HWRCC 2xi vs Whitely Village 2xiWhitely Village won the toss
HWRCC 201-4 Del 65, Wrighty 54*, Coley 50 (Clarky Quack! Ha ha)
Whitely Village 85
Fudgey, Clarky, Saycey, Richard "Daddy's on fire" Cole, Hand Junaid, T Dizzle, Sargeant Powell, Microsoft, Sleepy, Reactolite, Monkeyboy
HWRCC win by 116 runs The Titanic was a good ship that unfortunately exceeded its abilities. With an unsinkable tag given to it by designers who had used watertight doors to prevent against basic hull holings, an ambitious parent company that wanted it to break the record for a crossing of the Atlantic and a captain who wanted to retire with the record in his top pocket, there were a number of pressures that determined that the boat would be steaming quickly across the ocean. At the same time a bit of a glacier had broken off. This was an huge mofo of an iceberg. 90 per cent of this big boy was lurking below the waterline. This iceberg made Clarky, who these days has most of his ballast above the waterline, look like a mere ice cube. This iceberg wandered South and eventually, on a beautifully calm, clear night (so no waves were washing up against its generous margins, creating the white wash that allowed a lookout to spot an iceberg) ended up right in the way of the Titanic. The boat, plus passengers, arrived at a point adjacent to the iceberg, in the middle of the night at many knots (which is some sort of nautical mph thing – Wickman thinks it was going at a fair lick, but not quite as quick as Coley in his Z3 on the way home from an away game). Boat hits iceberg. Big hole is ripped in the side of the boat. Boat begins to list. Posh people elbow aside the proles and head for the lifeboats. Chaos reigns. Eventually big boat sinks, lots of people die. A shite film is made and an ugly bird gets her Dominic Corks out. When the bottom of the table team come a calling three games from the end of the season you have to work out who is the Titanic and who is the Iceberg. You might think that the boat is Whitely. That they, eventual losers, have hit the Wickberg and sunk to the bottom. But this fixture, with three to go in the season and a “must win” for the Wick could have found the Wick heading to the bottom.. If we had been guilty earlier in the season of paying oppos too much respect (piling on the runs at Kingstonians and Ripley before failing to take 10 wickets as barnacle Bill at the Old K’s Corral and then Comical Ali at the Ripley All Comers Circus basiled their way to safety) here at times we were like the White Star line demanding a quick crossing with millionaires on board. Clark’s dismissal, a sucker punch missing a full toss second ball, was rather like some fur coated, cigar chomping US socialite retiring to bed with his aged Missus thinking that the butler would clear up his spats and hat overnight and have his breakfast kippers ready in the morning. All in all this was a vintage Fullers fixture and nothing like a Holywood blockbuster. Oppo skipper for the day Roberts won the toss, put us into bat and gave his team talk as “we have to do everything we can to stop them beating us”. Classic Fullers. No disrespect to them is intended here either. Let’s face it, the captain of the Chobbies said much the same the previous week although his goal was to beat us. Roberts was definitely going to try to play iceberg – restrict the scoring and bat for a draw. Roberts opened up with a couple of useful youngsters who will form the basis for rebuilding the Whitely squad in Fullers Div 2 next year. Young they might be, but both looked to be reasonable prospects, Roberts Jr looking the pick managed to persuade Saycey to top edge him to midwicket where proud Dad Roberts took the catch. All rounder Ali also looked to be if not the business then certainly a decent start-up. Much of our innings was then used as a loud coaching clinic by Roberts, instructing the Colts in the gentle art of fielding, backing up etc. This they did with aplomb. However the obvious distress in which the club finds itself (Wickman hears rumours of mass defections last year) was manifested in a number of senior players who found the round hard thing difficult to catch. Whenever it seemed they had opportunities, they were spurned – Wrighty was particularly lucky in this regard at one point he personally should have been 30-3 before he muscled his way to 50. Amusingly when asked how many lives he needed, he replied as many as they were prepared to give him. Someone then said 9. With more time he might have got a ton… The stand out innings were played by Cole (looking increasingly classy as his innings progressed bringing commentary from his own watching wife that “Daddy is on fire” – whether this was a Cole / coal / combustion / the engine rooms are flooding gag Wickman doesn’t know) who passed 50 and Derek Delboy Soppitt who made 66 accomplished looking runs and battered the Whitely boys into submission at the end of the innings to set up the early declaration. This was vintage Delboy, timing some brutal leg side work more sweetly than a Swiss watch maker and turning back the years to kinder times. Whitely were spirited in the field and even had time to sledge a departing Clark and played generally as if their lives depended on the result which is more than can be said for some of the teams that will finish mid table this year. Some of their fielding was textbook (slide and pull backs, pairs doing the fielding using flickbacks and even relay throwing) and if the catches that were dropped had been held perhaps more of the Wick’s batting resources would have been used. 201 was decided upon as a reasonable total leaving Whiteley 56 overs to score at 3.59. We hoped the sheer pressure of that much time would weigh against Whitely and in the event it did. However these guys went for their shots on the basis it was more fun to play cricket than to try to survive for three hours and get nowhere. They did at least try to take us down. Skipper Fudge decided to open with the old ball, throwing it to Duncan and to Coley. Duncan’s extraordinary lack of pace seemed to mesmerise one of the oppo openers to pat the ball back to Duncan and leave the visitors one down in over one. They only weren’t a couple more down by three or four overs because the Wick suddenly had a touch of the millionaires again. On board and having supper in the stateroom all sorts of extraordinary scenes occurred. With the starters came a flashy missed chance at silly mid which would have been a comfortable caught and bowled. In the main course Coley spurned a couple of tough caught and bowleds and Saycey spilled the soup down his front. Clarky threw the veg all over the place off Del and before you knew it, with no iceberg in sight, the crew were running around like headless chickens, desperate it seemed to steer the boat onto the rocks. Goodness only knows how many catches we put down (although Wickman should intercede here and say that some of them were pretty tough) and other opportunities went a begging like so many Crusties with dogs on string that it looked to the world as though the Wick was a soup kitchen for the West London open air drinking classes rather than a thriving cricket club. Eventually Whitely gave us so many chances that we took some. Wrighty snaffled a close catch that left everyone gasping. Clarky did some sort of matrix thing to take a looping outside edge off Del. Fudgey took a well judged runner at cover. But even the final two managed to frustrate us – a massively bungled run out, more spilled chances, overs where not a single ball would have hit a stump… the embarrassment of riches being displayed in the dining room would have haunted us against a stronger batting side. At the end though we were able to steer round the Whiteley iceberg and leave them bobbing along in the Wick wake. Del stood out in this performance – the man with his hand on the tiller steering us to safety - and is justifiably man of the match. At the end of the game both teams could reflect on a good game of cricket played in the right spirit. Perhaps then it was not us in danger, but Whitely. If before the game they had the outsidest of outside chances to avoid the murky depths of Div II then afterwards their boat was sunk. Whitely are beyond saving for this season. But the kids in the lifeboats could be the start of something.
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