It seems like years since some civil service poobah looked
out of his window and declared that there was a drought. He should have been more careful: because Freyr
(or Tefnut or Yu-Tzu or ) was casting his
all-seeing eye in the direction of Whitehall and felt his godhood
impugned. “I’ll show them” he/she
thought. And shown we were with months
of persistent precipitation.
On Monday, the mighty Thor strode out over an inundated
Coton Rec and shook his fist at the sky.
“Not on my pitch” he raged and Freyr, feeling his brother’s needs, sent
clear skies and drying winds.
And the miracle happened.
We got a game of cricket. Thor
called Captain America and the Coton Avengers assembled. Of course there aren’t enough Avengers to
make up a team, so we had to call in Justice League of America, Mystery Men and
other random superheroes to fill out the squad.
Lead by Captain America (he used to live there and will tell
you many stories if you buy him a pint), we had Thor, Spider-dan, Batman Akram,
Mr Fantasic, Hawkwind, the Abominable Hulk, Doc Chandler, The Rad-Thing, The
Blue Rajah and Oli, The Boy Wonder.
Rumours that Invisible Girl was patrolling the outfield to
stop balls seemingly destined for the boundary cannot be proved or disproved,
but thanks for the help, Helen.
Captain America won the toss by using his super powers to
ensure that the coin landed opposite to the opposition skipper’s call and in
time honoured tradition elected to field first.
The Blue Rajah opened the bowling
with The Abominable Hulk. It was soon
evident that there was little pace in the pitch although the bounce was
true.
The Hulk (recently signed by Chelsea) worked through the
Barrington batting. They must be
getting sick of the sight of him as he added 4 wickets in this match to the 6
that he took over at their place. It
should have been 5. The Blue Rajah and
The Rad Thing had taken catches off his bowling so as not to make him angry and
turn green. However, when one of the
Barrington players chipped a simple return catch back to the normally reliable
Hulk he managed to drop it, theatrically.
A more obvious case of jug avoidance I have yet to witness (later,
Batman Akram also avoided a jug by going home).
At the other end, The Blue Rajah had been replaced first by
Spider Dan and then by The Mighty Thor.
We had hatched a plan to drop all the catches off Spider Dan’s bowling
to get him wound up and bowl faster. It
worked, but he didn’t take any wickets.
The Mighty Thor did get one, shattering the stumps at the top end. It was now time for Oli, The Boy Wonder to
take the ball. His first 2 overs were
maidens and he bowled 5 excellent overs picking up 2 wickets including that of
the opposition skipper who was surprised to be given out LBW. Yes he was well down, but the ball was
straight, hit him line and would have hit the stumps. DRS would not have saved him.
The Barrington innings stuttered to a close with a wicket
for Doc Chandler. Doc had spotted the
slow bounce and was close to bowling a couple of players with bouncers that
almost dropped onto the stumps. The
Might Thor finished it off in successive deliveries with two thunderbolts that
rearranged the stumps. The opposition on
July 7th will be mightily confused when we surround the bat for the
hat trick ball.
Which brings us to our batting. We were chasing 105 to win. Mr Fantastic opened with Hawkwind and although
the scoring was slow we steadily accumulated runs. Mr Fantastic for once scored faster than his
partner but was first to go with score on 10 (at which point Hawkwind still
hadn’t got off the mark). This brought
Batman Akram to the wicket. Batman
played himself in his usual manner: wild swings at several balls not making contact
but creating mini-tornados on the pitch.
Hawkwind eventually got frustrated and holed out to cover leaving us at
26-2.
Spider Dan got off the mark with a cracking 4 and was
looking good. He was undone by the
change bowler who got a wicked ball to bounce up and Spider Dan fended it off
to the wicket keeper. 35-3 and we were struggling. The Rad Thing helped Batman put on a
partnership of 22 for the next wicket and steady the ship. Rad Thing’s contribution was only 1 as Batman
was now starting to find his timing.
The Boy Wonder now entered the fray for his first bat at
senior level. He was a mite unlucky to
get a very good ball first up and we had lost 2 in 2. The Blue Rajah hastily searched for batting
gear. We were about half way, with half
our wickets down but I still felt there was enough batting to come, including
The Hulk. The Hulk, as we know, (all
together now) HAS NOT BEEN OUT YET THIS SEASON.
So we knew it would be alright in the end. The batting was so strong that Captain America had put himself down to number 13 in the order.
It was about this time that someone commented that Batman
Akram’s batting was right out of the IPL (where IPL stands for Impington Pub
League). A little unkind perhaps, but he
certainly has an eye for the ball and hits it hard. The canny opening bowler from Barrington had conceded
just 10 runs in 7 overs until The Batman launched in to him for 18 in the next
and he hurriedly withdrew from the attack.
The Blue Rajah joined in the fun, hitting some excellent
shots with his long stride. He hit the
winning runs with an enormous blow for 6 through midwicket. In the end it had become a stroll. From looking decidedly dodgy at 57-5 we
cruised past the target with more than 16 overs to spare. The unbroken 6th wicket partnership
yielded 53 runs in less than 8 overs with The Batman finishing on 56 not out
and The Blue Rajah on 23 not out.
That makes 3 wins on the trot and 3rd place in
the league. A fortnight ago, one of the
two unbeaten teams in the league claimed their pitch was unplayable to avoid the
might of the Coton Avengers. Next week
we play the other team above us. Let’s
hope they hold their nerve and that Freyr has forgiven us.
Man of the Match? Batman Akram for his 56 not out that turned a sticky position into a win. The Hulk is disqualified for the dropped catch, which marred a fine spell of 10-5-13-4. And a big shout out for The Boy Wonder with 5-2-16-2 on his debut and some excellent fielding.
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