The following report was produced in the aftermath of Killamarsh versus Wollaton on May 26, 2007. Shortly after appearing on the Wollaton website, the club received contact from the Nottingham Premier League Chairman requesting it be taken down. Apparently, it had offended our friends from South Yorkshire. Anyway, it has now been officially declassified. Phew. But can you guess what they found so upsetting...?
* * *
PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING:
Despite the best intentions of the author to keep
things brief, it proved difficult in the face of the day’s events. He
apologises about this and recommends that reluctant readers, the impatient, and
the ‘time poor’ amongst you stick to the white bits and skip the sections in green...
[In which case, the above would read as follows...]
PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING:
[In which case, the above would read as follows...]
PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING:
Despite the best intentions of the author to
keep things brief, it proved difficult in the face of the day’s events. He
apologises about this and recommends that reluctant readers, the impatient, and
the ‘time poor’ amongst you stick to the white bits and skip the sections in green...
(although, if you really were ‘time poor’, you’d probably have skipped the Public Health Warning anyway, perhaps been attracted by the lovely golden yellow below, in which case you’re also probably not reading this either, you scatterbrained twat…)
(although, if you really were ‘time poor’, you’d probably have skipped the Public Health Warning anyway, perhaps been attracted by the lovely golden yellow below, in which case you’re also probably not reading this either, you scatterbrained twat…)
WOLLATON 159/9 (50 overs)
Elstone 35, P McMahon 35
Elstone 35, P McMahon 35
KILLAMARSH 160/7 (48 overs)
P McMahon 4/42, Heath 3/40
P McMahon 4/42, Heath 3/40
Were memory not such a fickle thing, I’d probably tell you that Saturday’s trip to Killamarsh was The Worst Day of My Cricketing Life. But, as has been said elsewhere, memory is a fickle thing, so such a claim would be either fib or exaggeration, both of which are best avoided. For instance, I was going to say ‘Worst Day Of My Cricket Career’ but then I realized that this was loose terminology, licentious, principally because I have never played first-class cricket and even implying that I had played first-class cricket (by casually using ‘career’) when I hadn’t played first-class cricket would be as deceitful as explicitly stating that I had played first-class cricket when I hadn’t played first-class cricket. I think it’s important to recognize this, clear it up from the outset. Anyway, if not The Worst Day Of My Cricketing Life, it was certainly up there. A definite contender.
If you’re reading this blue
section, I suppose it’s because you want to know why it was such a bad day. Right
you are. Well, despite U-11-sized boundaries on three sides and pokey dressing
rooms, it was far from being the worst ground I’ve ever played on. Not in the
top 20, in fact. Neither was it the worst weather I’ve ever played in, although
it was bitterly cold at times and drizzling for long periods. Nor were they the
worst teas I’ve ever eaten; however, they were so bland that had we been
presented instead with nothing but a huge bowl of iceberg lettuce to munch
through, it wouldn’t have suffered much by comparison. I can’t even claim that
it was the worst pitch I’ve played on (there were a few snake pits about in the
demanding Nottingham University Interdepartmental League), but just about the
only thing that can be said in its favour is that it wasn’t particularly
dangerous. The umpiring? Well, it certainly wasn’t the worst I’ve ever
encountered, despite it appearing that one of them had completely forgotten the
leg-side wide ruling during our innings, only to be tactfully reminded of it at
tea by his junior partner (Jose Mourinho would probably claim the official had
been ‘spoken to’ during the interval, but I think that would be far-fetched),
before proceeding to overcompensate in the second innings, to the extent that
it no longer mattered whether or not the ball had hit the pads in his
adjudication of the wide ball. Finally, this defeat wasn’t the most galling or
painful of my car- (oops, nearly said ‘career’ there) …of my cricketing life,
probably because there wasn’t as much at stake as on other occasions; that
said, it didn’t feel great, as defeats rarely do. Anyway, the combination of
all the above can be said to have contributed to a
low-ranker of a day. A bleak’un.
I
should have sensed that it was going to be a bad day more or less as soon as I
woke up, around the time that the teabag burst in my morning cuppa. Even more
so when, having gone ahead and drank the foul brew anyway, the leaves remaining
at the bottom of the mug had spelt out: ‘Don’t go to Killamarsh this
afternoon!’ Was this a cryptic message of some sort? Not being the superstitious
type, I ignored what the tealeaves may or may not have been trying to say.
However, on the journey up, any conviction about this being a day like any
other ought to have been removed when the normally eloquent Vince described
Notts’ innings-and-whatever defeat of Essex as a – …well, let’s just say it
rhymes with “nut cooking” and means sodomy. I thought at the time: has Vince
been possessed? Perhaps it was the McMahon clan, drugged by the central heating
or something – after all, I later saw Gerry thumbing through a copy of Zoo
magazine. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark. Anyway, by the time the
first ball of the match had been bowled, I realized absolutely beyond all doubt
that it was going to be a pretty ordinary day, as
days go, all things considered. Far from my cricketing zenith.
I had been
asked to open the batting. As you probably know, a NPL match, if it goes the
distance, is 600 balls in length. Suppose, then, that you are a reluctant
fielder, non-bowling, who is asked to open the batting, and suppose that, first
ball of the match – or, to put it another way, six or seven seconds after the
umpire has called “play” – you receive a briskish ball that pitches on an
‘in-between’ length and hits middle (or was it off?) stump, just about six to
eight inches high, then it’s fair to say you’re staring down the barrel at a
stinker of a day. It did not augur well. I think it was the first time I’d been
dismissed first ball of the game, but memory is a fickle thing. The only thing
that can salvage such a day is team victory. And you already know we lost…
Now, if you’re
not thinking ‘I get the picture with the whole bad day thing, move on’, then
you’re probably thinking: ‘that’s the second time in six games that Ed
has been responsible for your wicket’. And you’d be bang on, of course. Still,
the guilt he might have been feeling for not, as senior opener, having taken
strike (especially as he later confessed to having “a feeling that you were
going to get out”) would soon be extinguished by a more powerful emotion –
anger – just two overs later, when he found himself victim of an act of blatant
skulduggery, later described by the official that gave the decision as “the
most disgraceful incident he had seen in nine years’ of umpiring”.
This
is what happened: their Sri Lankan overseas bowled a short ball that stopped on
the wicket, forcing Duncan’s
attempted cut to become a block-pull that rolled out to wide mid-on. Ed thought
there was a single and shimmied down the track, waiting for a response, but
Dunc was unsure of where the ball was, so sent Ed back. The DoC touched his bat
back into the crease at the non-striker’s end, then almost immediately went
down to examine any damage done to the pitch (without having ascertained that
the ball was dead, true, but unquestionably not trying to take a run), only for
Killamarsh’s captain – yes, captain – to throw down the stumps, with Ed
pretty much oblivious. The umpire raised his finger and the home team went
doolally. Ed paused to query the decision (the umpire later admitted, somewhat
vaguely, that had it not have been the captain he might have been able to do
something) but, strictly speaking, he had to be given out, at which point one
of their largely unrepentant team sent him off with a sarcastic “bye bye”. It was at about this point that we
started to simmer. (For anyone who’s seen The Big
Lebowski, I felt like Walter Sobchak at the bowling alley, when his
opponent, Smokey, overstepped the line but still told Dude to mark an 8 rather
than a zero. In a league game!! Am I the only one around here who gives a sh*t
about the rules?! Smokey, you mark that frame an 8 and you’re entering a world
of pain…)
The rest of
our innings was a stop-start affair. Keels looked in good touch until
committing to an Antipodean on-the-up square drive to a ball that jagged back
sharply (the first from that bowler that did so), to be bowled for 22. Duncan
(28) and Vince (35) then battled hard to consolidate – taking the score to a
reasonably healthy 93/3 in the thirtieth over – but both fell when primed to
kick on, not that you were ever ‘in’ on this pitch. When we came off for rain,
and an early tea, after 41 overs, the total was around 115/6. Upon resumption,
the two youngest members of the team put together the innings’ brightest
partnership.
 |
| Ah, wook at wickle Scotty playing for that England, 'n' that |
Coming out to
bat on a very poor pitch, with no first XI runs behind him for his new club,
against some wily, negative ‘spin’ bowling, Scott Elstone showed what a classy
player he is, constructing a calm, orthodox 35 that
contained several attractive shots on both sides of the wicket, the pick of
which was probably an Azharuddin-esque back foot clip between square leg and mid-wicket for four. In fact, so complete was the display
of batsmanship that his captain’s effusive praise was soon running out of body
parts to commend: “good hands”, “lovely wrists”, “excellent feet Scotty
Elstone”, “fantastic elbows, mate”, “top drawer earlobe-work Scotty”. Scott
was well supported by Tim Young – or Young Tim; or
even, if you prefer, Young Tim Young [Tim, should your career path lead you to star in Hong Kong kung-fu films, this would
be the screen name I’d suggest] – who looked assured and stylish on
debut, completely at home on a first XI field, making
a neat and valuable 13. A few late wickets in the slog prevented us from
picking up the second batting point, as we finished on 159/9 from our allotted
overs. For the Killer Martians, Dave Adams exploited the conditions well and
picked up six wickets with what JC would later describe as “left-arm darts”. We
thought this score could be competitive if we could exert a strong squeeze and
push the run-rate steadily up, allowing pressure to lead to mistakes – on this
wicket, in the absence of heavy artillery in the seam bowling department, it
had to be our strategy. I felt that a couple of early strikes would be
necessary, perhaps decisive, against a team that had relied on two or three
batters for their runs. After a team-talk containing the phrase “modus
operandi”, we took to the field hoping for early inroads.
As it
happened, the Killamarsh openers added 58 invaluable runs. Burdett (37), the
aggressor-in-chief, took advantage of most of the loose balls on offer and kept
them in the driving seat, whilst Burgess, looking correct and solid, laboured
to 16, Vince all over him like the proverbial rash. Luckily for us, Burdett,
seemingly well set, gave his wicket away, backing away (the ball after sweeping
a four) to try and hit the offie over extra cover, only spooning a catch to mid
off. This over-ambitious shot was our avenue back into the game. Shortly
afterwards, with a steady drizzle having returned, Burgess’ vigil came to an
end when your correspondent, more than a little frustrated by how the game was
going, asked our ‘keeper, pretty loudly and perhaps a little boorishly, if he
knew where the batsman’s next run was coming from. Next ball, he drove Vince
uppishly to extra cover (I’d like to think the two events were related, but I
couldn’t prove it in court), exactly where he had cunningly stationed
goalkeeper of renown, Duncan Heath, who held an excellent catch. Perhaps “next
week”, suggested Colin, confusing the meaning of the words “where” and “when”.
If we could wangle another couple of wickets in the four overs before drinks
then, as betting-obsessed snooker commentator Willie Thorne would say, we’d
probably go slight favourites here…
This optimism,
however, was not long lasting. It enjoyed rude health for about 5 or 10
minutes, or whatever time it took before the umpire was turning down an
absolutely stone dead LBW (the batsman’s bat was around shoulder height when
the ball struck his pads en route to the middle stump). By his reasoning, the umpire agreed with us about the
destination of the ball; unfortunately, he also thought the batsman was playing
a shot. Playing a shot!!! This ‘shot’ must therefore rank as the most massively
ill-conceived attempt at second-guessing that an off-spinner was, without
showing any prior inclination, about to bowl you a fast, steeply rising ball
just outside off stump that you, from off the front foot, would cunningly try
to steer over the slips for four. Madness! Anyway, the now-shrinking
optimism took another severe dent soon after, when Adams
smeared 14 runs from the last over before drinks, swinging the momentum again
decisively in their favour: 70 required from 25 overs with 8 in the shed.
By the way, when Adams
came to the crease, first drop, a rather mischievous JC suggested that Scotty
Elstone should keep flighting it up, rather than “bowling darts”, to which the
batsman replied “6-fer”. Instant bite. Unfortunately, Scotty then bowled a low
full-toss that Geoffrey Boycott’s granny would almost certainly have hit for
four, prompting the batsman to say, rather tersely, and with a triumphalism not
really appropriate for the degree of difficulty of the shot, “fetch!” Aye aye… While the ball was being retrieved, Adams said
to JC:
“Played a bit of first-class have you?” to which the affable Kiwi
replied in the negative. “Yeah, well, I have”, he continued, not really
waiting for JC’s answer.
“Oh yeah, who for?”
“Gloucestershire, Derbyshire, Auckland…”
Apparently,
he then proceeded to name players he’d played with. JC was hugely impressed.
Had he have had a pen on him, I’m sure he’d have asked for an autograph right
there and then, in the middle of the game. We thought it’d be interesting to
check out Adams’ first-class stats, see where
the peacock got his strut, so to speak. Imagine, then, the shock it was to
discover that cricinfo.com had no record of a David Adams that had played
first-class cricket in England.
Zip. The WCC research team then turned its attention to the more extensive
database at cricketarchive.com, which did reveal a David Adams who had played
Second XI championship matches for Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset, but not one
who’d played first-class. A search of the domestic NZ averages showed up no
David Adams in the Auckland
ranks, either. A case for Columbo, or perhaps even Banacek?
All
of this leads us to one of three conclusions: either (a) he has played in
first-class games not archived on the aforementioned websites; (b) he doesn’t
understand the definition of ‘first-class’; or (c) he has gone and popped one
out there. A porkie. Largely inconsequential, perhaps, but a porkie all the
same. In fact, you could almost say that he might be laying claim to a career,
and you know my feelings on that. I have asked a friend of mine, a
psychologist, about what might have motivated Adams to do such a thing,
suggesting that it may have been narcissism or vanity, perhaps even some kind
of borderline personality disorder (sources told me he was driving his
brother’s sponsored car, with one wag – not WAG - quipping that he was dropping
it off at Yorkshire CCC after CJ Adams’ u-turn). My friend politely yet firmly
dismissed this conjecture and told me, with typical modesty (and in slightly
formal language, it has to be said), that “since psychoanalysis is a
speculative art, it is impossible to know the precise reasons that led David
Adams, elder brother of well-paid and successful county cricketer Chris Adams,
to claim that he’d played a lot of first-class cricket when he hadn’t,
especially in an information age, where factual statements are so easily
corroborated or disproved with a few clicks of a mouse.” That’s right, I
thought, not like the good old days where you could, with a reasonable amount
of front, bullsh*t your way through. “And why Auckland?” My friend again: “I suppose you
can understand the choice from a geographical point of view, what with it being
as far ‘over there’ as it’s possible to go, but in an information age, in which
we don’t have to liaise with the NZ Cricket Board Office of Statistics in order
to verify these things, surely it’d have been wiser to have chosen Zimbabwe,
where the rigorous archiving of cricketing scorecards is probably not high
amongst many people’s priorities.” Infallible logic.
Anyway,
back with the game. After drinks,
the scoring rate was slowed, slowly, by the combination of Duncan (who bowled
excellently, and without luck, for figures of 15-5-40-3) and Apollo Creed,
Master of Disaster (10-2-28-0). Just 34 runs were conceded in 15 probing overs,
during which Duncan picked up Adams’
wicket and that of the overseas, smartly snaffled by Steve. All the while,
their number 4, having been granted the LBW reprieve, battled hard against some
tight bowling and, to his credit, held things together until being gated by
Vince for 31 crucial runs. So, with four overs to go they needed 20 to win, us
4 wickets, at which point, with my optimism having largely returned (it’s the
hope that kills you!), their number 7, Ludlam, sliced a four over cover,
creamed another over extra, and took 12 runs in all from the over, all but
sealing the game. As the death-knell sounded, Ed’s
frustration boiled over: having appealed for a leg-side catch by Steve, only
for the umpire to signal wide, he groaned, without really thinking it through:
“it hit his pad, man”.
Apparently the
home players were aggrieved that a few of the Wollaton team neglected to shake their
hands whilst leaving the field. As one who didn’t, I felt at the time, and
still do, that it would be an utterly meaningless gesture that somehow
‘pardoned’ their earlier actions, to them at least. Our post-match dressing
room atmosphere was one of disappointment rather than despondency. We all
realize our strengths and limitations as a unit. Keels gave us a quick,
cold-blooded reminder of what we need to do better to win games. Time to
knuckle down and try even harder to do it.
I’m happy to report that by 11 o’clock Ed seemed to have wholly forgotten his earlier misfortunes. Adhering to the old adage – “Win Or Lose, Always Booze” (or for Caythorpe: “Lose Or Win, Down The Gym” …only joking chaps!!) – and going into Blue WKD-mode, the Club Captain was seen throwing some fierce shapes on the dancefloor, letting the ladies at the 40th birthday bash know what he was all about, using a combo of ‘jelly legs’ sway-dance and smouldering glare, digit raised to pursed lips like Thierry Henry celebrating a goal that has surprised even himself. Nnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiice. See, Ed knows it’s only a game of cricket…
 |
| Savill: last laugh |
I’m happy to report that by 11 o’clock Ed seemed to have wholly forgotten his earlier misfortunes. Adhering to the old adage – “Win Or Lose, Always Booze” (or for Caythorpe: “Lose Or Win, Down The Gym” …only joking chaps!!) – and going into Blue WKD-mode, the Club Captain was seen throwing some fierce shapes on the dancefloor, letting the ladies at the 40th birthday bash know what he was all about, using a combo of ‘jelly legs’ sway-dance and smouldering glare, digit raised to pursed lips like Thierry Henry celebrating a goal that has surprised even himself. Nnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiice. See, Ed knows it’s only a game of cricket…
MD
PS – paraphrasing Sesame
Street, this report has been brought to you by the Latha, Shruti and
Estrangelo Edessa fonts. [This is no longer true, due to the constraints of the Google Blogger platform; nonetheless, it was important to keep it in, right?] “But it’s all the same!” I hear you cry. No, it’s
true. You see, after JC’s daring, even radical use of the Garamond font
the other week, I had a quick squizz for something choice, carry the torch. But
it soon became clear that some of these fonts were identical, despite their
different names. I was reminded of Ricky Gervais’ irritation over the number of
different bat species being categorized each year. Gervais suspected that these
bat experts, financially rewarded each time they identify a new species, were
making them up. So, alongside your pipistrelle and vampire bats, you get the
long-eared bat, the slightly shorter long-eared bat, the medium-size-eared bat,
etc., etc. Well, it’s time to point out that some programmers at Microsoft are
doing the same. It’s a scam, I tells ya. A scam.
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