King George Ascends - Waterbeach 01/May/2010

On a pleasant spring day that managed to confound the forecasters, King George assumed the leadership of the Coton CC. What he thought of the performance of his new subjecs is not on record. His predecessor – King Richard – had abdicated during the winter but was still present to lend his experience, not to mention the luxurious beard that had developed during the close season. Rumour has it there are white-spotted bluethroats nesting there.

However, “6C” (try saying that quickly), aka Coton Cricket Club Coach Chris Cooke was not to be seen. Having been forced into retirement through injury he has taken on the challenge of coaching the team to new levels of performance over the winter months. How would they respond? Could Dave Scotcher learn to play a straight bat? Could Rob Kaye bowl an inswinger? Could Gabriel Fox catch a cricket ball? Could Neil Sparnon appeal any louder? Chris will need to wait a little longer to find out in person.

Apart from Chris the team that took the field at Waterbeach had a familiar look to it with the usual stale warts stalwarts joined by the youth movement of Billy & Adam (having got notes from their respective parents).

The day got off to its usual start with panicked messages from the M11 (henceforward to be known as the Andrew East Memorial Parkway). “Has anyone got the book from Ross” was followed by “traffic bad, will be there at 2”. So, we already knew we would be one short at 1:30 and more bad news was to come: Alastair was car-less and no one had spotted his plea for a lift! He got on his bike and arrived during the 4th over having been towed to Waterbeach by one heroic little doggie (thanks, Shadow).

King George won the toss and inserted Waterbeach while the rest of the team reminisced with familiar faces from previous encounters. We took the field with 9 men, Andy still being on the M11 and poor Shadow having stopped to take on water in Fen Ditton. Neil donned the gloves which meant that King George and Billy opened the bowling. Unlike Dave and Rob, Neil is still quick enough that he can’t deliver the ball AND make it behind the stumps for the edge. It all started promisingly. Billy got the first wicket of the season and Adam took a catch to remove the other opener. [Note to Adam: it looks better if you dive before the catch instead of safely pouching it and then doing the salmon leap.]

Alastair arrived and after a brief fight took the gloves off Neil. Overall this was definitely a good move. Dave replaced Billy and Neil took over from King George and Waterbeach were soon 4 down for not too many courtesy of a thin edge off Neil to the Alastair and a clean bowled from King George. Mr East arrived and we realised how quiet it had been without his enthusiastic encouragement in the field. Totally unrelated to Andy’s arrival it was at this point that the game swung to Waterbeach. In spite of some fairly tight bowling from Messrs Wright, Scotcher and Kaye the 5th wicket pair of Waterbeach were able to accumulate steadily alternating periods of defence with punishment of the few bad balls. It was during this period where a limping Dave Scotcher pulled off a remarkable stop in the field. Remarkable in that the ball got to him slowly that he was able to dive in instalments to stop it (he may still be diving for all we know).

King George took decisive action, bringing back Neil, Billy and finally own royal personage to the attack. Despite Gabriel’s one man juggling show it worked. The 5th wicket stand of 75 was broken and the final 6 Waterbeach wickets removed for 47 runs. A fine catch at square leg by HRH off Billy, some rapid bowling and stump rattling by Neil and final coup de grace by The King wrapped things up. There were 4 wickets for Neil, 3 economical ones for George and 3 by Billy. Waterbeach were 165 all out, so full bowling points for us. Had one or two of the catches stuck, it could well have been less than 100.

Perhaps I should stop there. I have covered all the good bits. When I say that Mr Extras top scored for us you can tell it was a traditional Coton batting performance. 3 down for 7 after 3 overs: it didn’t get any better. The top order was undone by flight and speed variations from opening bowler Shimron Thomas and pacier stuff from Hawkes. Collectively the top 5 contributed 7 runs.

The tail wagged a bit. Adam top scored with 9, and Rads made optimal use of the outside edge to get us what might turn out to be a vital bonus point. In the end it was an unlucky, fluky, deflection off a drive from Billy that ended the innings with Scotch run out backing up. And that was that: 57 all out. 5 bonus points were gained which put us above Romsey Town & Balsham (who both got 4) and Fen Ditton (who didn’t play).

So, for the benefit of Mr Cooke: the lower order for once outscored the top of the order so perhaps some of us have taken on board the techniques he has extolling over the winter and early spring.