Ah Cambourne, that jewel in the crown of England’s historic towns, that paradise on earth. We played cricket there on Saturday. To be fair, the planners have made an attempt at creating a village green and who knows, in 100 years time it may actually resemble one. For now it was a desolate prairie amidst the new built to spec mass housing.
We welcomed back Mark “Mad Mod” Carrington to the team along with the 2nd father/son combo to represent the team this year in Paul and Adam Bradbury. Bradbury minimus (Ollie) was on alert as The Late Safwan Akram was once again missing at the start of the game.
Like us, Cambourne II’s team consisted of a mixture of callow youth and grizzled veterans. The difference was their youth wasn’t quite as callow and their veterans not so grizzled. They also had a couple of players that weren’t youths or veterans in other words, in their prime playing days. That’s an option we should try that some time.
We batted first. After a dozen overs half the team were back in the pavilion. Dave Simmons was the first, firmly clipping an innocuous ball into the hands of short mid wicket: 0-1. After one glorious 4, Richard dangled his willow outside off stump (7-2) and Rads came and went without disturbing scorers or umpires (other than to replace the bails): 7-3. Paul and Gabriel both feathered catches to the keeper and we were 21-5. It was beginning to look like one of the capitulations that we used to suffer a few seasons ago.
The Mad Mod removed the icepack from his knee and struggled out to the middle to join Adam Bradbury who was unmoved by the carnage at the other end. We then started the fight back. Quick running, some big hits (including one towering six from Mark) and the chatter in the field died away. Mark’s calling was entertaining and definitely non-textbook. “yes, no, no, NO, sorry!!” was one of the clearer calls.
Together they put on over 40 runs for the 6th wicket, saw us well past the drinks break and we started to look like we could make something for the bowlers to defend. Eventually Mark was dismissed. By now the Late Safwan had arrived and he carried on the fight back with Adam. Adam had taken a particular pleasure in winding up the Cambourne skipper who insisted in bowling too short from too long a run up. Adam disdainfully pulled these short balls down to long leg with a very calm demeanour.
Safwan cracked four fours and the pair put on 30 for the 7th wicket, we were now at a much more promising 91-7.
Rob came in. Adam – 40 years his junior – talked his senior partner through what needed to happen in the final overs. It is really encouraging to see how much our juniors think about the game as opposed to just playing it. It is also encouraging to see cricket talent in the Bradbury family. A further 20 runs were added to for the 8th wicket and we had reached Nelson (111) when Adam finally lost patience and chipped up a catch. 30 runs patiently spread over 86 well played deliveries: top score and the basis for giving us a fighting chance: well played, young man.
Matt Chandler also departed on the dreaded Nelson and it was left to Rob & Dave to get the 3rd bonus point and take us almost to the 40th over and a final total of 124. This was probably 80 more than we – and Cambourne – had thought after the depths of 21-5.at
With Bradders senior in the team, Rob gratefully moved out from behind the stumps (his says that his eye is much better, thanks) and opened the bowling with Matt Chandler. Runs came quickly despite two early wickets (one apiece for Matt and Rob) and the 50 was up in no time at all.
Once again the adage that “catches win matches” was trotted out. In Rob’s four overs there were two actual drops, several balls that narrowly missed fielders or fell between them and an appeal for a caught behind that was called as a wide. Rob was not amused, but less not amused than Dave “Triple F” Scotcher when another chance went begging off is bowling later on.
Gabriel called the changes (he had these planned out on a crib sheet that had who would bowl each over as a Gantt chart). Scotch replaced Matt and Richard replaced Rob. The scoring rate was reined in somewhat and Scotch took a third wicket.
Richard wasn’t able to reproduce the control from previous weeks and in turn gave way to Matt who took a 2nd wicket. Cambourne were getting close to the target however and Gabriel looked around his team to see who could possibly turn the match for us. By now Gabriel was way beyond the bowling master plan that stayed in his pocket.
Perhaps he was busy thinking about the answer but when the ball came in the air to him at mid-off the catch went begging. Scotch – the unlucky bowler – now dropped his triple F bomb and proceeded to do a dance of frustration on the pitch.
The answer that Gabriel came up with to the bowling dilemma was The Mad Mod. Mark ran up, delivered the ball to the Cambourne #3 (who had reached an untroubled 48) and promptly bowled him first ball.
Mark then set off on the longest and craziest celebration in cricket history, at least since the last time he took a wicket (or a catch). It took us 20 minutes (slight exaggeration) to catch him and convince him to bowl a 2nd ball. Mark’s first over yielded just a solitary wide, but alas it was to be his only over as Scotch promptly haemorrhaged the winning runs.
So we had a defeat by 5 wickets. It was a lot closer than it had any right to be from 21-5 and once again the Coton tactic of reversing the batting order (Adam was #6 so the fulcrum of the innings whichever way you look at it) had – for a while – confused the opposition and offered a glimpse of a win. We do however fall back into the bottom 2 and the next two games – against Longstowe, home and away – become ever more crucial.
[As retold to your match reporter by anonymous sources at The Plough.]
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