Saturday, April 22
Following another long winter of discontent, I was
delighted to be packing my newly acquired coffin in readiness for what I hoped
would prove to be a highly successful season, both personally and for
Moddershall Cricket Club as a whole. I had spent the majority of the close season
in Valencia, where cricket is as commonplace as bullfighting in Bentilee, so my
preparation had been limited to – and now is a good time to get your violins of
sympathy ready – a fortnight-long tour of Barbados with Nottingham University CC
(yielding 29 runs in 4 innings) and a solitary net-practice at Clayton.
Something told me that neither experience was likely to bear much resemblance
to batting at Buxton in mid-April, when the customary attire consists of an
umbrella, an anorak and a sturdy pair of wellies.
When I arose to see a light yet steady drizzle falling
from sombre looking skies, I realized that the prospect of play was bleak.
Logic tells you that if it is spitting with rain in Stone then it is almost
guaranteed to be monsoon-strength in Buxton, where their rather pleasant
cricket ground is unfortunately positioned just over the back of Bill’s
mother’s.
Having this particular fixture scheduled for the first
Saturday of the season has, to my knowledge, only one advantage: it means that
you can enjoy the rest of the season knowing that you won’t have to wake up
before the milkman just to get to the ground on time. Set against that is the
near-certainty of inclement weather, which means spending two or three hours in
the country’s coldest, most inhospitable pavilion watching Mother Nature
deprive you of 20 points. So, when Addo picked me up at 10.30 am, my early
season optimism had already suffered its first major body-blow.
After calling in at Bourne Sports to buy some
wicket-keeping kit, we collected Harv and embarked on our voyage over the
Staffordshire Moorlands. It’s good to have Dickie Mint back on board again
after what must have been a miserable summer for him last year. Carrying 2 lbs
of steel around in your leg can’t have been a laugh-a- minute; combined with
having to sit through some of our more mediocre performances must have been excruciating. I’m sure Harv will bring many things
to the side this year: dashing strokeplay, flighted left-arm spin, a safe pair
of hands, keenness and vigour, and, most importantly, a plentiful supply of
hairgel.
 |
| Road to nowhere...well, to Buxton |
Whilst cruising over the moors my mind began to wander
off to exactly what my new position of vice-captain would involve. Although I
was flattered by Drew’s proposal at the AGM, it wasn’t something I had given
much consideration. I had hoped that some time after I finish my degree, if the
opportunity arose, I would have a crack at skippering, but for this season I
just wanted to learn some tricks of the trade and store them away with my own
distinct theories and views on the extremely difficult art of captaincy. Our
captain for this season has, like myself, no experience of his new role in
senior cricket; however, it seems that He Who Must Be Obeyed is intent upon
leading by iron-fisted dictatorship: opening batsman, professional, skipper,
slip fielder, chief spin bowler… soon he’ll be making butties, mowing the
wicket and serving the beer! Watch out Doug Eyre, he probably has one eye on
the presidency as well. For what it’s worth, I think Jon will do a decent job
if he doesn’t become timid when it comes to bringing himself on to bowl and he
remains receptive to his player’s ideas.
When we arrived at Buxton it was blowing a gale, the
tarpaulin sheet assigned to cover the wicket was trying to fly, and there was
an old, familiar face sat quietly in the bar: Kevin Colclough, my first 1st XI
captain, back after five seasons with Hem Heath. Initially I thought that this
was excellent news, until I found out that Cokey had quit smoking! With Kev
comes Tina, his wife and
our efficient new scorer, as well as his son, Karl, who has a cricket bat in
his hands almost as often as his father has a pint in his.
Eventually, after about six months gazing at a wet
field, the umpires abandoned the game. Lovejoy, Minty and I stopped off for
some fish and chips in town then headed back past The Winking man for
Moddershall. Harv spent most of the journey wondering why The Winking Man
didn’t wink on the way back.
Back at Barnfields the beers began to flow liberally.
Minty and I decided to hit the green baize and after I strategically lost the
first couple of frames, ‘Hurricane’ Harvey, bolstered by Dutch courage, threw
down the gauntlet and bet me a fiver that he would win a best-of-three frame
challenge. “You didn’t want to do that! You wanted to keep your money safe in your wallet, didn’t
you?” Of course, I gave him a 2-0 thrashing which nicely paid for my round of
drinks. Bad luck old chap, how about darts?
We stepped up to the ochè and once again Harv won the friendly match, this time by 2
legs to 1. I asked him if he fancied a game for money, but my enquiry was met
with a firm “No thanks”. However, Addo managed to persuade Dickie that he was
on a winning streak and so eventually he wilted, agreeing to play one leg,
straight off, for a quid. OK, so the stakes were small; even so, pride was at
stake and the pressure was still on. After we both missed numerous darts at our
respective doubles I sank an arrow into double four. Ker-ching.
Just when I was starting to think that it was my lucky
day, that old adage – what goes around comes around – came back to haunt me.
What happened was that I had to get back to Nottingham
that evening for a university cricket match the following day. I postponed
catching the 7.05 train so I could have another beer, then instead of catching
the 8.05 Addo and I decided to call in at Meir Heath CC to watch a few overs’
cricket. The last train, the 9.05 service, left Blythe Bridge
All in all, a pretty forgettable day.
MATCH ABANDONED RAIN
MODDERSHALL 0 points
BUXTON 0 points
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