On Saturday May 28th, two important cricket matches took place on different continents. In Chennai (*), India the Royal Challengers Bangalore took on the Chennai Super Kings in front of 50,000 colourful, exuberant supporters in the final of the 4th Indian Premier League.
Meanwhile in a grey, damp Coton (England) the home team welcomed Barrington 2nd XI in front of one man and a dog. Except that Alastair hadn’t brought his dogs this week so it was just one man: well done Neil!
The connections between the IPL and the CCA don’t end there. Each year in the IPL there is an auction where franchises pay stupid money for average players. This year in the CCA auction we recruited Ulassa Kodandaramaiah for two pints of Guinness and a packet of crisps: good deal, he bowled very well on his debut without taking a wicket. Don’t worry, it will come.
The weather for these home games is becoming very predictable. Grey, rainy mornings lead into improving conditions throughout the day just in time for a pleasant recap in the pub afterwards. We gave Barrington the first use of a wicket which played very well throughout. Ross used 6 bowlers to bowl Barrington out for 89 in the last over. It says something about the strength of the opposition when our best bowler didn’t get to turn his arm over (I was paid to write this).
All the bowlers performed well: the aforementioned Ulassa on his debut and Matt Chandler went wicketless whilst deserving better. Milan led the way by taking the first 4 wickets, Ross snagged 3, Dave Scotcher 2 and Charlie picked up the 10th. Milan was very close to a 5-for despite bowling into the teeth of a strong breeze (he isn’t senior enough to get the choice of ends yet). He went close to the 5th wicket several times non more so when Scotch just failed to reach a chance in the gully after one of his famous salmon leaps. There was some conjecturing that Scotch may have been the recipient of Milan’s pocket money as the latter didn’t have enough to buy the obligatory jug in the event that he took 5 wickets.
It was a very tight bowling performance all around helped by enthusiastic fielding and appealing. None more so than Gabriel’s scream of delight for what he thought was a stunning catch by Andy at short mid on. Andy dived like a halibut and rolled over with a bemused look on his face as Gabriel rushed to congratulate him: the fact that the ball was 30 yards away seemed to have eluded Mr Fox.
One catch that did stick was by Alastair off of Ross. From my position in exile at 3rd man I stopped looking at the passing cyclists long enough to witness the ball seemingly heading for Gabriel’s face at slip. Like a cobra striking its prey, Alastair’s hand was suddenly between the ball and Gabriel and the ball was nestling in his glove. It looked so casual that next time we need to make it a little more challenging by having Alastair keep wicket on a unicycle. Alastair also took a stumping standing back to Ross. He has persisted through 6 fruitless years of throwing the ball at the stumps from this position, and either missing or being late or both. Finally it paid off and the umpire rather sheepishly sent the batsman on his way.
Scotch finally got a bowl to finish off the innings with a caught and bowled: a previous possible caught and bowled from a ball that went a couple of hundred feet in the air having been hampered by the jetstream from a low flying Vulcan on its way to Duxford.
[Note to bowlers: any complaints about not getting enough overs will fall on deaf ears with this reporter.]
89 all out and Dave Simmons made it through a complete innings without heading the ball. We retired for tea, courtesy of Mr East. He’ll make someone a lovely wife one day.
The weather had gotten gradually better by the time we batted and we made steady progress through the first three wickets, needing 30 to win with 7 wickets standing and half the overs to get them.
Gabriel and Dave Simmons both went LBW to Barrington's opening bowler. Being kind we can say that Gabriel’s decision was “marginal” and Dave’s was “bleeding obvious”. Dave had been trying to give his wicket away from the start having narrowly survived his first ball. In the over he finally departed he was let off twice by the Barrington keeper (dropped catch, missed stumping).
Alastair and Milan seemed to be making serene progress to the victory until Milan holed out to mid on. In 30 years time, with a hundred more pounds behind the shot it would have cleared the fielder but for now it was a comfortable catch.
That precipitated a fall of wickets of Sri Lankan proportions as we tried to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 63-3 became 63-4, 63-5, 63-6 & 67-7 as Rob (caught at cover), Alastair (bowled), Andy (caught) and Charlie (run out) came and went whilst a bemused Ross looked on helplessly (apart from running out Charlie). The run out was probably a tactic so that when we did eventually win the skipper’s innings looked even more important.
Ross Chandler was joined at the wicket by Matt (no relation) Chandler and the runs slowly came. Scotch had worked his way through his own finger nails and those of anyone unlucky enough to sit too near his as he watched anxiously. Ulassa seemed a lot more relaxed about the prospects of having to bat.
As Matt blocked his way to an important 2 not out, Ross knocked off the rest of the runs with some help from Mr Extras and we staggered over the line without losing any more wickets. Ross ended with a top score of 23 and Barrington’s unbeaten run was snapped.
So who was Milan of the Match? It’s between Milan the Man (4-16 & 16 runs) and Ross the Boss (3-15 and 23). Well done lads.
That leaves us firmly in mid table, 5th out of 9. Steeple Morden are the only unbeaten team although how much we can trust the CCA website is debatable when it reports results such as “Cambourne CC - 2nd XI Won by -1 runs”!
Fun (?) fact of the day: Coton’s highest 6th wicket partnership in 3 attempts this season is … 0! Being #7 on the batting order is a kiss of death so far – it’s always the number 7 who has been out.
(*) As Madras was renamed Chennai several years ago why do Indian restaurants still have Chicken Madras on the menu (not to mention Ceylon, Bombay…)?
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