Edgworth CC Tavs bt Ambleside CC (117), 30/07/17
It has begun! Death comes from the heavens!
This rain is meant to wash us off the face of the earth. But we are men. We decide if we live or die.
We are men, and men united are invincible!
So bellows Ray Winstone during the ridiculously overblown 2014 film Noah, starring everyone’s favourite gladiator-with-a-beautiful-mind Russell Crowe.
In the movie, Bet365’s Winstone delivers his dialogue with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer whacking a vole, or a Mark Kershaw pull shot smiting a cricket ball. Ray’s is quite a Tavs-esque lesson in acting, in a way: aggressive, unskilled, full of misplaced confidence and wholly lacking in nuance.
But it’s the line “this rain is meant to wash us off the face of the earth” that rang true at 14:00 yesterday afternoon, as the Edgworth Taverners trudged onto the field far from home in monsoon conditions to take the attack to our gracious hosts in Ambleside.
It’s worth stating at the outset that it’ll be very hard to write a match report of what happened. For one thing, Ambleside didn’t have a scorebook and so kept a tally on a bit of paper. No bowling averages then, and no information about the nature of each dismissal. And while we did keep our own score once we wielded the willow, your author was several pints of Smoothflow in at that stage.
So this is going to be a sketch of the day, if we’re honest. And not a particularly accurate one — more Etch A Sketch than Gainsborough.
Hours before, a crack team of Tavs assembled at the cricket club and piled the kit into the boot of a mighty Merc minibus.
Steve +1 sat, wisely, in the front while the ragtag group confined to the belly of the vehicle included Smallwood, Waddi, Doug, Cass and Will. Doug, who later confessed to having only hit his pillow at 1am following a lengthy dinner party the night before (“keys in a bowl do, was it?”), spent the majority of the journey there, a goodly portion of his time in the Lakes and much of the ride home complaining about how early his alarm had gone off. He had a point — an eight o’clock alarm call on a Sunday is quite something.
Still, a pleasant ride up the motorway, with conversation ranging from the time Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards played in the Lancashire League, to whether a Booths could be located in Windermere and where the bag of Starbust had gone. (For older readers, Starburst is what the yoof now call Opal Fruits. See also Snickers and Marathon. And Caitlin and Bruce Jenner.)
Quick Co-Op drop-off, lunch and crates of lager purchased and onto the ground. Which was simply gorgeous. Almost hidden from the road down a narrow lane and nestled in a valley of tree-covered hills and a sheep farms, a plaque revealed Ambleside to have won Britain’s Loveliest Cricket Ground 2005.
Will, who has worked wonders this season with the fixture list, ought now to task himself with arranging Tavs away games at all past winners of this accolade. To get the opportunity to play in this setting was something special indeed.
Lovely, beyond debate. But also bloody early — midday arrival for a 2pm fixture. Waddi bore the brunt of the Tavs’ frustrations at having to sit around. Eventually some padded up and we enjoyed a relaxed net session while dodging the downpours.
It’s also worth saying that those who did get there early got to enjoy remarkable rural scenes involving sheep wrestling. In short, a farmer on a quad, ably assisted by his dog, rounded up his herd in the field beyond the pitch. All except one plucky ewe, who was having none of it.
Ever fans of the underdog, we greatly enjoyed the sight of this one sheep dodging and weaving and evading the farmer’s best efforts, to the chorus of a revving engine, dog barks and sheep cries. Our fuming farmer’s solution? To corner the beast, leap off his bike, grab the poor sheep by the horns and haul it onboard, before sitting on it and riding the bike back to the barn with the startled creature acting as a sort of living, breathing, wooly cushion. As I say, remarkable scenes.
Our James Heriot reverie was broken by the arrival of the other Tavs in dribs and drabs, some of whom had been spending the weekend in the Lakes, plus eventually the opposition. The weather forecast for the day was, to put it mildly, changeable, so we got on with it and play began promptly.
We won the toss and chose to field first, and as we took our positions the heavens opened. No matter; we weren’t playing on the league strip and though our follow-throughs were churning up the wicket a little we were assured all was well.
The rain came and went, as did the Ambleside batsmen. Will had warned the oppo in advance that we were a social side, and their XI was similarly relaxed. Indeed, when their number three came out to the middle and declared he’d never batted in his life, it pretty much summed up what we were up against.
And this is where this report gets a bit hazy, unfortunately. With no written record of their innings to speak of, instead the following is a series of thumbnails and highlights showcasing the best and the worst of the Tavs’ efforts in the field.
Waddi took three, yes three, quickfire catches, each one lobbed up nicely to him at short mid off. Poor shots or superb captaincy and placement? You decide.
Terrific tumbling arse-over-tit effort from Keogh at long on, getting precisely nothing behind the ball as it trundled over the rope behind him. In his defence, he’d had so many G&Ts the night before that for the first hour of play he was essentially a walking bottle of Gordons.
A couple of decent clutches by Smallwood, balls walloped a mile into the murky sky before being claimed running in from the boundary. He also took a caught-and-bowled, holding onto the ball even though a split second before the offending batsman had bellowed “keeper’s!!!” in an effort to distract him. Sportsmanship at its finest.
Drops too, of course, as is the Tavs’ trademark. One a ball powered straight to Bogg at mid off, who saw it late but still got two hands to it. In and out and down onto the ground, to much amusement from the small crowd of onlookers including a distinctly unimpressed Bogg Snr. All those years of catching practise as a child…
And Brian too, a man usually so secure, fumbling the easiest catching chance of the day in the covers to widespread disbelief. As Keogh sledged from the boundary, “I’d have put my mortgage on you catching that, Bri!”
Hats off to some probing bowling spells from Bogg, Cass, Doug, Matt (off an impressively shortened run-up) and Steve, who manfully churned out four overs of his line and length to some effect.
The hosts were restricted to 117 off their 30 overs, testament to some tight bowling and decent fielding, restricting some inexperienced batsmen to few boundaries. Time for a quick turnaround and into our work with the bat.
The order had been selected by lucky dip earlier in the day, but actually the one to 11 felt about right. Out strode Keogh and Mammut, two strapping and industrious players and both in good touch so far this season.
In fact their biggest challenge was dealing with the unpredictable bowling, with a number of wides and multiple-bouncing deliveries making it very hard to find a groove. Not a big issue for Mark, who soon leathered a short one over the near-side boundary for a hearty six. Keogh, who really has batted excellently this season, chipped in with his own boundaries, and the running was nice and clear.
Ambleside rotated their attack but to little effect, and soon both men declared unbeaten on 27 apiece.
It had all been going swimmingly, especially down at long on where it was fast becoming a quagmire. Plenty of time to play oneself in, get a sense of the tricky pitch conditions and unpredictable bowling, while advancing the Tavs’ score along at a healthy rate.
Or you could lunge forward, play something typically cross-batted and get stumped off your first ball. You say tomato, I say… what the hell was that? Matt H out for a first-ball stumped duck.
Brian took his place and as if to emphasis the rashness of his son’s approach settled in for a typically stout innings. He’s enjoyable to watch is Brian; you get a sense that even a tree falling to within a foot of his stumps wouldn’t distract him from the matter at hand. While others had taken the attack to the opposition, the first seven of his runs came in singles.
Waddi tried to copy that approach, and eked four singles before spooning one up for an easy catch in the covers. Kind in a way, to give his wicket away in the exactly same style he’d removed three Ambleside batsmen. Four hours travelling for four runs? Sounds like a typically Tavs return.
Bogg out there now, waving his brand new £150+ bat featuring, or all things, and actual middle. He was soon joined by Smallwood, and for a while the game stagnated as the pair struggled to find their rhythm. Bogg boomed a straight boundary — lovely shot — before Smallwood stole the strike with a sneeky single. Perhaps miffed by this cheek, once Smallwood turned the ball round the corner and straight to short third man Bogg set off sprinting and calling for a quick single. Horrified, Smallwood froze then set off, then stopped, stopping Bogg, before setting off again and being run out by a mile at the non-striker’s end. Pathetic, and entirely his own fault.
The Tavs had pretty much surpassed Ambleside’s score by now, but batted on and into the best weather conditions of the day.
A solid six from Doug, a handy four from Will who then became Ambleside’s second stumping victim of the innings of the day, and then a crowd-pleasing final wicket stand between Steve and Cass. John, who’d participated in Waddi’s woefully underattended and inexplicably underappreciated running clinic at nets in midweek, ran like a dream. Imagine, if you will, a steady two turned into a hard-run three followed by overthrows and in the end a lung-busting five, and what a time it was to be alive.
By this point the game had meandered to a close, some of the host’s fielders now engaged in deep conversation about what they wanted from the bar.
Off the players came to a din of applause from the pavilion, everyone from knackered Tavs to dutiful and admirable WAGs on their feet.
Off came the whites, on went the BBQ and down sank the pints. The end to a wonderful day’s cricket in the Lake District.
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Highlight of the match: Waddi’s hattrick of catches early doors, and Keogh’s batting continuing to go from strength to strength.
Lowlight: Brian’s dropped catch, and Will’s sadly wayward few overs of spin. And Will emptying his bottle of warm Stella over Waddi’s head in the taxi on the way home… or was that actually a highlight?
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Best bowling: Dunno, there were no stats kept. But I remember being impressed with Matt H and Doug’s spells.
Best batting (must retire on 25): Mammut and Mark K, both 27*.
