Archway Ladder CC vs. Tetherdown Trundlers CC
Date: Wednesday 17 June 2014: 18:00
Match: Archway Ladder CC vs. Tetherdown Trundlers CCVenue: Alexandra Park
Format 20:20; Full International
Result: Archway Ladder 104 all out lost to Tetherdown Trundlers CC 105/3. Match Won.
Skipper: Frais
Ducksman: Gordon
On the absence of cricketers
Amongst the amateur cricketers of North London, something is afoot. With the weather having conspired to keep us all from the fields of late you would expect priapic enthusiasm from all comers yet, far and wide, we find opponents struggling to raise numbers. The latest to do so was Mr Coffman, the Archway Ladder’s organiser-in-chief, who let us know he was struggling to rouse a rabble for Wednesday’s 20/20. When “Ladder” spanked us unceremoniously last year we spent as much time fishing the ball out of the creek as we did bowling it, so you can hardly think this had to do with timidity.
But we Trundlers are a collegiate lot. So often have we taken solace in it being the game and not the result that matters that we have had that maxim translated into Latin – fatum nos privet etiam parvis victoriis – and posted over the threshold to our pavilion. An offer of our surplus players was transmitted, therefore, without a second thought. Messrs Kohler and Shurman, both cricketers of fine pedigree, would be put at the disposal of Mr Laddie, Archway’s captain. After a late scratching in our ranks, we would meet them ten aside. Fair and practical.
This was to reckon upon the attendance of Mr Sparks, which proved a mistake. When he did finally make an appearance, a couple of overs before stumps, he carried a tennis bag and bore an excuse absurd even by the Trundlers’ lofty standards. He was prevented from attending earlier, he said, by copyright.
Not for the first time we had cause to lament the absence of our intellectual property specialist, Mr Freeman. But Bonfield had something to say on the topic: he knew “patent” nonsense when he heard it.
So it was that we found, with our generous supply of players to the opposition, that they now had more men than we did. Frais has some experience in trade finance and hastily arranged to cover his short in the field with a repo from the opposition. Thereby we found Shurman, one of our number, playing for them, but fielding for us. This is a tangle of loyalties for any man to sort out however stout his moral fibre, and Mr Shurman is to be congratulated for his steadfast pursuit of the interests of whichever side be happened to representing at any given time.
The Match
But this is all skipping to the end of an engrossing game. Captain Frais lost the toss and was asked to field. Laddie would open the batting. In the first of a series of skippering decisions he may have since come to regret, Laddie asked his ringers if they’d mind a spell umpiring.
Now umpires are meant to be impartial. Whenever resources permit, one would choose a fellow with affiliation to neither side. But, if fielding is to batting as prosecution is to defence, natural justice requires the benefit of the doubt be given to the batsman so having the batting side supply the umpires out of those men awaiting their go fits that bill. As an exercise it would be interesting to see how an umpire notionally of the batsmen, but with loyalties to the fielders, wrestled with his internal torment. But most practical skippers would keep that exercise hypothetical unless they could not avoid it.
The transverse ruts across Alexandra Park paddock mentioned previously are settling down, the outfield has been mown in places and under the June sun the wicket has hardened. Gordon, rewarded with the new ball after sterling showings this season, found swing aplenty but no bounce – literally, none – and Laddie looked untroubled by the prospect of swatting low full tosses off his legs to the midwicket fence. Gordon is a bowler who needs to find his groove. There was little sign of the Tasmanian Devil in his first couple of overs – it was to pop out later – but for now the Ladder were off to a confident start.
For once struggling up the hill and into the breeze, Buxton also found encouraging swing and managed to land the ball on the wicket too. Indeed, he had it popping nicely off a length. Laddie, an accomplished strokemaker, was having trouble picking the line. This translated to satisfying parsimony and drew plenty of cheerful chivvying from the inner ring, but – and this is a theme your correspondent does his best not to harp on about, but bugger it – no actual wickets to speak of.
To be sure, there is a purist’s thrill from seeing a disguised outswinger beating the edge, but sniffing at a fine wine only takes a chap so far. At some point you want to chug the stuff. It might be indelicate to admit it, but a hearty glug of cooking sherry – a half tracker slapped straight to the man at deep midwicket – refreshes a bowler’s soul in ways that a mere noseful of Château Neuf du Pape – the inswinging yorker that the batsman must but does dig out with a spade – cannot. Some of our men get amongst the cooking sherry on a regular basis. Buxton not so much. He is getting a little tired of just the faint aroma of the good stuff.
The South Islander might have been dwelling too much on his misfortune on his next approach, which produced a limp full toss with few redeeming features. Laddie shaped to give it the belting it deserved, but managed only to shank it loopily down leg where Keeper Roberts executed a marvelous diving catch.
Buxton was speedily coming round to the virtues of cooking sherry when a nasty aftertaste arrived: the square leg umpire, from under a Trundlers cap, signalled a no ball. Kohler. A man consistently treated with dignity and respect in these columns.
And that was as close as it got for the New Zealander: it was back to the hardtack, low calorie tonic water and celery sticks of the nominated driver, not even a spittoon at his elbow as he watched his mates drinking their regular fill from a butt of malmsey. Before long Binns even fell in.
But one should not like to be thought of as casting aspersions on the change bowlers. Both bowled marvellously. The ever-elegant Morris (whose look is so dapper that the scorers denoted him Maurice) returned for his first game in a good while and at once found his mark.
Not long into his spell he threw down an unplayable outswinger. It really was a beauty: it set off in the direction of backward square leg but prescribed a tight arc, swooping late towards third man in a manoeuvre worthy of a dogfighting Sopwith Camel. On its way around it struck Mr Yates’ rear pad at a callable height but, however extraordinary its merit, the ball may just as easily have missed leg or off stump for all a home-side umpire could be expected to tell. Even hawkeye would have struggled to call that one LBW.
But not Kohler. His finger was up before Morris had articulated an appeal, and Mr Yates found his time at the crease over, for 13.
Smith relieved Buxton and his tidy off-breaks gave little further scope for runs. But now the wickets started falling in earnest. Mr Laddie, who had already survived a close shave, was nearly lucky again as he skied one straight, falling between Smith at the bowling crease and Buxton at deep mid off.
Smith’s call of “Olly’s!” was well intentioned (to keep the marauding Binns, at long on, at bay), but the phonetic discrepancy between that and “Ollie’s” – which he might have called if he fancied the catch himself – is subtle, especially when you’re galloping after a flying cricket ball. Happily it did not put enough doubt in Buxton’s mind to prevent completion of the catch and Laddie was on his way for a well-compiled 28.
The record reflects that these were the main batting threats, now out, and the remainder of the innings tells of men fielding competently, straight bowling, and respectable knocks from the Trundler contingent in the opposition ranks. Shurman was Archway’s fourth top scorer with 7. Kohler returned with a gritty four not out. Of the bowlers Smith ended with a fine three wicket bag, Morris two, and Binns and Gordon, staggering like drunken sailors with an upturned keg, cleaned up the tail with four between them. Only Buxton, as sober (and judgmental) as a judge, kept his mitts off the malmsey.
One hundred and four felt an achievable total, even without the copyrighted Sparks, especially when Smith carried his commendable bowling form through to the bat and Mr Laddie kept his opening bowler in reserve, opening with spin at one end and his ring in, Kohler, at the other. Kohler bowled excellently but could not up-end Roberts, who had been sharp all day behind the wicket and now settled in quickly to the crease. The openers made 40 handsome runs before Smith holed out to Shurman, now once again fielding for the other side.
Ritterband, next in, looked in decent touch but was given no scope to display the heroic resistance for which he is known, being run out on 7. Having called Ritterband through, Roberts stood stock still at one end while Ritterband’s wicket was demolished at the other. “I couldn’t see,” Roberts claimed, as if by way of consolation. Ritterband didn’t seem consoled. While his unbeaten record is now well and truly over, he might take some modicum of comfort that he is yet to lose his own wicket, a teammate having lost it for him each time he has been out so far.
Next in was Buxton; as brief and as energetic at the crease as usual. It took seventeen runs and about two overs for the necessary straight ball to account for his wicket, by which time the game was not looking in jeopardy, Sparks had at last arrived, and Frais was on hand to calmly go about finishing off an innings in which Roberts carried his bat.
A win with seven wickets to spare: a good platform to take into the mid-season highlight: the annual Cuxham fixture.