Valletta, Malta
Date: Friday 3 October 2014
– Monday 6 October 2014
Location: Valletta, Malta
Venue: Marsa Cricket Ground
Status: One Limited Overs match
(40 overs); two T20 matches; Full Test Status
Result: The rains came, but not in time to spoil the
parade.
A historical prelude
Since it was colonised by the
Phoenicians in 5200 BC the island of Malta, nestled strategically between
Sicily’s southern coast and Africa’s northern one, has had its share of
marauding invaders.
Carthaginians, Romans, Christians, Vandals, Byzantines and Moors have
all had a go. St Paul was shipwrecked off Valetta in AD 60; his Knights still
run a handsome hotel in St Julian. Roger I of Sicily may have been the first
King Roger on the island when he conquered it in 1020 AD, but he was hardly the
last. Other little generals, too, have squabbled over governorship of this
desiccated Mediterranean rock: Napoleon and Nelson did so in the Eighteenth
Century. (Nelson won. The place has had a dogged Britishness ever since).
But if the cultural disposition of the Maltese had one foundation, it
would be the time 40,000 Ottomans, under the commanded of Suleyman the
Magnificent, laid siege to the island for 5 months over the summer of 1565.
They were thwarted by the Knights-hotelier of St. John and the threat of
seasonal storms.
To this day monuments to il
Cavalieri are scattered about the island. Autumnal storms that whip across
the island in October still frighten the bejesus out of invading armies, as the
Magnificent Frais would discover just before lunch on Sunday.
The voyage, and matters preliminary
Dateline: Friday 3 October 2014 , at an Ungodly Hour
The venereal skipper assembled his
largest army yet for a foreign campaign: fully fourteen mighty Muswell men met at
4am Friday morning for the ride out to Luton (well, Colley – He Who Walks Alone
– made his own way and Everett, having journeyed from southern latitudes,
caught a later flight).
We welcomed a first time tourist in the patrician figure of Ball, but the
remainder of the dragoon was the hoary, battle-scarred lot with whom regular
readers will be familiar. The New Zealand openers with their rising
unfluctions. Bonfield with his dice. Grainger tweeting bon mots to his many thousand followers from the pages of the Daily Mail. Phillips carried his
clipboard, Kohler his accordion, Hayward a chimney sweep and, of course, there
was Binns. With all the excitement it seemed only moments before the squeal of
tyres at Valletta International Airport.
For the obligatory exercise in cultural grounding a hardy few, led by
Bonfield, had elected to cycle around the island. The majority went to ride
go-karts.
Cycling, Go-karting, and Traffic
Malta’s long history and small dimension has left it short of space.
This has its pros and cons: on one hand, it is hard to get too badly lost; when
Bonfield is navigating, a clear and present danger.
On the other, it is hard to get anywhere at all. The island, fifty
miles round, is home to nearly half a million, each of whom drives a hatchback,
sometimes by necessity. Once you are in a car on Malta, you have a devil of a
time finding a place to stop and get out of it.
A good portion of the island’s vehicle fleet is thus “in motion” at any
time, although by that do not imagine movement:
occupants spend their time stranded in the middle of the highway, inert,
looking wistfully at the kerb. It is said that Musical Chairs was invented by
Maltese taxi-drivers as a way of deciding who should get to park at the end of
each day.
Go-karting seems, therefore, a faintly masochistic pastime. Nonetheless
it was one we generally quite enjoyed. Morris, Plimley and Ball can be reported
as excellent boy-racers; Gordon and Buxton less so. However many times he did
it, Gordon could not persuade anyone that his pirouettes into the tyres were
deliberate. Buxton circumnavigated the outer perimeter at walking speed and
eventually gave up altogether, simply pleased not to have blown chunks into his
helmet this time.
After these activities Phillips had arranged an evening net, but we
were having trouble getting to it. The bikers were waylaid in a tailback the
north side of the island, the go-karters snarled up in the same one to the
south. It fell to the late-arriving Everett to rendezvous with our host, Tony, at
the Marsa Sports Ground.
Having met, the pair had time to kill. They hit it off immediately. By
the time the go-karters pulled up both men were smiling beatifically beside a
couple of empty crates of Malta’s premium lager. Everett had fallen off his chair.
(We were to see more of this “Cisk” lager as the weekend unfolded. It won a
silver medal in the “Maltese Lager” category of a Tasmanian beer festival in
1995).
The Marsa Sports Club
Malta has as many cricket arenas as it has beers – one – but it’s a good
one. It is a large old-fashioned oval set in the grounds of the Malta Sports
Club, a grand, dilapidated establishment set in a reclaimed swamp beside a
colossal storm water canal.
This ought to have warned us that when Malta rains, it makes a job of it.
But we were too busy taking in the sights: ponies trotted, archers quivered,
golfers shanked and hammer-throwers twirled as we made our way around the
perimeter. When disembarking boisterously by some tennis courts we were roundly
shushed: the match in progress, between a lad of about 14 and his grandfather, was
the semi-final of the Malta open.
The nets passed without incident. Everett found a gallon of
award-winning lager a fine remedy for the yips: he bowled with vim and a
precision hard to credit to the author of the fabled Endless Over of Highgate
Wood. Binns swung his blade at anything that came his way, with encouraging
energy and impressive results. Even though the cyclists never made it to the
nets at all (they wore brave faces and raw posteriors when they finally
reunited with us, spoke lovingly of their lunch, but otherwise were
tight-lipped about their outing) we felt ready.
The Hotel
The Cavalier Art Hotel sounds like a place full of gauche sculptures
and profane engravings, but “art”, not “cavalier”, is the phrasal adjective. Sitting
on St Julian’s headland it afforded all save Plimley and Morris a fine view of
a pretty bay. (Plimley and Morris had a fine view of a building site to the
rear). Below us a pool beckoned: before long a troupe of Trundlers were
performing synchronised acrobatic feats to the delight of the hotel’s four
other patrons.
Once towelled off and togged up, against the muted protests of his
fellow cyclists, Bonfield took it upon himself to lead the party to a restaurant.
He strode confidently away from the pretty harbour around which the
restaurateurs had gathered towards an unlit shantytown of commercial warehouses
and perfidy.
As is his inclination, Bonfield brooked no arguments; many were
advanced. He tolerated no dissent; much was voiced. It was getting late, we
were hungry, and it was looking like it might rain. Still, Bonfield strode on.
Had Grainger not made an executive’s decision and planted us in the last eatery
as we left the tourist area we might still be on the hunt for food. Grainger’s
choice had little to say for itself but a watertight roof, but given the
forthcoming deluge, that was the only criterion any Trundler (except Bonfield)
cared about. No sooner had we closed the door behind us than the heavens
opened, something we, like Suleyman the Magnificent before us, had been led to
believe simply did not happen in Malta.
A quick bite on our way to greater excitement, therefore, transmuted
into a three-hour banquet, stewarded by a severe but curiously agreeable
Ukrainian.
Malta CC vs. Tetherdown Trundlers CC: Match 1
Date: Saturday October 4,
2014: 11:00 am.
Match: Malta CC vs. Tetherdown
Trundlers CC
Venue: Marsa Oval
Status: Limited Overs (40); Full
Test Status
Result: Malta CC 81 all out lost
to Tetherdown Trundlers CC 82/6. Match Won.
Skipper: Frais
Ducksman: None
Our experience of international cricket
to date has been that our hosts have made the most of their local knowledge and
we a meal of our naïveté. Though we were hardly to know it, while we quaffed
the wine and chowed on the rabbit tendered by that Belarusian dominatrix, the
teeming rain was busily leveling that playing field. The conditions come
morning, with a quagmire at mid off at one end and a puddle just short of a
good length at the other, meant we were in with a sniff. Only our innocence
could betray us, but much of that had been mislaid the previous night. At the
nets.
Frais lost the toss, as is ordained by God, but was asked to field
which he claimed he would have done anyway.
Malta’s Innings
Our kiwi openers both observed the ball,
a pink affair with a thick coat of gloss, was tending to skid through a bit in
the wet, calling into question a preference amongst the Maltese for playing off
the back foot.
It brought into question, too, Bonfield’s credentials at slip. Having
watched him haplessly grass en eye-level floater in the second over, Buxton
wondered aloud whether Bonfield might be better placed at third man, extra-deep
fine leg, or even, since he found it that hard to catch anything, on West
African assignment with Médecins sans
Frontières.
The ball was also swinging like a bastard. It took a couple of overs to
calibrate – one had to aim to Bonfield’s right to keep it from straying down
leg – but eventually Buxton got one on a good length to sneak between bat and
pad and opener Mr Azzopardi was his way for two.
Gordon at the other end took an over and a half to find his range but,
when he did, began started dipping his balls alarmingly, and at a discomfiting
yorker length. In his third over the Karoriman struck, first Mr Ali and then Mr
McIleogh, the latter muttering as he trudged away from the crease how Gordon’s
dipping nuts were quite unplayable.
The locals were suddenly three down and the Trundlers’ secret weapon, Binns,
had yet to grace the bowling attack. This he now did and, with his first ball,
conjured some Binns magic.
The statistics for the season are in now. We know that Binns is neither
the most prolific bowler, nor the most economical, but his strike rate is still
remarkable. As are, always, his dismissals.
As do most men of his age, Binns takes a ball or two at the beginning
of his spell to settle into his rhythm. But unlike other men, it is precisely
during these looseners that he is at his most dangerous.
Binns galloped in to commence his spell and, per standard operating
procedure, deposited his first about a third of the way down the track, on a
line with leg stump, whence it sat up like a curious meerkat. Mr Khosla, an
upper order batsman of some experience and unused to feckless charity, repaid
it at once by guilelessly spooning the ball to the Trundlers’ close fielder on
the on side.
Now there are many Trundlers you’d doubt in the face of a ballooning
cricket ball in a close position. Most of them, in fact. But not Grainger, the
man who happened to be stationed there. The Trundlers have taken about twenty
catches this season, Grainger fifteen of them, and while the vice captain might
feel a little disappointed not to have won catch of the year for some of the
others in his repertoire, this particular chance was a dolly. Grainger made no
mistake. The ball pocketed, Binns was able to adopt his usual look of
retrospective wisdom and could celebrate figures of one wicket for no runs off
one pie.
Four for 25 off eight overs and a pie: The Trundlers sensed an upset
here (as they have done so many times, only to be disappointed). No one was
getting carried away this time, certainly not after the strange sight of the
next Maltese man to take his guard: The Man With The Cross-Handed Grip.
It is difficult to explain to a non-cricketer what is so unsettling
about setting a man pick up a bat in that way, but when Mr Anand struck his
stance the close fielders winced and looked away, as if witnessing an operating
theatre scene from General Hospital.
Mr Anand held the bat as if he were engaged in a round of Auld Lang Syne. We couldn’t figure out how he could hit the ball at
all, let alone freely to all parts of the ground, without breaking his wrists, but
this he now proceeded to do.
At least until the next bowling change.
If the Maltese men thought the pressure might now come off a bit, they
had reckoned without the Trundlers’ finger-spinner Ball. The tall Northerner
found less grip than he had achieved in the nets, but his flight, variation of
pace and dry Lancastrian asides were magnificent, and the flow of runs Anand
had unleashed quickly stemmed. Even Anand could only pick out fielders with his
cross-handed swipes.
Mr Anand at least stood his ground; at the other end Ball was making
his patient way through the remainder of the order. First Mr Sacco, then Mr Tully,
then Mr Krishna, then Mr Bradley, the Maltese fell seriatim to the enchanting Mancunian and his pithy aphorisms.
Binns spent, Grainger joined from the Canal End to ply a similar
flighty trade, holding the batsmen down and giving their technique a thorough
probing. But Mr Anand remained, flinchless, at the crease. Eight wickets down
and anxious not to fall into old habits, Frais appealed to pace – or at any
rate the least sorry excuse for pace available to him – in the generous shape
of Buxton.
If you hold your bat cross-handed it must certainly impede to some
degree your ability to swing it. There ought to be a clue in that, in the
recorded history of the game (before Mr Anand’s contribution) no child, however
misguided, has persisted with such an unorthodox grip. (In conversation between
overs, Mr Anand remarked to our keeper that so rare was his technique that
coaches has dubbed it the “Maltese Cross”. That’s as may be, replied Phillips,
but at that moment it was making the North Londoners cross). This makes what
happened next all the more magnificent.
Buxton stampeded in and put the ball in a reasonable enough spot to a
left-hander. Mr Anand contumeliously clubbed it out of the ground.
Some practising archers on a nearby lawn had to take evasive action.
From about twenty feet they had been vainly trying all afternoon to land a
single arrow on their target. They could only look on in wonder as Anand
collected the bull’s-eye from an oblique angle, over a tree and at a range of
about a quarter mile, with a pink cricket ball. We can only wonder how far he
would have hit it right-handed. At any rate this fairly wrecked Buxton’s
bowling figures, though the New Zealander should feel blessed that six is the
maximum allowed from a single stroke. The batsmen could have run twelve by the
time Colley had negotiated the hurricane fence to retrieve it.
The kiwi was to have his reward, though, collecting Mr Anand’s middle
stump two balls later and without further addition to the score.
This brought Malta’s last man to the crease, the young Master Roy. Young
in the sense of being about eleven. By now you should know where this is going.
Buxton has learned his lesson: under Grainger’s reproachful glare he truncated
his run and landed a couple of gentle autumn leaves handily outside off stump
to allow the lad a flutter. The boy had a swing at each but couldn’t connect.
The last ball of the over drifted back into the youngster’s off stump, where he
had a similar forlorn waft. This time the ball proceeded on its way, dislodged
the bails and concluded the innings. Master Roy might have been dispirited
then, but he gathered himself well and was to have great success with the ball.
Speaking of Ball, the Trundlers’ patrician off spinner confected a
happy demeanour as he quit the arena which may not have been entirely
heartfelt, stranded as he was on four wickets in the innings. With the elusive
century the Trundlers “Five-for” was to remain an unfulfilled goal for 2014.
Trundler’s Innings
All that remained
was to knock off 81 runs to get the rubber off to a flying start.
Colley and Bonfield went out with that exact assignment. The required
run rate being a shade over two an over, and mindful of how the locals had got
on, one could excuse the Tetherdown openers some circumspection: forty overs is
a long time in amateur cricket; eighty runs is not an enormous total.
Alas, this does not make for florid cricket writing. There were no
swashbuckling hooks, no excoriating cuts, no towering lofted drives. There was
much stolid defence.
Fully twenty balls were delivered before Colley’s first scoring stroke;
it was a prudent push to mid-on. Nor did our warhorse seem much disposed to
running between the wicket when the opportunity did arise: Trundlers watched
from the sideline with increasing alacrity as comfortable singles went begging,
Bonfield scampering most of the way down the track, only to encounter his
partner rooted deep in his crease like a Californian redwood, indicating no
aspiration to journey to the other end at all.
He may well feel like he ran a few more, but Bonfield had acquired just
five runs in twenty five balls, before he caught some air trying to work his
way through midwicket and Malta’s Mr Bradley caught the ball.
Ten overs up; just fifteen runs on the board and one man over it.
Grainger took up his weapon and marched out to join Achilles in the middle.
We cannot know what was said as the two men conferred, but we can
guess. The vice-captain ventured that runs were available if only Colley would
trouble himself to run for them.
Leading by example, as a good chief executive does, Grainger
demonstrated what was required. He cracked his first ball in front of square
and charged, with an excited bellow, towards the non-striker’s end. Colley
heeded the call, eventually, and the run was completed but there was a
perceptible truculence about his gait.
Grainger was not deterred. His next delivery he fondled through the
covers for a boundary. As if to show how easy this run accumulation business
was when you put your mind to it, the vice-captain immediately tickled the next
one fine and set off again. Six in four balls: this was more like it, even if
his partner participated in manoeuvres with the enthusiasm of an Alsatian being
called for a shampoo.
Colley was now on strike. Those wondering whether Grainger’s enthusiasm
for a single had rubbed off did not have to wait long to find out. The next
ball Colley patted crisply to the fielder at point. Grainger, backing up
correctly and an uncanny reader of the game, deduced that no run was to be had.
He returned to his crease, momentarily turning his back on his partner. That
second was all Colley needed. He roared “YES!” and stampeded towards the
non-striker’s end with the enthusiasm of an Alsatian departing the scene of a
shampooing.
Grainger turned with such surprise that his usual wit deserted him.
Instead of barking “GO BACK YOU FOOL!!”, as he was surely entitled to do, the
vice-captain wordlessly stumbled towards the other end. He had not got very far
by the time the bails were off: the man at point, seeing how much time he had,
had rolled the ball carefully to the wicket keeper’s feet and the wicket was
broken before Grainger had made it even half way.
Few upper order batsmen see the funny side of their own dismissals.
Grainger is no exception. The vice captain unleashed some jargon seldom heard in
the C-suite as he returned to his brethren.
Two wickets down, twenty-two on the board: yet thirty odd overs to
acquire fewer than 60 runs: the situation did not call for panic, but it was
sobering seeing such a talismanic strokesman returning to the pavilion so beleaguered.
Not to worry: Hayward, one of our few genuine sportsmen, strode out. He
took a few swings and misses to get the measure of the pitch, but soon began
putting bat to ball. The run rate ticked up: before long he and Colley had
doubled the team’s score.
The total now just 27 runs distant, those still in the shed might have
considered un-padding, but Colley defied expectations, played around a low ball
from Mr Ali and started the long walk back marshalling, we can suppose, his
arguments for the forthcoming chat with Grainger.
Kohler, a man scarcely dismissed this season, for or against, made his
way out to replace the warhorse. Immediately he put his ramrod-straight bat to
the ball. These two men assumed an unassuming but comprehensive control of the match.
Hayward’s innings, coloured with vigorous strokes to all parts of the ground,
was to prove decisive.
The score marched on; with the total at 75, just five short of victory,
old “Lucky” Morris piped up.
“Do you know, fellows. I’m dashed if it’s not in the bag,” said he.
You could hear a pin drop.
“Well,” he went on, “how many wickets can a bunch of chaps lose for
five runs?”
The Trundlers like nothing so much as a challenge. In the following
sequence it was as if they had resolved amongst themselves to see.
If Hayward has a weakness, it is a tendency to lift his hind leg when
having a slash. Young Mr Roy floated one deceptively up, Hayward went to tinkle
it fine, misjudged his length altogether and found himself stranded down the
track with his bails around his ankles. It was an unbefitting end to a fine
knock; 34 tartly caressed runs - the high score of the day - but there was to
be no getting away from it: it would not be brave Hayward who would see us
home.
Phillips sauntered languidly out. He has found a rich, purple vein of
form this season; assuming a position lower down the order has so suited his
nefarious intentions that he has taken our most boundaries this season. Yet, with
so meagre an ask, facing an eleven-year-old leg spinner, the wicketkeeper may
have been too demure for his own good. With just two to his name he wafted a
plum leg side full toss into the arms of Tally at backward square leg and so
sauntered, languidly, back to the pavilion. Still three left to score.
Binns.
Binns’ net session the previous evening had had the air of a Howitzer
emplacement about it. Three runs, in the company of a prudent fellow like
Kohler, seemed a foregone conclusion. But before Binns could contribute much
more than a scratchy single, further misfortune was to strike.
Kohler has been a model of patience all season. You couldn’t winkle him
out for love or money: seven not-outs out of nine times of asking. With a
cricket bat in hand he has been as that mythical figure so beloved of the
common law: the reasonable man. You would find Kohler on the Clapham Omnibus,
were a gentleman from N10 to venture south of the river. Negligence did not
know his name, at least not until Marsa, at which point the two became well acquainted.
A well flighted but, in all honesty, harmless ball from young Roy had Kohler
suddenly all at sea. After some unseemly swatting – the Pianoakkordeon
virtuoso must have had five or six goes at the thing as it passed
him by – the pink cherry broke Kohler’s wicket.
Hayward, Phillips and now Kohler – fine strokers all – accounted for by
one young man, for but three runs between them. What was called for was a hand
to steady the ship. A man of experience, composure and poise. A fellow upon
whom we could rely upon to go out there and score no less (and no more) than
the two runs required for victory. The season’s statistics tell us that man is
Grays. His mean, median, mode and range fitted the bill precisely.
But alas, Grays was an ocean away, in his tricked out Volkswagen in a
caravan park in Scunthorpe. Instead – and even those of the stoutest
constitution might feel an involuntary buttock clench now – it was Gordon who
went out to face the music.
Suddenly fearful of being timed out before being properly padded up the
three remaining batsmen frantically strapped themselves into whatever
protective equipment they could lay their hands on. Buxton and Frais had a
minor scuffle over who should wear the last remaining box. When they noticed
“HIV Positive” scrawled on it, each man decided he was better off without.
Off marched Gordon, windmilling his bat as he went. It was Grainger who
articulated what every man was thinking: “This won’t end well.”
But, friends, this is a story of heroics and not tragedy. Just this once, no outrageous misfortune
befell the Wellingtonian. His moat remained full, his rampart unbreached, his
castle intact; his keep inviolate. Gordon shovelled his second delivery fine on
the leg side, depositing it by chance into that small region of extant outfield
bog, bolted to the non-striker’s end and, perceiving the poor fielder up to his
shoulder in mud and fishing lucklessly for any sign of the ball, bid Binns come
straight back.
The two runs required were amassed! The team arose to greet Gordon and
Binns, so often magicians with the ball, but now our saviours with the bat.
Our hosts applauded generously as the Trundler batsmen quit the playing
arena. The conditions may have been trying but, they told us, 80 was the lowest
total for which they had been dismissed in their history.
A special mention to our redoubtable skipper: so confident was he in
his men; so selfless in his marshalling of the cricketing resources of Muswell
Hill that he called upon himself neither to bat nor bowl in the match. He was
not to know it, but Gordon’s rustic swipe to leg was to be our last competitive
run of the tour.
Captain Frais’ magnificent blade, with which he had been so vigorously
rehearsing strokes in his hotel room the night before, was destined to remain
undrawn, in competitive anger, all weekend.
Naughty
Bianca, and a breakfast of champignons
There was the matter
of a few celebratory Cisks with our combatants, before we repaired to St Julian
to freshen up, change our trousers and prepare for an evening in the clutches
of “Naughty Bianca”, the prospect of which we were all relishing.
Alas, it turned out to be a misprint. But notte bianca – Malta’s annual “white night”, wherein the ancient
citadel of Valletta throws an open air party and wandering minstrels subject
hapless visitors to Samba music from dusk till dawn – proved a fine
alternative.
When we struggled out of our lairs in the morning, the weather did not
look benign.
Nor did breakfast. Anaemic cocktail sausages poked their snouts
gingerly through a fat-encrusted pool of yellow brine in the bain marie. The less said about the
scrambled eggs the better. The mushrooms weren’t bad.
Malta CC vs.
Tetherdown Trundlers CC: Match 2
Date: Sunday October 5, 2014: 11:00 am.
Match: Malta CC vs. Tetherdown Trundlers CC
Venue: Marsa Oval
Status: Twenty Twenty; International Status
Result: Malta CC 77/3 when rain stopped play.
Tetherdown Trundlers did not bat. Match abandoned.
Skipper: Frais
Ducksman: Not applicable
The heavy skies had
not lifted at Marsa as we started our first twenty-twenty an hour later. While
our attack was again in devastating mood, it had nothing on the monstrous bank
of cumulonimbus advancing from the south like a ten-thousand strong Ottoman
army.
This eleven, said our hosts, was the team to beat. We had cheaply
chipped out three of them, and in truth the locals were in the throes of a
fightback, when the anvil, several kilometres high, the colour and constitution
of a basalt cliff and travelling at the speed of a 737, announced itself.
Over Valletta the previous day they had been setting off fireworks; now
the almighty himself put on a show. The atmosphere darkened. Fickle winds
kicked around the perimeter. Tarpaulins whipped. Chained yard-dogs yowled. The
mercury dropped like a stone.
With celestial flashes advancing from all points, the air rent with
titanic thundercracks and the pungent sniff of ozone in his nostrils, the
umpire announced he had had enough.
Frais, who had just introduced himself at long last into the bowling
attack, had not.
Here we can start to build a psychological profile of our skipper. We
all know him for his ever-present lightness of being. Mrs Frais, we know,
despairs of her husband’s complete absence of personal pride. She has told us
so. Frais will lay out cold his own self-respect without a second thought if
that is the price for his company’s laughter.
But that gregarious frame is stretched over a constitution of granite.
He may not be vainglorious but, when a perfect storm is upon him – when
man-sized sheets of roofing iron fly through the tempest like so many
butterflies on a summer’s breeze – nor does Skipper Frais have any regard for
his own personal safety. The show must go on.
The Trunders’ captain was not about to stop bowling because of a bit of
wind.
“It’s not even raining!” he declared, and returned cheerily to the top
of his run up. Nor was it, as long as one’s criterion for “rain” is that it
must alight on the ground at some point: the gigantic globules of precipitation
that were beginning to whirl about the ground were caught in a sort of
horizontal vortex; those that were not vaporised altogether were sucked back up
into the sky.
His comrades were starting to quit the arena.
“It’s just a passing shower!” squeaked Frais, yet not a man could hear
him over the howling wind: one could just make out the rhythmic clank of hammer
on cleat as the groundsman pegged his tractor to the ground.
Frais commenced his approach to bowl and only abandoned it when he
detected no umpire to adjudicate on the delivery, no batsman to strike at it
and no wicket-keeper to stop it should it not hit the wicket – which was also
missing, Bonfield having salvaged it on his way past from first slip as he ran
for his life towards the pavilion.
The Trundlers’ skipper cut a forlorn figure, alone in the middle of the
maelstrom as, all around him, the Rapture commenced.
“Come back!” we thought we could hear, a tiny voice shrieking over the
monsoon. Eventually a team led by Colley staged a dramatic rescue and hauled
their leader, still kicking and screaming, from the playing field, which by now
bore the aspect of a lagoon. Even as the skipper was revived with a cup of
sweet tea, he muttered: “right, I think it’s stopped. Let’s get back out
there.”
But it had not stopped. The wind had subsided, sure, but only to be
succeeded by an epic, diluvian downpour. It carried on all day.
Not only would the morning’s game be abandoned, but the afternoon’s
too. The weekend’s competitive cricket was over.
There being nothing else for it, we repaired to the bar where the
island’s award winning lager flowed quickly from the taps.
Not a shot fired in the third match, then. A number of loyal Trundlers
would end the tour having not seen active duty at all. Special mention in that
regard to Morris, Plimley and Everett,
each man usually so rich a source of anecdote, none of whom managed more than a
brief spell of boundary fielding. It is hard to tell tall tales about that.
Everett, more even than the
others, must have swallowed hard as the
levee broke: 12,000 miles is a long way to come to drink Cisk lager. Especially
when you can get it on sale in Tasmania.
Malta CC vs.
Tetherdown Trundlers CC: Match 3
Date: Sunday October 5, 2014: 2:00 pm.
Match: Malta CC vs. Tetherdown Trundlers CC
Venue: Marsa Oval
Status: Twenty Twenty; International Status
Result: Match abandoned.