Stonor Becalmed

29.5.05
WCC 172 (41 overs)
Stonor 137-9 (38 overs)
Match drawn

The Weekenders managed to pull off a feat possibly unprecedented in Sunday cricket - the first innings choke. Cruising along at 131-2 the last eight wickets fell for just 41. Force of habit probably, and tradition was also upheld in the field where, once again, we failed to take ten wickets.

On a slow pitch with very slow bowlers in operation WCC batters struggled for timing, with the exception of Vickery who played beautifully off the back foot and then got an unlucky shooter. Hogben and Harvey gutsed it out magnificently and both deserved their fifties. The remaining eight batsmen scored 14 between them.

Playing in his fiftieth season was Stonor’s senior bowler Fisher who, due to a communication error, appeared in the scorebook as Patricia. His length induced the usual suicidal urges and he ended up with the prize scalps of Franks, Lyons and Smee. White of hair and beard, Fisher looked more like captain Birdseye than the real thing, Martyn Read, who turned up to watch.

Martyn arrived in a dashing convertible and cargo pants, looking more like Midshipman Birdseye than the grizzled fisher fellow who winks invitingly at us from the country’s supermarket freezer chests. It was great to see him but we could do with him spending a bit less time in a sailor’s outfit with his arm round mixed-race children and a bit more time on the park.

The Stonor response was exceptionally cautious (Douglas’s first 12 overs went for just five runs) skipper Fennell taking an hour and a quarter to score 6. It wasn’t until Mayo and Brown got together that the evidence of a chase began to emerge. Brown struck some wonderful blows with his 3lb 4oz bat and Mayo played some very classy strokes before being quite beautifully bowled by WCC’s exciting new find McBride. A little boy was run out by Franks while standing out of his ground.

Skipper Lyons and Johnstone combined to boost Stonor’s run rate with a three-over spell costing 41 runs. Hogben’s ‘Good spell, Skip’ provoked a grade 1 sense of humour loss (with hurled ball) that ranks along side such memorable hissy fits as Black’s 1985 response to being given out by Chiari at Lavenham, Douglas’s 2002 reaction to the d’Inverno drop at Kensington, Johnstone’s run-out at Ampney and any game that Van Der Borgh has played in. The incident rolled back the years to the mid-eighties when Jules resigned two months into his tenure, unable to cope with the Weekenders surpassing incompetence.

But Stonor’s top order had left the others with too much to do, although like the good hosts they are they continued to chase until number 11 Fisher arrived to block out the final over and a bit. The last ball lbw appeal was turned down amid salty hilarity and we all went to the pub to sing sea shanties and sodomise each other.

WCC 172-9
Hogben 56, Maloney 0, Vickery 22, M Harvey 57, McBride 0, Johnstone 0, Smee 6, Lyons 2, Franks 0, Douglas 5*, Vettikat 1*.

STONOR 137-9
Douglas 15-9-20-2; Franks 11-3-38-3, Vettikat 5-1-23-1, McBride 4-0-15-1, Johnstone 1-0-13-0, Lyons 2-0-28-0
Catch: Franks 1
Run Out: Franks 1