, but they were a decent team as it was without any Dark Knights in the ranks.

It certainly looked hard for our batsman to score, as we were 87 for 5 when I arrived with about 12 overs of our innings to go. But the skipper played a great knock to see us reach 150. Hopefully he'll be thrilled to see that he's mentioned here, as well as the guy batting with him who must have found it rather more difficult to hit the ball than he does when I'm bowling at him in the nets.

Both lads scored 35 or so.

I then watched the first 15 overs of the Gotham replied, which was marked by some extremely tidy bowling from our openers who took a wicket each before I left after having lapped the ground god knows how many times.

Apparently, it turned into a sensational game where Gotham made it home by just two wickets in the last over. Foolish man was I to leave.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.08.20

Inspiration? Where?

While we wait to see if another Lockdown is going to be slapped back down upon us - a local food factory has seen an outbreak of "that damn virus" - I've been trying to get myself lively and productive at work and being a bit of an ideas factory to catch up for all the time we've lost.

I'm also trying to get back into other forms of writing other than this nature blog. My way of inspiring myself I've been reading about Wild Billy Childish, the Medway Poet, the inventor of the Stuckist art movement and a Musician of the British Empire.

Billy has been around since 1979, and is a former partner of artist Tracey Emin. He is absolutely prolific and has released around 100 albums and done enough paintings to cover the surface of the moon. Probably. I find people like him, steeped in words and paint, absolutely fascinating.

In actuality, I find his music nearly unlistenable and am not very keen on his paintings. But it is the idea of living a life of nothing but creativity that inspires. He spent 17 years on the dole while doing his thing at one point.

So, after I read, I felt full of drive and zest, ready to sit in front of this keyboard and create Create CREATE.

And of course, it hasn't happened. I went for a run on a very warm evening, and was too tired to do anything other than lie on the sofa.

The literary world cries into its tea.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.08.20

What a Game that Was

It was an away game today but we were only playing Farndon so it was an easy enough bike ride, or at least it would have been if I wasn't weighed down by a cricket bag containing my kit and 300 bottles of sanitiser. But I made it there without mishap.

Our young captain lost the toss, and immediately I felt we were on for a shellacking and a half as Farndon's Sunday side normally play at a higher level than ours, and they had a few first team players to boot.

Certainly, on a ground with a belting true wicket, and an outfield that proved to be like glass, I thought we were looking down the barrel of a very high score. Both myself and my young opening partner - I got to open the bowling for the first time this season - were going for runs without bowling badly, well in his case anyway.

Apart from the usual deluge of wides caused by wind, uncontrolled swing and being rubbish, I bowled good deliveries here and there, and had the Farndon opener caught at point of a thick outside edge before nearly yorking their number 3 first ball, before seeing him dropped at mid off.

Ouch. But I took it well, as I always feel much happier playing on Sundays.

Trouble was, this batsman then started monstering the ball all over the place, and after getting thwacked for two boundaries, I was taken off. However 1-28 wasn't too bad in the circumstances, especially as my replacement was smashed over the rope and into someone's hedge for 6.

What didn't help was my terrible fielding. I made some absolute howlers, fielding with a "long barrier" technique that was neither long or barrier-like, and then having an utter nightmare with a ball that bounced towards me and went through my legs while I got my ankles twisted causing me to nearly fall over in a heap.

We then got a massive telling off from our teenage captain, much deserved in my case, and for a 17 year old he was really rather scary when angry. In my defence I do not want to be rubbish at fielding, it's just that I'm so clumsy my body just won't do what I want too. That's what happens if you are inherently dyspraxic.

I didn't get much better after the telling off either.

Meanwhile, the number 3 sailed on to a ton full of crashing shots. But the captain maintained a degree of control so that we didn't go for 340 like we once did when I was captain of the Sunday side. Our very young left arm bowler was particularly impressive in this regard.

This meant we kept them to 235 for 3 off 40 overs, which normally is a match-winning score.

Farndon had not reckoned on our number 3 however. After losing a couple of early wickets, he and the captain started scoring so quickly that we actually got ahead of the run rate, which continued even after the captain fell to a leg spinner as the 3rd team skipper was able to score good runs against adult bowlers for a change.

However after he and another batsman fell in the same over, I thought we were in trouble. But a previously unheralded player who was only playing for the first time came in and played superbly to keep out the bowling and score a few runs himself, while our number 3 stepped through the gears to start massacring the Farndon bowlers to all parts.

Unbelievably, we reached the target with 5 overs to spare, the greatest Sunday performance I've been involved in despite my rather small contribution.

I wish I had the talent to score 127 not out.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.08.20

I Only Need One Ball

Today the second eleven welcomed Midland to Kelham Road, not the whole of The Midlands, but a club called Midland from...somewhere.

Not completely unusual, in the Sunday league there is a team called Pakistan. I don't think they are the actual Pakistan team though.

We batted first, so I had time to wander about and wonder. Wonder if the scorer who came with the opposition was indeed the attractive radiologist who examined my busted testicle in hospital last year, while I made awkward small talk while cold gel and the ultrasound wand was applied to my nethers.

She had said her brother played for Midland and was a doctor; Midland indeed had a doctor playing for them which was just as well, as he was able to treat himself when he split his finger webbing when our young captain belted one straight at him. But I am getting ahead of myself here.

So, batting at 9 - nosebleed time - I had time to take photographs, do my stretches and get mentally ready for a no doubt great day's cricket ahead.

It wasn't. I was awful in every way.

We started pretty well, with a maiden 50 for our young opener, but after our senior bat was foxed by a slower ball after a good 41 the runs dried up and wickets fell. I myself went in and made 1 - an edge - before just being utterly clueless against their opening bowlers. No co-ordination, no balance. Got a nasty whack on the finger as well.

We then bowled, and started pretty well, having them about 30 for 2. But I was already having problems in the field, just being so clumsy I couldn't pick a ball up, or stop a shot, or anything. My body just refused to do anything.

This dyspraxic hopelessness then led me to drop an absolute dolly of a catch that helped cost us the game. It was gently lobbed at me, and I crossed my hands over rather than put them together and the ball dropped to ground off my palm.

I just felt utterly rubbish from that point on, giving away overthrows as the partnership turned into a match winning one.

However, there was an epilogue.

I did get a bowl with just two runs needed in the end. My first ball was a rank short long hop, which climbed pleasantly to waist height only for the bastman to lob it in slow motion to point. Wicket with my first ball.

About the 5th time I've done that!

So, much anticipation for my next ball. Alas I'd used so much sanitising gel that the ball got stuck to my hand, and I bowled it straight into the ground at my feet.

"Normal service is resumed" said some jokester on our team. Well, he was probably right.

Next ball was lobbed in the air to no fielder for two runs to level the game, next ball was a wide (eventually).

I just threw the ball down, and had a mega tourette tic outbreak, babbling the same sentence over and over again to a bemused team-mate. Brain had had enough as well as body.

So, pretty much a day to forget. I kind of wonder if I'm too old and not good enough for Saturday league cricket any more. I can't bat at the moment, my fielding is shot to bits and I don't know if I can bowl.

We can try again tomorrow though.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.08.20

I was bowled all over the place, last out to leave us on 146.