Scorecard
Table
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." So wrote Thoreau in 1854 of his stay in the Massachusetts countryside, as he embraced the simplest of existences in a rude hut with no material encumbrances.
It was in the same spirit that the philosophers of Coton 1st XI ventured forth to a Walden of a more saffron hue, determined to eke out a life in the most reduced circumstances - most notably having only 10 players, two of them first-team debutants. As Thoreau is now rightly hailed as one of the great thinkers of the nineteenth century, so, surely, will Coton be hailed in generations to come for this brave and noble experiment.
I say 10 players. However, full credit to arch-reductionist Safwan "Descartes" Akram, the vital force who brought us "I hit therefore I am", who helped us to explore even more reduced circumstances by missing the A505 exit off the M11 and ending up in Bishops Stortford, ensuring that the first 8 overs in the field were accomplished with only 9 men (and boys).
Those initial 8 overs produced one success, a catch behind by free-thinking Alastair "John Locke" Breward off Dan "Spinoza" Garson, and a gentle flow of runs through the thinly guarded outfield. Alastair's liberal tendencies were all-too-evident as he freely allowed an edge off Matthew "Bertrand Russell" Chandler to tumble to the waiting earth. Matt, who was engaged in a fascinating project to calculate the dimensions of a cricket pitch by bowling balls of every mathematically possible length onto it, was similarly denied by debutant tree surgeon Dominic "Heidegger" Hughes running in from point. How crucial would those two misses be?
The tide was turned by the tall and elegant Richard "Rousseau" Allison, who introduced the radical philosophy of bowling straight at the stumps, founding a new school which took as its motto, "you miss, I hit". Three Waldenites obligingly did miss, and a fourth equally obligingly spooned a catch to recent arrival Safwan at mid off, to give Richard another jug-avoidingly irritating 4-wicket haul. Not to be too much outdone, the not so tall, nor so elegant David "Hume" Scotcher, operating from the other end, winkled out one batsman with a straight'un and had another snaffled (diving, one-handed, so it is claimed) at short midwicket by Gabriel "Diogenes" Fox, to leave the opposition reeling at a hundred and a little for eight. Youthful Cameron "Joe Root" Black, too young to be a philosopher but having all the hallmarks of a star of the future, then entered the attack and promptly hit the top of off stump with a jaffa. The last pair, however, took a highly measured and responsible approach and mounted an Agar-and-Hughes-like rearguard action to stick another 20-odd onto the total, ending at 132-9 after the 40 overs. How crucial would those extra runs be?
Not for the first time this season, Mr Extras contributed handsomely, with the second-to-top score of 26, 18 of them being wides. How crucial would those wides be?
The Walden bowling was led by a young man named Lehman, who was rather more successful than his namesake Darren, the (not for much longer) Aussie head coach. He and his opening partner bowled "line-an-lenth" to give Fox and Breward precious little to hit. While the ultra-ascetic Dr Fox is never more comfortable than with no runs on the board after 6 overs, this was unfamiliar territory for his more liberal opening partner, who played over a Lehman ball in his haste to get the scoreboard moving. Mr Lehman's next over proved perhaps the turning point of the match, as straight deliveries, with a touch of outswing, rearranged the furniture of Messrs Fox, Hughes and Garson in the space of 5 balls. At 8-4, a previously highly achievable target was suddenly looking daunting. Full credit then to the recently arrived Safwan and his accomplice Matt who steadied the ship and began to turn it around. A change of bowling brought a hail of fours and sixes and the score began to climb rapidly towards 50. Meanwhile, at the other end, Matt did not get out, which was a significant advance over those who went before. Alas, with 56 on the board, Matt went chasing a rather wide ball down the leg side, aborted the stroke but left the bat in the way and presented a catch to a grateful keeper. Cameron kept Safwan company for another 15 runs, before playing over a straight one, while Richard hung about long enough to see another 13 battered onto the score, as Safwan passed his half-century. At 84-7, with Safwan still firing, it was still anyone's game. Cue a masterful innings from the immovable Dave Scotcher, who breathed life into Thomas Aquinas's ancient omnipotence paradox ("can God create a lump so heavy that He cannot move it?"). With an almost arrogant dismissiveness, he skilfully left anything remotely outside off stump (including one so close to off stump that it threatened to dislodge the bail through air turbulence), solidly blocked anything on the stumps and casually swatted away anything on the leg side for either one or four. As 10, 20, 25 runs alternately flew and crept onto the score, the Walden fielders grew increasingly tetchy. "That's not batting", they chuntered, at the sight of a large bear-like creature watching the ball fly once more unchallenged past the off stump. Then disaster. Safwan, whose philosophy of running usually epitomises the spartan ethos of the team (ie do it as little as possible), elected to take on a second run to the young man whose accurate right arm had already despatched most of the top order during his first bowling spell. 111-8 and still 22 needed. The last man in, the baby of the team, Patrick "the Kid" Butterfield, in his first senior match (other than a fielding stint a few weeks back) - could he and Scotch see it through? Could Coton match the Waldenites stubborn last-wicket resistance? Could the partial team of philosophers, embracing the wilderness in all its austere beauty, carry the day?
No.
Patrick batted quite well for two balls but was out on the third and the day was lost. How crucial were those dropped catches, wides, last wicket Walden runs, careless strokes to straight deliveries, suicidal second runs? Could we, with a full eleven throughout, have saved ten or fifteen runs in the field and scored ten or fifteen more ourselves? As robust epistemologists, we eschew answering such hypothetical questions. We are interested only in the essential facts of life not the unanswerable what-ifs of hedonistic milquetoasts.
And so we are deposed from top spot and sent crashing to mid-table (6th). But with about 0.5 points between 6th and 2nd, the path to the top is not yet closed to us. Next week we entertain 5th placed Shelford and hope, after appropriate reflection, to field a less numerically challenged eleven.
The (Sour) Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck
League Table
Scorecard
Scorecard
It was probably the hottest day of the year so far as Coton
took on Elmdon at The Recreation Ground last Saturday. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky as we
took the field. Dan took up the reigns
as captain again, obviously not too impressed with the useless tosser that had
been standing in the previous week. As
has been stated too often, with the one ball per game rule for this competition
winning the toss is important as teams will invariably bowl first. Indeed Safwan will give you his latest
theories on how the rule should be changed if you have a couple of hours to
spare. On a dry wicket Matt and Dan opened the bowling. The wicket was later to receive a “bad”
rating by the opposition skipper.
Probably just sour grapes for the methodical dismantling of the
opposition by a Coton team that is now 2nd in the league. True there was a bit of crumbling on the footholds but it was hardly the dustbowl that drove midwest farmers off their land in the Great Depression.
The first dozen or so overs only yielded little over one run
per over but no wickets. Both Dan and
Matt beat the bat repeatedly and when they didn’t it the batsmen showed little
inclination to aggression. The
breakthrough almost came when the ball was clipped through Scotch’s hands at
square leg. As he nursed his sore
fingers, Scotch made a very implausible claim that the drop was deliberate to
keep the slow scoring batsman in. Scotch
and Richard got the call as change bowlers and although the rate picked up a
little it was still very, very slow going.
It was nothing to do with the pitch, just accurate bowling and
conservative batting. Cameron Black –
handed the gloves in the absence of Alastair – was the busiest person on the
field.
Richard finally made the breakthrough, with two wickets in
two balls. The first a plumb LBW removing
the first of the atrophied opening batsmen and the second bowled his
replacement. This seemed to go off the
pads and it was a few seconds before he realised that it had clipped the off
stump and toppled the bail. These were
the last two balls of the over and despite crowding the young batsman with the
first of the next over he easily survived.
Scotch wasn’t making much headway for once – despite the
batsmen being of the right age – and Rob took a turn. Richard took a third wicket and then Rob joined
the fun bowling another. Its always
entertaining to see a batman swing in the direction of midwicket only to have
off stump pegged back. One of the young
Elmdon team had decided that this was a baseball game. With three successive balls from Rob there
were huge swings in the direction of cow corner. On each delivery the ball nestled into
Cameron’s waiting hands. A cry of “strike
three, you’re out” from the frustrated bowler held now sway with the umpire who
even now was chewing on the aforementioned sour grapes.
Richard then grabbed a fourth wicket, but was unable to
complete the 5-for with the last two balls of his spell. A case of jug avoidance, I think!
Dan decided enough of the good batsmen were out to have
another go and immediately struck with the one delivery that had a noticeably odd
bounce and grabbed a wicket. There were
also wickets for the returning Matt and finally for Scotch. The innings ended as Scotch hit wickets direct
with a throw from fine leg removing the Elmdon #10. They batted one short and ended up on 94 all
out.
After a fine tea, courtesy of Richard, that contained not
one grape sour or otherwise, we batted.
Adam opened with Gabriel and we were making good progress
until Adam slapped a delivery that was a marginal full toss no-ball to
point. Gabriel had looked determined to
carry his bat for a nought not out but also produced a couple of excellent
boundaries before missing a straight one.
A feature of the innings was that Elmdon had already
switched their keepers by the sixth over and were to swap again before the
end. Probably all the bad bounces on the
bad wicket were causing problems: nothing to do with ability of course.
Bobby Elmes was promoted to number three after his fine
knock last week and with Dan coming in at four runs accumulated quickly despite
the former’s nimble footwork turning wides into dot balls. Dan smacked some lusty pulls counterpointed
with drives. Bobby produced his repertoire
of glances and cuts. It was only a
matter of how quickly we would pass the target not whether we would very
quickly. It was something of a surprise
when Dan succumbed to an innocuous straight delivery (he couldn’t even blame
the pitch this week), shortly afterwards followed by Bobby. By this time we were within a dozen or so of
the target and Safwan was making quick work of closing the gap.
Richard came in having suffered ducks in both his previous
knocks and finished the innings off with a cut for 4 through point.
We had taken less than half the allowed overs knocking the
runs off – presumably we hadn’t found the wicket too bad!
A comprehensive win then, built on accurate (and Richard’s
case, a penetrative 4-19) bowling. That
was supported by better fielding than the previous week – the highlight being
Scotch’s run out. The batting then
produced with everyone, including Mr Extras, chipping in.
Next week is a blank week in the league and while we have
our club day we’ll be watching out for results elsewhere. Of the 4 teams above us going into the last
match, 3 were defeated. Only Thriplow –
whose one loss was against us – separate us from the top of the league. 5 games to go: can we do it? Every point will be important.
The Replacement Cricketers
When I called my inside contact to get some insight into
events at Coton Rec last weekend he wasn’t his usual talkative self. Rumours spread of a gagging order imposed by
the captain after Coton lost to Burrough Green by 6 wickets off the penultimate
ball of the match. But eventually I was
able to inveigle out some words, so here we go.
On Friday evening the Deputy Assistant Stand-in Vice Captain
received an email to the effect that there was about 5% chance of the match
going ahead as the rain of the previous days had made access to prepare the
pitch impossible. Not one to be easily
deterred – and with a positive weather forecast – he turned up on Saturday
morning to see what could be done. As it
turned out, the pitch (rated "good" on the match card) was very playable. The game produced a smidge under 400
runs with only 10 wickets which bares testament.
With Dan nursing a bad back and Gabriel nursing a Long
Island Iced Tea, Rob had inherited the Captaincy when, due to his advancing
years, he wasn’t able to dodge fast enough.
He still just as bad as tosser as he ever was and we were asked to bat
first.
Dave Simmons and Alastair opened. Dave scratched around for a few runs but Alastair
was looking back in form, hitting the Burrough Green opener out of the attack
in his first over. After the first boundary the bowler complained
of a sore calf. After a second later in
the over he limped off to find some pain relief. He did come back later, bowled effectively
and took two catches. He was replaces by
another teenage left arm quickie, who Alastair greeted with a couple of
imperious hooks. It was not such a good
picture at the other end. Dave’s
travails were ended when he chipped one to cover off the leading edge and later
in the same over Richard was defeated by a ball that cut away and clipped the
top of off. 22-2 was not what we
wanted.
Safwan, and his newly discovered defensive shot, now joined
Alastair for the first of several productive partnerships. The teenage quick bowlers were tiring and
our two experienced batsman picking them off.
It was somewhat ironic that Safwan now got himself to the first of the
replacements chipping to midwicket. Don’t
listen to the voices in your head, Safwan, attack is definitely the way to go!
Bobby Elmes now joined Alastair. Bobby seems to get bigger each match he plays
and he was soon cutting and glancing the Burrough Green bowlers to
distraction. At first they were giving
Alastair a single to get Bobby on strike but soon realised that he was going to
score runs just as effectively as his partner. The runs piled up until Alastair eventually
succumbed for a career best 85.
Bobby continued to accumulate, now in the company of Matt
Chandler, who scored 18 without ever once finding the middle of the bat. Bobby comfortably outscored him their partnership,
looking ever more comfortable and confident as he progressed.
Cameron – having waited padded up for twenty or so overs –
was unlucky to get a snorter at the start of his innings and it was left to
Paul Bradbury to see out the innings.
His 0 not out was a finely crafted innings despite the comedy attempt to
run either himself or Bobby out. It’s
worth noting that by the time Paul went in to bat we had a crowd of over 10
people watching. This included Helen
Bradbury and Oli Bradbury: our exhortations to persuade one or other of them to
take the field while we locked Paul in the officials room were passed over as
jokes: they weren’t.
Bobby finished on 45 not out and it can’t be long before he
is required to buy his first jug of beer so note to the senior Elmeses: please make sure he brings £20 to the next
match.
We were always going to be a bit light on the bowling front
(not literally, given that Rob and Dave bowled, but in terms of numbers). Matt
and Rob opened, while Safwan complained about the inequities of only using one
ball per game and invented ever more complicated schemes to allow us a 2nd
new ball.
The opening bowling was steady but we didn’t look too much
like taking a wicket despite pegging the required run rate back up to 5½ per
over. Scotch replaced Rob and Richard
took over from Matt. Still we couldn’t
get out the opening batsmen. The
fielding got sloppier. Twice in the
course of one Scotcher over chances went to Matt on the cow corner
boundary. The second was a difficult
running chance where Matt, in an effort to stop himself carrying the ball over
the line, only succeeded in parrying the ball for 6. The other was less difficult but also yielded
4.
We needed a breakthrough and Rob called first on Safwan and
then on Cameron to bowl. We had one blatantly obvious stumping turned
down of Richard’s bowling. Yes, the bat
was in the crease but shouldn’t the batsman actually be holding it at the
time? Anyway, the same batsman then
advanced down the track to Safwan and missed.
The ball appeared to lodge in Alastair’s armpit, precipitating a
convention of the wicket keeper’s union (the Burrough Green batsman was their
keeper). Alastair seemed to take an age
in getting the ball to the stumps as if to allow his fellow keeper a chance to
get back. Meanwhile the batsman/keeper
was taking equally long to get back as if to say, “go one mate, have a stumping
on me”. Rob checked his watch: if this
went on much longer maybe we would have to abandon the game for bad light. Eventually the reverie was broken, as was the
opening partnership, by now worth 154 runs.
We were into the tail!
In successive overs Cameron, showing no nerves and bowling
straight, removed three opponents and we got to the last over with Burrough
Green needing 6 to win. I should mention
the fine diving catch by the Scotch for the third of these. The ball was entrusted to Safwan who had been
keeping the runs in check.
The first 3 balls were tight and only yielded 2 runs. 4 needed off 3. The 4th ball was hit hard but close
to Rob at mid on. As the aging bones
creaked - almost drowning out the shouts from Alastair (“keeper’s end”) and
Safwan (“bowler’s end”) - a player who should be experienced enough to know
better let the ball squirm through for 2 runs.
The next ball was almost an action replay but this time it was Dave
Simmons that allowed the ball to escape, this time for 3.
The Burrough Green opener was left stranded on 99 Not Out,
having been out for 96 the previous week.
As he also took 3-26 in our innings he was definitely the man of the
match. Cameron came out with credit for
holding his nerve and bowling well to take 3-24 as the more experienced
colleagues failed to take a wicket. Rob only
conceded 15 runs in a tight spell at the start and perhaps missed a trick by
not bringing himself back on. Who would
be a captain? Apparently the answer is the other 10 members of the team.
We lost, but it was a well played game against friendly
opposition. One of the drawbacks of the
league format this year is that we don’t get a return game and a chance to
renew acquaintances at what is a very picturesque village ground. The last two unbeaten teams lost so it’s very
tight at the top with just 2 points difference between 1st and 5th
(us). See you next Saturday!
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