Palm Tree CC vs. Tetherdown Trundlers CC
Date: Sun 7 September 2014: 14:00.
Match: Palm Tree CC vs. Tetherdown Trundlers CC
Venue: Highgate Woods
Status: 40 overs a side; Full Test Status
Result: Tetherdown Trundlers CC 124 all out lost to Palm Tree CC 128/6.
Match Lost.
Skipper: Frais
Ducksman: Ball, with dishonourable mentions of Ritterband and Gordon.
Guest Reporter: Kohler, with editorial interventions from Buxton
You only had one job
Imagine the scene:
your skipper goes out for the toss, and after exchanging a few pleasantries
with the opposing team’s captain, and watching the coin arc through the air
before nestling on the ground, clutches his head in apparent shock and desperation.
What on earth can be so bad? The coin has only got two sides: even if it has
landed on the side he hadn’t called, that’s an entirely foreseeable result and
should be stoically accepted (at least in the presence of the opponent). We’re
either going to bat or bowl, the binary spectrum of consequences of the
numismatic dialectic, the classic yin and the yang. It transpires Frais forgot
to call heads or tails. Since he only had one – simple - job, it’s a mystery
how he failed to do it, but happily Palm Tree’s skipper took a prosaic approach
and said: “I guess you are going to tell me you were going to say “heads””, for
heads it was, and Ad rapidly agreed. The Trundlers would bat.
Palm Tree CC apparently take their name from a
landmark just outside Southgate station, their first ever captain having lived
nearby. I checked by Highgate station today, and I saw a discarded Metro.
Perhaps as our kids get older and leave Tetherdown, we should consider a name
change? [To “Metro”? I am not sure that
sends the right signal. – Ed]
We conducted further research into our oppo and
gathered they fancied their selection generally a bowling team, but that their
opener was only ten shy of 6000 runs for the club. A stern test for the
Trundlers’ last match in the UK in 2014.
Trundlers’ Innings
Ball and Colley
strode out to bat on the Highgate Woods strip under greyish skies, but the air
was warm, the park was busy and there was an atmosphere of eager anticipation.
The on- and off-side boundaries were lengthy, and the pitch provided some
uneven bounce for an accurate Palm Tree attack. Runs were going to be at a
premium. They certainly were for Ball, who announced on his return from the
crease that he had never managed to get out bowled behind his legs before. In
another, somewhat unwelcome, first he had never claimed the duck shirt before
either. Colley was accounted for by one that unexpectedly popped up on him,
before Grainger and Phillips rebuilt the innings studiously and fluently.
First change for Palm Tree was the bearded Mr
Russell. What he served up was some fairly accurate gentle spin, but what was
more notable was how he did it. His angled run-up started with a sideways skip
before a conventional six or seven paces and then, just as he got into his
delivery stride, it seemed as though he was suddenly concerned that he had not
put his Right Guard on that morning, for he looked for all the world to be
taking a big sniff of his left armpit, before completing his action with
something suspiciously like a right-handed throw.
The Palm Tree fielding was pretty good: their
throwing was strong, perhaps something beyond the middle-aged arm muscles of
many Trundlers, but certainly something to aspire to, and they also took smart
catches to account for a number of the Trundlers’ diligent middle order.
However, Roberts was not a victim of a smart catch.
In fact, notwithstanding the interpretative entry in the scorebook, he was not
the victim of a catch at all. Rather, his teammates proposed he was “Retired,
lingering under the mistaken impression he was out”. This was a very great
shame because until that point he had batted elegantly and had, in conjunction
with a dogged skipper, guided the Trundlers past 100.
How to explain his departure? Mr Robinsraj [I am assured this is how his name was recorded in the scorebook – Ed]
was bowling, tightly, from the Muswell Hill End, at a decent pace, with a hint
of swing. Roberts drove at one, but the line of the ball was inside the bat.
There was definitely a sound, but Colley, umpiring, saw daylight between bat
and ball, and no deviation of the trajectory of the cherry from the moment it
bounced on the wicket to the moment it landed in the wicketkeeper’s gloves. The
mysterious sound was either the bat touching the ground or something
extraneous. The bowler appealed, as did the wicketkeeper and the fielders, but
their judgement is biased. Umpire Colley’s is unimpeachable.
Roberts, however, did what Ricky Ponting would
never do, folded his bat under his arm, pulled his cap from his head, and
turned to march to the boundary. Colley and Bonfield, the non-striker, were
perplexed: what to do? You might recall that England’s Ian Bell was once
recalled after a dubious run out decision, but was that their prerogative? Very
quickly, Roberts became aware of the quandary and made what was almost an
appeal for clemency against his own sentence by asking the fielders to call him
back if they didn’t think he was out. I am not quite sure how they were going
to reconcile doing that with the fact that thirty seconds previously they had
been cock-a-hoop claiming his dismissal, but perhaps given that Roberts was
magnanimous enough to walk when he wasn’t out, they should have been big enough
to admit they had just been trying to pull a fast one!
As if all this, plus two ducks for the late order
pair of Ritterband and Gordon, weren’t enough excitement, the Trundlers’
innings was the subject of a drone attack. Given the high demand for drones in
the world’s various conflict zones, it was surprising there was one free to
buzz around Highgate Woods. However, presaged by a low electrical whirr, one
flew across from deep point, scrutinizing the painstaking efforts of the Trundlers
batsman before crashing just to the wicketkeeper’s left. That was very amusing.
Sadly the crash wasn’t calamitous. The geeky American kid who piloted it was
able to patch it up with a bit of tape before taking it back to the boundary
and launching it again for further reconnaissance. The second flight was also
funny. The third and fourth less so, and eventually a Palm Tree fielder
confiscated the drone and handed it to umpire Ball.
Bonfield, Francis and Kohler added a few, Francis
particularly acquitting himself creditably, before the Trundlers were all out
at the end of the 39th over for 135 [There
may be some poetic licence being taken here: the scorebook says 124. – Ed].
The general consensus was that the score was 20 light of being truly
competitive [or 31 – Ed], but rather
than simply blame Roberts, the team resolved to bowl accurately, field tightly,
and do our very best to get a couple of early wickets. [And then blame Roberts. –
Ed]
Palm Tree Innings
Ball and Colley opened
the bowling, as they had the batting. Your correspondent, who had gone in at 11
in the 36th over of the Trundlers’ innings, noticed the correlation of batting
and bowling orders and developed a well-founded sense of foreboding about when
he would get his chance to bowl. Although it is untraditional to start with a
spinner, Ball had a 5.15 pm curfew and the skipper was keen to get as much of
his slow, crafty, stuff through before he had to disappear. More
conventionally, Colley thundered in from the other end trying to nudge the dial
up to Mach 2.0 (apart from when he sent down his disguised slower ball, which
clocked at Ritterband 1.0).
The plan was working. The early overs conceded very
few runs, and then Ball eked out a wicket. Palm Tree’s “6K” man, Mr Hamer,
managed to reach his landmark, but only after about 10 overs.
Then, suddenly, the plan wasn’t just working, but
was thrown into overdrive. Grainger, fielding just off the strip, and alert for
mishit drives, demonstrated sublime agility, throwing himself into the air to
his right at a full-blooded blow and, just at the moment when the ball seemed
to have gone past him, curled his fingers around the ball and clung on. Any
Trundlers catch is a cause for celebration, but this was a champagne moment to
grace any game.
The Trundlers now had to concentrate very hard on
not getting over-excited. Ball had to leave, replaced in the field by one and
then another of the large number of our non-playing pals who had trundled down
to the now sun-drenched playing arena to support their teammates.
But the first person to lose his cool was Mr Hamer.
Gordon bowled a loosener, which didn’t bother bouncing, and the Palm Tree
opener tried to thump it away behind square leg. Frais was lurking there and
snaffled it. Mr Hamer was disappointed not to grab four runs, but even more
disappointed that the umpires did not signal a no-ball beamer. They certainly
had the opportunity to think it through, but the square leg umpire was pretty
adamant that Marcus’s delivery had arrived with Mr Hamer below his waist so the
dismissal stood. Mr Hamer walked off muttering imprecations not really suited to
a family day down at the park and threw his bat as he crossed the boundary. His
behaviour was not acceptable, and all Trundlers would have been pretty shocked
to have seen that sort of thing at a cricket match.
Grainger and Colley each grabbed another wicket and
soon the Palm Trees were creaking at 53 for five as the run rate sneaked up
over four. Frais bowled three successive maidens and at drinks there was the
real prospect of Trundlers’ glory to revel in. [Fatum nos privet etiam parvis victoriis- Ed]
We stuck doggedly to the plan, and Francis fielded
with particular distinction (despite regularly being a bit bemused about
precisely which blade of grass Grainger wanted him to stand upon), but as the
sun burned lower on the horizon and the shadows began to stretch, the game was
rudely snatched from our grasp by Mr Yelland. In what footballers might call an
innings of two halves, he was very watchful for the first half of his innings,
scoring two off 30 balls, but then he went on the attack scoring another 32 at
a run a ball to see Palm Tree almost home.
Mr Hamer assisted him in his new capacity as umpire
by seeming to call any delivery slightly full of a length “no ball”. I’d say he
was making a point. At the end, I think there was a general feeling of disconsolation
amongst Ad’s army. Perhaps to say we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory
would be an exaggeration, but I think we all felt that we had been on the cusp
of a creditable win against a team and that we had played proper cricket to get
ourselves into that position.
Oh well…it was nothing a beer at The Woodman
couldn’t make better. Roll on Malta, where perhaps we’ll see some real palm
trees.