A decidedly un-Coton like Saturday witnessed the visit of Hardwick and Caldecote 2nds to the Coton Rec. For the first time this season there was no rain – or threat of rain – to interfere with our Saturday afternoon enjoyment. Earlier in the season, H & C had run up over 300 against us for the loss of a mere 3 wickets. Surely it couldn’t happen again? Well it didn’t – just.
Going against years of Coton tradition Ross had prepared a belter of a wicket. If we don’t start taking more wickets on it soon we may need to lose the keys to the new motorised roller that members of the club so much work into funding.
There was a debut for Bobby Elmes, another of the seemingly endless production line of talented 13 year-olds coming through from the Coton Academy. There was also a first game for Mark Lincoln who is, to be kind, just a little past his teenage years. As with the game at Hardwick we fielded first. Matt opened from the top end and got quite a bit of deviation through the air in both directions (the ball swung both ways as well).
Scotch opened from the footpath end and soon made the first breakthrough trapping the opener leg before (who says we never get decisions?). Getting him out may, on reflection, have been a mistake as his replacement scored freely from the start. He was soon peppering the boundary and brought one old lady scurrying from her cottage across the footpath. She probably thought it was World War 2 starting up again and was heading for the bomb shelter before realising it was in fact just raining cricket balls around her house.
The rampant batsman brought up his 50 with a 6 off Scotch who was not amused.
Richard & Ross replaced the opening bowlers. There were plenty of aerial shots but they contrived to evade the fielders (too be fair, they often evaded the fielders by going well over the boundary).
Ross juggled the bowling to try to keep the batsmen from getting into a rhythm but it seemed to have little effect as they continued to pile on the runs. Matt swapped ends and tried his luck from the Footpath End however his only victim was Rob behind the stumps. A particularly wayward leg side beamer hit one of the rabbit holes that now surround the wicket and reared up into the unlucky keeper’s face drawing blood (considerably less than Mr Simmons had given in the cause however). After a few minutes to ascertain Rob’s fitness to continue the game continued.
Ross eventually made a breakthrough by removing Hardwick’s #3 with a caught and bowled. This only served to bring in the batsman who had made 100 against us in the away fixture and it was business as usual with more boundaries and more aerial shots.
The Hardwick opener brought up his century with another towering 6 off Scotch who was not seeing the funny side of this at all. Both Ross and Matt went for over 70 in their 10 overs. Richard and Ross were more economical but Rob McQuorquodale’s solitary over yielded 13 runs.
Ross eventually removed the opener for 121 courtesy of a fine catch by Matt at short 3rd man (he had early shelled a much simpler one at the same position). That was the end of the wickets as Hardwick racked up 256-3 in their 40 overs. This might be regarded as a slight improvement after we conceded over 300 against them earlier in the season, again for 3 wickets.
After a fine tea – thanks, Matt – we batted. And again, the innings had many echoes of the earlier encounter. There was a 50 from Ross, as there was at Hardwick, and 30s from Rob M and Dave Hale. We passed 140 with only 4 wickets down as we had at their place before subsiding to virtually same all out score (199 vs 202) in almost exactly the same number of balls (2 different). Spooky.
We got off to a flying start thanks to some free swinging by Safwan Akram. Richard was the first to depart with Safwan soon after. It was looking like a short afternoon in prospect.
Dave Hale and Rob M had other ideas. Rob accumulated steadily (a very foxy innings) while Dave flayed the bowling to all parts. It was looking very good and came a quite a surprise when Dave missed a straight one.
This brought Ross in and he took over where Dave had left off continuing the assault on the bowling and the cottages across the footpath. The bowlers were losing their patience and the fielding getting ragged. It was only slightly surprising that Rob K could accurately predict a head high beamer from the opening bowler. (If this was a Loony Tunes cartoon the bowler would have turned into a raging, steaming bull in his run-up). Ross completed his 4th half century of the season (2 of which have come against Hardwick) before being undone by one of the few (perhaps the only) deliveries that kept a bit low.
From there on in it was a bit of a progression. Bobby Elmes looked as accomplished as the other juniors that have stepped up this year: credit to the Saturday morning coaching. He had difficulty penetrating the field and was eventually bowled by one of Hardwick’s two 13 year old spin bowlers (spin must be very sexy these days with the number of youngsters taking it up and doing well).
A very tired looking Rob McQ was departed for a solid 30 and Mark Lincoln’s debut lasted 2 balls. The first went for 4, the second was dragged on to the stumps from way outside leg stump. Still that was one ball more than Rob K who, having swept the first delivery, went for a suicide 2nd run on the basis that (a) the fielder would throw it in wildly (he didn’t - for the first time during the match it was accurate) and (b) the keeper would fumble (he didn’t – again for probably the first time).
Even that innings was longer than Scotch’s who came in at the non striker’s end and watched Andy lob the next ball to a fielder.
So we lost by 57 runs. It seems that Hardwick like our bowling as for the 2nd time this year they racked up a big score whilst only losing 3 wickets. It wasn’t that the bowling was that bad, or as least it didn’t seem that way from my vantage point behind the stumps. We are back in the relegation spots but 4 of the remaining 5 games are against either the team below us or immediately above.
Next week it’s a return to Cambourne. 3 years ago we beat their 1st XI without losing a wicket (the only game they lost all season) on Saturday it’s their 2nd XI…
Cue tumbleweeds and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly theme.
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