It pissed down. Didn’t want to play. One of our players stormed off calling our captain unprintable things. Got out to a raspberry blower bowler. Without a doubt, the most humiliating dismissal any cricketer can suffer. When you see it, you will cry; cry bloody horror.
Incogs were a great wondering side once. When I’ve played against them, they have had a hardcore of old men and the rest are ringers and overseas pros. If they are getting spanked, they slow the game; if they bat first, they do so forever and if they can’t win they’ll block the shit out of it.
I was going wellish but then I played a…. you can fill in the rest. I tried to pull a straight one that kept fairly low. There was plenty of time to regret. It looked like it would rain all August.
(the vid of this game is above: see v Incogs at Datchett)
Runs, runs and at a decent pace until I was caught at deep long off. I quickly forgot that Cryptics bowled with a sodden ball, that they didn’t have a proper keeper, that the legside boundary was tiny etc. I could go on but let’s just say the odds where in my favour.
Writing about scoring runs is strangely unsatisfying. Bradman who scored a zillion runs and wrote The Story of My Cricketing Life…. (1930), My Cricketing Life (1938), Farewell to Cricket (1950) and The Art of Cricket must have been bored to death scribbling ‘I scored a hundred and then a double hundred, followed that with a hundred the next day. The third hundred felt better than the all others that week’. I’ll take my struggle over Bradman’s any day.
This wicket is a bloody road. Got 30 and then holed out. RAF had one speedster who’d played for Durham. He says they timed him in the mid 80s. He was a bit too quick for my liking. I tried to pull him and was so late on the shot that the ball ended up at short cover.
Quidnuncs are a Cambridge University side for cricket blues and near blues. On the hottest day of the year, we scored 301 for 4. They scored 302. 600 runs scored. I got 11 of them, 5 balls before we declared.
There was a bit of needle today. The bloke who earlier this season dubbed me ‘have kit, will travel man’ was playing. I’d been carrying a chip on my shoulder since what he’d said got back to me. So I wanted revenge.
What do you do when you chide your batting partner for ambling a single that could have been two and he barks at you ‘get back in your cage mate, I know you don’t score very many’.
Another little drama was about to play itself out. With a hoppy prance, the same batsman, strolled every run I hit. Ok he can’t run. Deal with it and I did. But when he had the strike on balls 4 and 5 he would morph into the road runner.
I am not the first man to bat with a strike hog but god, it rankled. Batsmen are brothers in arms. I had this noble sentiment in mind the next time he called a quick single on balls four and five; defiantly, tit for tat, I shouted ‘No’. I was stumped a few balls later.
I played for this club in the past and couldn’t buy a run for them. I came -a la Greig- to make them grovel but was jennergored by a half blind, half deaf ‘home’ umpire for a two ball duck. These aren’t insults. They are a medical record of his senses. I’ve had a look at the film. The angle doesn’t show you how awful it was. There was a very suspicious huddle round the umpire as I walked in.
I’m sure their skipper told their umpire to give anything that hit my pad out. I can’t accept it was just a bad decision by a man with one eye and one ear. I have looked for a conspiracy. There must have been one because I was dismissed by the sports psychologist who was supposed to be help me get this hundred.
I scored 59 but my count on film says it’s 67. They weren’t the worst attack in the world. They weren’t the best attack either. I rode my luck and survived several chances.
The ground was stunning- perhaps the most breathtaking backdrop for a cricket field in the world. There’s not much I can say. Take a look for yourself.
Milton Abbey
That time of year again; back to the old Asylum for the annual jolly of five days cricket. It rained all week. Not a ball bowled. I’d spent a bit of the winter sending missives about the sorry state of the ex patient’s cricket week. When I saw the fixtures for the ‘week’, there was marmalade on my kitchen walls. God, get a life. I wish I could.
We’ve been losing fixtures and struggling to field sides for a decade and in that time the asylum enterprise office are said to have made a fat buck staging concerts, fireworks, proms etc for the paying public on the pitch the weekend before cricket week.
There’s a suspicion that the enterprise office view ex patient’s cricket as a nuisance since they raise a big marquee for proms and want their lolly for it. The enterprise office are keen to venue the Close with big tent for corporate do’s and first class cricket. They’ve got the marquee for a week but they only use it for a few days. It comes down when ‘CW’starts.
You’ve got to give ‘em credit- the asylum enterprise office. They are doing a brilliant job. I got off the train at Temple Meads greeted by posters of ‘Leslie Garrett, a night of Proms on the Close’ everywhere, bloody everywhere. There are hopes of luring Gloucestershire back to the Close again (Grace got 12 hundreds there) and using the Prom as bait. Good luck to them- good luck on any week but cricket week that is.
A 2 day game, 2 innings and god blessed Berkshire with 2 days of sun. First innings was abject. I edged two 4’s through the slips and finally guided one to the keeper’s gloves. This is personal. This game is telling me something.
Three hours after getting out I was still in my pads sulking in the pavilion. At the end of the day one, things got worse. I received news that an old friend had died. Cancer got him. He fell ill one day and doctors told him he had less than six weeks to live.
Look out for the book ‘Dear Sebastian’. His last act was to write a letter to his son on how he should try to live his life. Prominent people were asked to contribute. Proceeds will go to cancer research, so please buy a copy.