Tetherdown Trundlers Cricket Club

Tetherdown Trundlers CC vs. Eltham CC

Date: Sunday 13 July 2014: 13:30

Match: Tetherdown Trundlers CC vs. Eltham CC

Venue: Eltham CC

Format Timed match; unlimited overs; Full International

Result: Eltham CC 162 all out beat Tetherdown Trundlers CC 83 all out. Match lost.

Skipper: Frais

Ducksman: Ritterband (en double exemplaire).

The better part of discretion

A burst water main on the North Circular nearly did for the Muswell men as they rounded Ilford on their way to the southern wilds of Eltham.

Most of them, anyway: Mr Buxton had a new motor with four wheel drive, good clearance for the suspension and a special setting for navigating ruts and swamps, emboldening him to go via the badlands of Dalston. His contingent missed the flood and arrived in plenty of time only to find Messrs Kohler and Ritterband, who had taken the same route, sunning themselves on the bonnets of their cars, like fed lions at Whipsnade.

Kohler was dressed oddly. It was the day of the World Cup Final: the rarefied air one finds at the peak of sporting endeavour can induce a kind of giddiness in certain men, but this scarcely accounted for Kohler’s acrylic 1978-era replica Argentina shirt.

Argentina? But here was a man named for a celebrated post-war Bundeskanzler, known for Teutonic self-discipline, who has given the best years of his life^[1] to furthering the interests of a certain German financial institution, and who cries “scheisse!” when run out, as he so often is, by Mr Buxton. 

Kohler spun a fascinating yarn to explain. It concerned a distant ancestor of his, a piano tuner from Heidelberg, who in 1826 escaped his debtors and eloped to the Scottish Lowlands with the daughter of a Bavarian Würstchenmeister. He even had a song about it. Not everyone could see what special connection Argentina would hold for an absconding German, but we enjoyed Mr Kohler’s virtuosity on the Pianoakkordeon all the same.

It being that most special day in the footballing calendar, with kick-off fixed for the early evening, the locals were keen to start on time. But thanks to the gammy waterworks of Haringey, we were still severely depleted.

Eltham’s Skipper Mr Bill ventured that we had enough to start batting, but even without our finest minds on hand we were wise to this ruse. The Eltham man no doubt recalled last year’s fiasco, in which Ritterband and Frais, both on today’s team sheet, frustrated the intentions of the locals for the last hour to save the game.^[2]

Our immediate problem was that we numbered 5, and those 5 would occupy positions 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10^[3] on any sensible batting line up. Even if we did start we could well all be out before reinforcements arrived.

Between us we had already concluded that, should the Eltham captain insist on starting, despite our paltry number and notwithstanding a lack of wicket keeping paraphernalia (let alone anyone who knew how to use it) we would still be best served by fielding. We had even agreed on a field: Buxton would bowl, Robinson would take fine leg, Freeman long stop, Ritterband third man and Kohler would be deep midwicket for the catch, saving the one, two, three and sweeping the ring. If his Achilles tendon (Q.V.) did not hold up we would really be in trouble.

Kohler immediately assumed the executive role for which his years at Landwirtschaftliche Schweinsteigerbank Schleswig-Holstein have prepared him. To buy time he suggested we split up and hide. Robinson took the gents, Shurman the scorer’s pavilion, Buxton the groundsman’s shed, Freeman hid under a gear bag and Ritterband, already in his whites, nipped behind the sight screen at the member’s end. Showing the instincts of a natural leader, Acting Skipper Kohler secreted himself in the bar.

He was shortly apprehended and marched out to the middle, still clutching his whisky & soda, to conduct the toss. He won handsomely. There being still no sign of reinforcements he announced we would field and bade us five pioneers to our unorthodox positions.

Through calculated indecision Buxton further delayed the start. As he prepared to bowl the New Zealander suddenly declared that he would come over the wicket. Ritterband was dispatched to move the screen. Not until he had made his way back to third man did his bowler remember to tell the umpire he was left-handed, whereupon Ritterband was called upon again from the deep to return the screen to where it had been in the first place. This turned out to be good exercise for the cheeky off-spinner, who would not get much of it with the bat, and it occupied the ten further minutes it took for Frais and his convoy, bulging with finest quality north London batting beef^[4] to roll into the car park. 

With the shortest of further interludes, and nine on the field, we were under way.

Eltham’s Innings

We fanned out across this great oval, where W.G. Grace played out his cricketing dotage. Few signs remain of that great man. There is a spartan pavilion, but otherwise the common is bare but for the strewn dung of woodland mammals and a few score hungry ravens inspecting it.

Last year we got wickets only through caprice and controversy. This year they started falling more conventionally, helped by an inconstant and at times downright deceitful track.

Opening in Gordon’s absence,^[5] Frais exhibited his niggling line and length immediately. From the off the run rate was encouragingly slow – as was the pitch, especially up the hill. Frais found a peculiar length off which the ball would rear up, heading back the way it had come, before having second thoughts and proceeding in a billowy fashion in the direction originally bowled.

This might sound like a good thing for an opening batsman, but judging by the look on Mr Bill’s face it wasn’t. He made a couple of encouragingly unplanned aerial forays before launching a pull to midwicket where a fielder was standing. It was Mr Hayward, one of our sporting superstars, erstwhile trialist for Queen of the South and, as readers will now know, the doyen of the all-conquering North Middlesex Under 11s. Fresh from a session the previous morning drilling the lads on outfield catching, Coach Hayward made no mistake.

This brought Mr Swain to the wicket, also a veteran of last year’s fixture. He settled in.

Mr Mir at the other end never quite did, though, and while his innings turned out to be of far greater duration and competence than anything any Trundler would manage, it never quite felt that way while he was going about it. With Buxton’s machinery slowly working itself up to a war footing from one end and Frais nibbling away at the front pad like a lovelorn spaniel from the other, the run rate never got away from us.

Eventually Frais got one to keep low enough to scuttle through and Mir departed for 18. This brought Mr Hannington to the wicket, a man of some cricketing ability but all the caution of an Alsatian in a sack of squirrels. He didn’t bother with a guard and swung wildly at his first two deliveries before collecting the third, a yorker, low on his back foot in front of middle stump as he tried to launch it over backward square. LBWs are hard for left-armers to earn, but even the home umpire had no hesitation in sending Hannington back whence he came.

In came Mr Wouldham, a man who played well but featured in some controversy last year. This year he presented a calmer demeanour. His was a measured innings; in accumulating 38 runs it featured almost nothing in front of square. This is the hallmark of the “conservationist” batsman.

This variety of cricketer lets the bowler contribute as much of the kinetic energy required to propel the ball as is possible, whilst using the smallest conceivable amount of his own. Rather than swinging, he steers. A strategy that works best against whirling dervishes like our New Zealand pair and is serviceable enough against crafty line-and-lengthers like Frais, it is less fruitful against spinners. It is hopeless against Ritterband for the simple reason that that lippy wristsman imparts no kinetic energy to his deliveries at all. He simply floats them into the lower atmosphere and lets the Earth’s rotational momentum bring the wicket to the ball.^[6]

Mr Wouldham thus found himself in the unhappy position of having actively to apply force to the ball as he, and the celestial body he was standing on, revolved towards it. This he did by means of a lusty swipe to square leg where, in the deep, Grainger awaited. Wouldham departed.

A day of competent catching was about to get better in circumstances where it could easily have got worse. Mr Rosenthal was at the wicket. He had already signalled his intentions by thumping Mr Gordon for four through midwicket. Gordon asked for his two best fielders to be stationed at wide long on and midwicket lest Rosenthal should do this again. Neither were playing, so he was given Freeman and Buxton instead. Rosenthal did as expected and launched one high on the on-side. The ball towered in the air. 

It is difficult to judge the trajectory of a flying ball a hundred feet in the air at the best of times, but when one is running in concentric circles under it, it is dashed near impossible. Buxton knew Freeman was somewhere in the vicinity, but had eyes only for the ball, which seemed to be getting ever further away as he ran.

Hoping to persuade it back he bellowed his own name and increased his rate of gallop. By Jove, he seemed to be reeling it in! He was perhaps ten yards away, travelling at Mach 0.7, when Freeman, who had been standing patiently at the end of the ball’s flight path since the moment it was struck, decided it was time to pipe up.

At first he quietly cleared his throat. “Avi’s ball,” he said sotto voce,^[7] just as Buxton’s ground proximity warning klaxon began blaring and his cockpit flashed red. Buxton pulled up hard on the steering column and, with an ear splitting wail that rent the air, all one-hundred and twenty kilogrammes soared away, inches from Freeman’s nose as the patent attorney pulled off a comfortable catch.

Another couple of wickets fell in a conventional manner, yet something seemed to be missing from the Trundlers’ effort. Presently it became apparent what it was: there was a member of the bowling attack from whom we had not yet heard.

From the age of about eleven, any cricketer with an aspiration to bowl learns techniques by which he can put that idea in the skipper’s head without doing anything as demeaning as straight-out asking to have a go. There is a sliding scale of subtlety.

At one end there is the witty remark, uttered to Skip as you pass him on your way between midwickets at the end of each over; this bon mot is unrelated to the action at hand, intended merely to keep one favourably in the captain’s contemplation as he adjusts his field to the unfolding innings. In the middle is the ostentatious rehearsal of one’s bowling action as one returns to one’s fielding mark between deliveries. This operates as a kind of attention-seeking semaphore. For the captain who is truly incapable of taking a hint there is loud, specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timely criticism of the chap currently occupying the bowling crease.

Mr Robinson plotted the middle course. From his station at deep mid-off he had been windmilling impressively for a good twenty minutes, but Frais had not been contriving not to notice. Robinson was starting to look hacked off. When Frais eventually put him out of his misery, the immediate consensus was that Frais should have taken the hint some overs earlier. Ideally in the first one.

Robinson bowled just five balls in the Eltham innings, but it was all that was needed to account for the remainder of the batsmen, and he left the arena with figures of 0.5 overs, two wickets and no runs conceded.

Eltham were all out for 162 runs in 35.5 overs, an improvement (from our perspective) of 21 runs from the total conceded a year ago. Now all that was required was an improvement of similar dimensions in our batting. Much as they did at the same time last year, the bowlers felt they had done what was reasonably required of them.

Trundlers’ Innings

Cricketing folklore has its share of blitzkrieg starts wherein the usual early-overs pattern (in which openers poke sedately around for half an hour, settling themselves and allowing spectators time to unpack the picnic basket, lay out the blanket and get comfortable) is wholesale shattered.

The start of the Trundlers’ run chase against Eltham was not one of those. Tall tales will not be told of the aggravated assault perpetrated by Messrs Grainger and Frais on a defenceless sack of leather, cork and straw.

Again we had occasion to rue Mr Colley’s absence: his scoring might be pedestrian at times, but he can be relied upon to manage at least a walking pace. For several overs Grainger stood stock still. On his 19th delivery he took a quick single. Frais started brightly enough, taking five of his first over, but then caught Grainger’s ailment, taking just one run in the next four. In the final nineteen deliveries of his innings, Frais scored nought. Then he was out caught.

Credit must go to Eltham’s opening bowlers, Messrs Tanveer and Rosenthal, whose line and length were constantly impeccable. In twelve overs between them they conceded just twenty runs. When they were finally rested it may have been due to the sheer boredom they had projected onto the game: apart from his four maidens Tanveer conceded just two runs, to go with the miserly twelve he conceded last year.

Frais’ departure brought Buxton to the crease, whose newfound position of number 3 is beginning to look like a misjudgement. His main contribution was to present Eltham with their fifth maiden of the day before scratching a brace over the slips and departing LBW for 2.

Not even that dependable run machine Phillips could make anything out of the bowling and departed the arena with just four singles to his name.

Freeman snuck a cheeky single before being bowled for one. Hayward looked watchful of line and length but forgetful of the location of his back foot and was stumped for three.

The pitch was a little flighty but hardly a minefield. Yet something in the fevered mind of a new batsman transforms that twenty two yards of flat, closely-mown rye into a war zone. A chap who was inoffensively loafing around the covers, when he nears the bowling crease with ball in hand is transformed into some kind of malevolent shaman, weaving magical spells over the ball as it veers crazily around in the air on its way to you.

But the ball’s serpentine path is quite unapparent from anywhere else on the park. Home-side umpires will plead ignorance when quizzed about the brutal deflection an escaped non-striker has just encountered.

“I’m not sure what you mean. It just went straight,” they’ll say. “A bit full of a length, if anything.”

There are men who, with their cheerful demeanour, are immune to this witch doctory. Robinson, accompanied by Mr Freeman as his runner, turned out to be just such a man. Having strained a hamstring and ruptured tendons in his arm in his brief bowling stint the poor man could barely walk and could lift a bat only far enough to swat nigh-on everything he faced to the fence. Yet, in one eighth of the time, he attained just one run fewer than Grainger to be the day’s second top-scorer with a princely 22.

There were yet several hours remaining until kick-off at the Maracanã. Mr Rennard came in for Mr Hayward with instructions not to come back from the wicket until the anthems were underway, which Mr Kohler would signal on his accordion. Rennard has the makings of a fine cricketer. He plied a couple of elegant wafts into the covers before becoming unstuck on a quick single thanks to a smart piece of Eltham fielding.

Kohler put down his Hohner and picked up Phillips’ new Slazenger.

But for the gallows humour of Robinson’s hard hitting, medical ethicists would now be switching off life-support for our run rate. There was no sign of it, not the dimmest prospect of victory and, as long as Robinson could hang in there, but three forlorn hopes of another famous draw.

Mr Kohler was certainly one of them. As he arrived to take his guard he had three patient not-outs to his name this season (another if you count his display for the Archway Ladder against us) without yet having lost his wicket. On the other hand, his high-score for 2014 is seven. There is a whiff of survivor bias about his record: someone must be not out, after all. If the choice is between you, Gordon, Binns and Plimley you hardly need to be Len Hutton to be the one left at the end.

This day Mr Kohler defied expectations, though. He was bowled for one.

It was Mr Gordon’s turn. Versus the crafty Bohemians Gordon had verily exceeded his mandate (which is really just to go out there, take a guard, and come back) and now walked out with the exaggerated saunter of a man who no longer cares, in cricketing terms, whether he lives or dies. It suits him. He quickly amassed six, including a sparkling back foot cover drive, when Robinson’s brave rear-end action concluded. Mr Hannington bowled him out.

“Incredible!” chirruped young Mr Ritterband as he slapped on his new Trundlers’ cap and hopped over the boundary. “It is just like last year! It’s exactly the same!”

Last year, Ritterband and Frais brazened out some ten or twelve overs undefeated for the last wicket to salvage a draw.

“Just keep a straight bat,” advised Gordon.

Ritterband tapped his nose. “Say no more,” he said. “Leave it to me”.

As noted, you needn’t be David Gower to remain the not-out batsman when your partner is Mr. Gordon. But you do need to make at least a half-hearted attempt to defend the ball. Perhaps in his mind Ritterband had concluded this would be best achieved by hoiking his first delivery — a good length delivery on off stump — over midwicket. Who knows? But the net result was that the snippy spinner had a nought out to go with his nought not out from last year, and achieved in the minimum possible time.

Eltham would get their win, and Mr Kohler would see his beloved Argentina play, after all.