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At around 1:00PM last Saturday the skies opened over
Fowlmere, home to Thriplow’s 3rd XI.
My informant gazed forlornly over a cricket ground that could barely be
made out through the rain. He wondered
where his teammates were, where the opposition were, wondered if the match had
been called off and cursed at forgetting his phone. The home team arrived and, in
stark contrast to what had happened on the previous Saturday, expressed confidence
that the game would go ahead.
Slowly the skies cleared and even more slowly other Coton
players arrived. Captain for day Gabriel
brought two new recruits – Arshiq and Tejasvi.
We were fortunate that the start was delayed to 2:15 as Adam Wright was
still to arrive and Chirayu was lying in a ditch somewhere in South
Cambridgeshire having come off his bike.
When we did get underway Matt and Rob opened the
bowling. The captains had agreed to a 36
over game to compensate for the lost time.
The rain came back for the first few overs but passed on and we had dry
conditions for the rest of the game.
Matt was having difficulty with his footing on the greasy surface but
the slower, heavier Rob was coping OK. The
ball was in the air – and in and out of hands a couple of times - before Rob
broke the opening partnership with a ball that moved back in to clip the top of
off stump. The other opener didn’t last
much longer, obligingly prodding another delivery from Rob into Adam’s hands at
short cover.
Matt clearly wasn’t relishing conditions although he had
beaten the bat several times and induced edges on others. He gave way to Adam who got the born to turn
quite sharply and generated some extravagant bounce. Shortly thereafter one lumbering behemoth
(Rob) was replaced by another (Dave).
The former was still havering about the three dropped catches and the
three successive deliveries that had been edged between wicket keeper and
slip. That Alastair immediately held on
to a sharp chance off Scotch didn’t make it any better.
Adam’s spin induced a false stroke to Matt at mid-wicket and
we reached half way with the score on around 50-4. As so often happens, the drinks break precipitated
another wicket. The first ball after the
break was lobbed back to Scotch who held on to the return catch with a minimum
of fuss.
Thriplow then affected a fight back. The
young tyro coming in at seven decided to attack Scotch’s bowling. It wasn’t exactly elegant (I mean the batting, not Scotch) and twice the bowler was denied a wicket from difficult chances
offered to Arshiq at mid-off. Both would
have rated as “brilliant” if he had hung on, the second in particular was a
great running, sliding effort. It was on
another of these aerial shots that our other debutant Tejasvi pulled a
hamstring whilst turning to chase.
The
runs were coming steadily. Richard
replaced Adam, the latter having beaten the bat regularly without reward. Scotch was finally rewarded when the Thriplow
batsman chanced his arm once too often and directed the ball straight at Rob,
now positioned at long on. Rob tells me
that as the ball sailed towards him two equally unpleasant thoughts crossed his
mind: which was worse, the verbal abuse from Scotch should he drop it, or the
physical abuse for a successful catch?
He took one for the team and ran off to hide behind Gabriel and other team
members before Scotch could express his appreciation.
A brief experiment with Chirayu’s spin could have yielded a
wicket as the ball passed the advancing batsman to Alastair. But on both occasions the batsman was able to
regain his ground before the bails could be removed. Chirayu then got a bit of tap and in was left
to the veterans to bowl out the last overs.
Rob had stiffened up and started with a wide and rank ball that got
smacked away. The next one was lofted
back over his head in the direction of Gabriel positioned at mid on. In anticipation of the dropped catch, Rob got ready to swear to himself. But what’s this? As Gabriel wavered there was a decisive call
of “mine” from Chirayu, sprinting around.
Some say he came from as far away as third man to take the catch. More realistically it was wide mid-off, but
still about 3-4 times the distance that Gabriel would have needed to make to
get there: a great running catch.
The innings then drifted to a close with Rob and Alastair having a
private game where the former bowled, the latter caught and the batsman didn’t
look like hitting it.
Thriplow got 140-7
which probably represents 40-50 more than they should have if we had taken our
chances. Rob finished with 3-24, Scotch
with 3-31 and Adam got the 7th.
We took tea in the well equipped social club. This is something we lack at Coton. It says something about the age of the team
that several of them think that a club house, and teas, rate more important
than improved practice facilities…
Then we batted.
Gabriel opened with Adam and with considerable help from our old friend
Mr Extras put on 49 for the first wicket in quite quick time. Adam was mainly responsible for these
interposing some cracking drives with a few less convincing shots. Gabriel was, well, Gabriel. It was during these opening exchanged that
Rob felt obliged to warn the young Thriplow opening bowler for running down the
middle of the wicket on his follow through.
It’s only a J6S game so the warning was only ever a friendly one, but we
could legitimately have had him removed from the attack for the rest of the
game.
As it was, the opposition removed him from the attack. He was pretty quick without ever threatening
to hit the stumps but his replacement did figure out how to bowl straight and
removed Adam after a promising 29. In
the next over, Gabriel followed a low full toss from the other change
bowler. The opposition had been giving
their slip fielder a lot of guidance on how and where to stand and it paid off
as he took the catch. 49-2.
Alastair and Safwan were now at the wicket. The opposition remembered Safwan from last
year abd soon had 3 men back on the leg side boundary. Alastair has had a frustrating season with
the bat but this time his dismissal wasn’t down to batting. Another ball slipped down the leg side and
evaded the keeper who had insisted on standing up to the medium pacers. Alastair and Safwan had completed one run and
Alastair turned for a second. The throw
was accurate. The keeper took the ball
and broke the wickets with Alastair very short despite a despairing dive.
Safwan was now joined by Arshiq who announced his presence
with a six over square leg off the first ball he faced. There’s nothing like playing yourself in!
Safwan looked confused.
Here was someone who could smite the ball as hard as he could. For a while Safwan couldn’t make clean
contact with the ball. But eventually
the runs came and we cruised past 100 with lots of time left and 7 wickets in
hand. But we are Coton. Why do things the easy way when you can do
them the hard way? After the drinks
break (again) things changed. The first
two balls were a high, wide, no-ball beamer, followed by one that was almost a
no-ball that Arshiq pulled for 6. Safwan
had played more defensive shots in this innings than all of this season, and
probably last, combined, isn’t naturally suited to that game and another
forward defensive went straight back to the bowler. Still, 108-4 meant only 33 needed in about 12
overs, so we couldn’t muck that up, could we?
Well, 4 overs later it was 118-7. Richard, Matt and Chirayu all failed to
trouble the scorers. Chirayu’s was first
ball. The clatter of wickets meant that
out number 9 (Rob) & 10 (Dave) had to sprint off (sprint is probably the
wrong word for these two) and get ready quickly. Thriplow could quite legitimately have had us
timed out at this point however, sportingly they didn’t. I can suppose that was in return for us not
insisting their left arm bowler be removed from the attack and he had just
taken two wickets in two balls.
Rob won the race to face the hat trick ball: the first that
he has faced this season. It was a
bouncer, and a no-ball, and was hooked for a single: a virgin bat no
longer! But Rob didn’t survive much longer, clipping a rank leg side
full toss straight to square leg.
Perhaps those practice facilities are more important than the bar!
Scotch went in almost identical manner and we were 129-9,
still 12 runs short of the target. Tejasvi now came in, with Chirayu running
for him (good tactics that, having the team’s fastest mover as the
runner). It soon became evident that
Tejasvi was a proper batsman, and one that could give Gabriel a run for his
money in slow accumulation. It must have
been disheartening for Thriplow to see him come in at #11. Arshiq eased the nerves with his third
6. Thriplow ringed the boundary to let
him have a single but that just meant Tejasvi could play the ball out for the
rest of the over. The score crept up with
these single. With us one short of
parity there was a scare with an appeal for LBW. Richard kept his composure with 11 opponents
imploring him to raise his finger. He
didn’t, two balls later Arshiq slapped the ball away for the 4 runs that took
us home with 10 balls to spare. In the excitement
we hadn’t noticed that he had passed his 50 a few balls earlier.
So, 5 wins out of 6 (with once abandonment) puts us 3rd
above Thriplow for whom this was their first defeat. Great Shelford and Barrington remain unbeaten
above us as both got victories at the weekend.
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