Actors Anonymous 118-5
WCC 91 all out
(35 over match)
Riverside Drive, Ham.
You wouldn’t drive a
Formula One Ferrari in rush hour traffic. And just like any piece of precision
engineering the Weekenders machine requires the right conditions to function
effectively. Give us a first-class ground
and we can perform like thoroughbreds.
Make us play on a council rec’ and we bat like mongrels.
Dogs, or evidence of their
recent visits, were also in ripe abundance around the outfield of this south
London ground which boasts neither pavilion, changing rooms, showers, kettle,
sightscreen, table nor chair. None of
this was the fault of our friendly hosts who somehow managed to lay on a top
tea and who thoroughly deserved their win.
As the ‘Enders jostled for
space to change behind Simon Rouse’s mini, passers by were able to catch
glimpses of our as yet unbronzed early-summer bodies and it would have been
obvious even to the gardeners in the distant allotments that the boys had
wintered well. Several of the squad had also lunched well to the extent that
the groundsman got so fed up with us peeing in the bushes that he threatened us
with prosecution. It was lucky the Club Captain wasn’t around.
Stand-in skipper Simmonds
had what appeared on paper to be a strong Weekenders side. But you can’t do the
job if you haven’t got the right tools.
The new $25 ‘Platypus’ ball, bought by Mike Harvey on a winter trip home
to Australia, was an unqualified disaster. It didn’t swing at all until the
opposition bowlers got hold of it later on and it caused PJ to bowl an eleven
ball over which would obviously never have happened with a Reader’s or a
Duke’s. The Platypus also proved to be very difficult indeed to catch and, in
all, this shoddy piece of Australian workmanship resulted in 14 wides being
credited to the opposition score.
When we batted it was
almost impossible to get the Platypus off the square and when we did manage to
unleash our resplendant strokeplay the Platypus unaccountably went straight up
in the air resulting in nine of us being caught out. Only Vickery came close to mastering its wiles but in the end the
Platypus located his top edge with the certainty of Dr Hargroves spotting an
individual fruit pie.
The home side suffered
their share of problems with extras, and frustration crept in when Simon Rouse
from TV’s The Bill was bowling. Umpire Hogben (tough on wides, tough on the
causes of wides) stretched out his arms six times to the evident displeasure of
Sun Hill’s bluff, gruff but fair DCI.
On a pitch that managed to
be both slow and spiteful the Weekenders were not only outshone in the footwear stakes – a pair of Edwardian
co-respondent brogues worn by the hosts’ number 4 were particularly impressive
– we also failed to show the application of A Anon’s Chris Campbell whose
patient 52 was the difference between the two sides.
But the Weekenders have
always looked to the future, be it the next game, cigarette, drink, bag of
crisps or lift, and there has seldom been such a buzz of excitement as there
currently is about Sunday’s three debutants. Mick Gallagher and Marc Thorley
are cricketers of great promise and their own transport. But the talk among the cognoscenti was of
Jenny Curson‘s breathtaking performance with the scorebook. It has so often been the club’s achilles
heel in the past – a match report last year read ‘Won by some runs’ – but if we
play our cards right Cursony could well be recording our failures with a degree
of accuracy hitherto unknown, as the following stats reveal…
STATS:
Actors Anonymous 118-5 off
35 overs.
Chris Campbell 52 (123
minutes, 109 balls)
Bowling: Douglas
7-2-19-2, P. Harvey 5-0-20-0, Vettickat 7-0-24-1, R. d’Inverno 7-1-21-2, M. Gallagher 6-1-13-0, M. Thorley 3-0-12-0.
Extras: 14 wides, 8 byes,
1 leg bye.
Catches: Vettickat 1, Hogben 1.
WCC 91 all out off 31.5 overs.
Hogben 5 (22 mins. 20
balls), M. Harvey 2 (32 mins. 29 balls), Chiari 7 (33 mins. 38 balls), Vickery
33 (40 mins. 29 balls), Gallagher 9 (27 mins. 25 balls), P. Harvey 2 (14 mins.
15 balls), Thorley 6 (25 mins. 14 balls), Douglas 7 (24 mins. 21 balls),
Vettickat 3 (7 mins 6 balls), Simmonds (capt. & wkt. kpr.) 1 (6 mins. 5
balls), R. d’Inverno 0 not out (2 mins. 0 balls)
Bowling: Humpries
5.5-3-4-4
Debuts: Mick Gallagher,
Marc Thorley and Jenny Curson (scorer)
*
* *
To end this match report,
an old but sharply topical limerick:
There once was an
Uppingham Rover,
Who bowled fourteen
wides in an over,
Which had never been
done,
By an arch-deacon’s
son,
On a Tuesday in August
at Dover.
CD