Bledlow Ridge 1s v Horspath 3s – Away

Saturday 3rd September 2016

Outbreak of only surpassed by late outbreak of Karaoke

A Hat-trick for Dakes

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Horspath 3s 96-2 (27.2 overs) BRCC 1s Did not bat.

Result: Match Abandoned – rain.

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Yes! Dakes arrived early three matches in a row. Three! A hat-trick. No one would have predicted that a few weeks ago, a few months ago, a few seasons ago.

What was predicted, with reference to the weather report, was that we would play for a short time, come off for rain, have an early tea, hang around talking rubbish for longer than necessary and eventually bow to the inevitable and call the game off.

We wouldn’t have predicted that Dakes would perform his own calling-off ceremony at 4.30pm and drive off before the umpires had reached the same conclusion.

This week, promotion from Division 1 has been determined by the League’s decision to overturn Great Brickhill’s forfeit for giving one of their bowlers one too many, in direct contradiction to the sanction imposed against us for the same ‘offence’ in our match versus Abingdon Vale in May. With the League Committee in this mood there was every chance that Dakes’ departure would prompt a points deduction for the Ridge and a warning for failing to keep his players under control, for Captain McTaggart.

Reprimands would be made, results reversed and children confiscated.

Luckily, League Chairman Clive Ricks, a Horspath member who had been at the ground earlier in the afternoon had gone home to see if there were any more emails from the Ridge.

Cricket: BenDog arrived last and complained at the lack of space for him and his ginormous kitbag in the dressing room. Horspath chose to bat. Dakes didn’t really want to bowl as the weather was gloomy, it was going to rain anyway and after all he had to down a steep slope from the top end so that at one point his legs were whirling away faster than his arms.

Horspath opened with Akheam Fox who was foxed by the sight of Captain Birdseye at him. At the other end Hamsah, sporting bright new blue shoes, flashed in and took a when Jason Cardy drove uppishly to cover. Here, BenDog – who was wearing a long-sleeved jumper - made an easy catch look quite difficult and claimed later that it had broken his finger. We concluded that he was simply jealous of the amount of attention that Dakes was getting.

Incidentally, Cardy was by someone who was wearing a cardy.

At this point Oxford veteran Adrian Manger walked out to bat and we all walked off, none more enthusiastically than Dakes who doesn’t often display enthusiasm, except when not playing cricket is involved.

Manger did not take offence because it had also started raining. We hung around for over half an hour smelling Brooksie’s inner ‘keeping gloves and discussing what the smell reminded us of before going out again. Luckily Scott wasn’t playing and so could not add his opinion.

Some nervous jokes were shared with the umpires about the maximum number of overs permitted for each bowler now that the first had been reduced to 48 overs and we reflected that at least in Division 5 the umpires and captains know the Playing Rules.

We got a total of 27.2 overs in and took one more wicket. The Ridge’s wicket has had inconsistent bounce at times this year but nothing compared to the wicket at Horspath. Worse, the areas behind the stumps were like a series of bomb craters and one short ball from Hamsah bounced a second time in front of Brooksie and took off so sharply that it struck Lloydy (at slip) in the face with a sickening thwack. We all hurried to check the ball to see if any permanent damage had been caused, but the ball was lucky: none of Lloydy’s nose was in it.

Lloydy was lucky too, the blow to the head being the only place where it couldn’t do much damage. He did leave the field for one over however to have a little private weep in the dressing room, before returning to great applause.

Talking of applause, our this year has not generally been good enough to generate a lot of it but there was plenty of applause on this day. Most of it for Taggart.

This was because, soon after our return to the pitch Taggart adjudged one shot so good that, at the last minute, he felt it would be inappropriate to stop it going to the . He upped his game for what remained of the rest of the match however and stopped every ball that rolled towards him and on each case the rest of his team loudly expressed its appreciation.

Brooksie was by now wearing a helmet to keep wicket standing back and is looking forward to turning out for the club’s Under 10s next season

One thing we had to be wary of was a low in the event we did get a full innings in and were deducted points. As a consequence we developed a method of transferring the ball from Brooksie to the bowler in as few moves as possible. Brooksie, to RolfeDog, to whoever was at Cover, and then to the bowler. Occasionally a return throw went slightly astray, or was dropped but generally it went very well and the ball was back in the bowler’s hand well before he reached the end of his run up.

On one such occasion Dakes then ran in to bowl at Manger who edged one to RolfeDog at slip in the belief this was a pretty safe shot only to find that RolfeDog had remembered how to catch for the first time in weeks.

Captain McTaggart called the team together, barely mentioned RolfeDog’s extraordinary achievement, and gave the entire team a bollocking for its regular, dilatory failure to get the ball to the bowler quickly, describing it as “painful”.

We reflected on this and concluded that McTaggart must have been looking the other way or perhaps practising the long barrier position on over 100 occasions.

Matt Brightwell replaced Hamsah and up to his final over before the rain came again, proved almost unplayable. It was remarkable that during 27 overs on a wicket of variable bounce, the ball only found the edge once.

If we can get Matt fully fit to bowl, and perhaps find a spinner from somewhere, we should have a formidable bowling attack next season, if only we can learn to get the ball back to the bowlers quickly enough.

We hung around talking more rubbish including references to the fact that Dakes has played all season in a black Guinness cap, BenDog to comparing him to some third rate rapper.

I am conscious that a few attention-seeking players have rather stolen the limelight in this report so here are the three others.

Ian Kerrigan made his 1st X1 debut and commented on the mature level of conversation; Hairbear got a rollocking from Brooksie and Dakes for telling the umpires that a ball had gone for a six not a four even though it had gone for a six and not a four.

Schniff was sartorial, wearing a smart cricket sweater with the badge of his sponsor Grey-Nicholls so that we could not see his smart new Ridge shirt beneath. New in the sense of being his first such acquisition in 30 years.

We took tea early. Brooksie announced he would be leaving home very early Tuesday morning to go on holiday. “Where are you going?” asked Rolfey, “Gatwick” replied Brooksie. This seemed rather an uninspiring holiday destination and we felt he could do better than this for Roz especially if he wanted to encourage her to get her teas up to the standard that RolfeDog provided last week.

The Horspath tea was excellent and I had lots of jam scones while Dakes had loads of everything else. Conversation turned to TombsDog as it always does.

We recalled that his last appearance for the club was as a supporter at the same ground last year, before declining McTaggart’s invitation to represent the club in Division 7 for the 2nd X1 the following week. So now, we eagerly awaited news of Bledlow Village 2nd X1’s result which would determine whether they would be relegated to Division 7 next year.

Later in the evening, bad news of Bledlow 2s came through and we started to make plans for TombsDogs immediate return to the Ridge with grovelling apology. Assuming of course that he would be happy to represent our 2s in Division 8.

News also came through of a fine performance by our 2s in bowling out Cumnor 3s for little over 100 but that sadly the rain had arrived there too and prevented Mohsin making another hundred. It transpired that elsewhere, Great and Little Tew 3s lost with only 2 points meaning that our 2nd X1 ended a highly creditable fifth in Division 8.

We returned to our club where standards of sobriety and behaviour slowly deteriorated to the background of ShakEy’s disco and Kamikaze singing. That should be Karaoke apparently but Kamakaze seems more appropriate.

When it reached the stage that Mike Gillett started singing and ShakEy started delivering slobbery kisses (two unrelated events incidentally) I felt it was time to go home and tell my good wife what a wonderful day I had spent at cricket.