Match Report - 2xi vs Ripley (a) by Wickman

Carrots wasted on Ripley

HWRCC 245-4 45 overs P Hibberd 150*, D Fudge 49
Ripley 123-7 50 overs Donnelly three for Wick goes third

Hibberd, Singh, Fudge, Goldborn, Clark, Soppitt, Kennedy, Donnelly, Powell, Unsworth, Toogood

Winning draw to HWRCC by 122 runs (HWRCC 9 points, Ripley 2 points)

A brutally dominant batting performance by Paul Hibberd and three quickfire wickets from Tommy D knocked the stuffing out of Ripley and turned this fixture into a classic Fullers blockathon. Hibberd, the only batsman all day to completely dominate, scoring at will despite defensive fields, made a mockery of the conditions and a bowling attack that took 10 Stoke D'Abernon wickets last week. In reply Ripley were three down inside five overs and with one notable and spirited exception their later bats declined to do more than present the maker’s name to the bowlers and wasted a Saturday afternoon and whatever their match fees are in cobbling together dreary single figure or low teen scores.

The bricks and mortar (or wattle and daub – couldn’t say) of Ripley make for a truly fantastic cricket club. A lack of pyromaniac vandalism, randomly disregarded cigarette butts, faulty wiring or cleverly disguised insurance scams has preserved its pavilion – which it is said is an old stables – intact since the 18th century. It was dubbed the second favourite pavilion in the league after tea and if it wasn’t for the adjoining common with its carpark full of poor men’s four by fours, aggressive looking terriers and, probably, other kinds of doggers on the look out for action in the long grass, this could be a rural idyll. Managed excellently by a couple who appeared in the tea serving hatch and later behind the bar (excellent Greene King IPA – if only our own Pride was as well kept) its walls were festooned with memorabilia, trophies, Ashley Giles’ disregarded jumpers and other paraphernalia of a successful and much admired cricket club. One or other of them was no doubt responsible for the excellent hot water in the showers too. Down to the safe in the changing room here was a well run building, proudly displaying its traditions and wearing its heart upon its sleeve. Wickman liked it. He liked it a lot.

But he did not like the cricket on show from Ripley which rather defeated the object of having a proud tradition and great family club (the scorer had produced two of the opposition – their best players on the day – and the groundsman). Winning the toss, the opposition skipper was keen to insert us which, of course, was no surprise. It became even less of a surprise when we saw that he didn't seem to have much confidence in his bowlers or later, his batters.

Opening up himself with rapidish away swing, the skipper did create the only early chances to make inroads into the Hampton Wick batting having first Fudge and then Hibberd comprehensively dropped at first slip. These were to be expensive misses which condemned Ripley to watch this season’s second Wick 100+ second wicket partnership. Nathan had unfortunately managed to run himself out with the score on 2 from what would have been called a dead ball. At that point Ripley must have believed victory, or at least a collapse were possible. Or not.

And here’s where your scribe began to see that perhaps all was not roses in the Ripley garden. After five or so overs of right arm medium, the skipper then began to bowl spin. Which was odd because he later brought on a much better spinner from the other end who removed Fudge quite quickly for 49. But about 25 overs too late. He also later brought on a useful colt who bowled a far better medium pace than either of the change bowlers he had given the ball to who Hibberd treated with the sort of disdain that is usually reserved by Clark or Davies for poor teas at away grounds. It was bizarre. Almost as if he was throwing the ball to his mates... Certainly by the time he brought the offy on and later the colt, inappropriately for a cricket club with a stables for an HQ, the horse, in Hibberd, had bolted. In fact it had run so far, it had visited the vet, picked up the necessary jabs and papers, applied for and received a pet passport, hopped on a ferry to Dieppe and was now ranging across the continent covering as many European mares as it could find. It was last seen heading for Arabia to take on the local stallions. There will be new foals in many countries before the year is out.

Hibberd’s 150 was a delight. Early on one of the wags of Ripley (there were more later who called us Pricks “just like their 1s” from the balcony – nice work boys – you should be proud of yourselves) said of Hibberd that he only had one shot. This was because the bowlers found themselves unable to pitch the ball up for the majority of the first twenty. On a slow damp deck, the ball would sit up and demand to be smashed along the floor to the leg side boundaries. This Hibberd did with murderous intent. If the skipper moved his boundary fielder twenty yards in front of square, Hibberd would wait slightly longer and play the ball behind. The pantomime continued all afternoon. When the ball was occasionally bowled wide of the off stump Hibberd finessed it through the vacant slip regions or rifled it square. When, once in a while, the ball was pitched up, he laced it through the gap between mid on and cover. He ended undefeated having opened the innings and hardly a bead of sweat on his brow. Fitness…

Fudge was uncharacteristically quiet for much of the time at the other end, choosing to anchor the innings and probably had 15 from the first fifty partnership and 30 from the hundred. It was though a vital innings which was in its way every bit as valuable as Hibberd’s offering. In choosing to broaden his range of strokes he briefly sparkled before he perished at a time when he made made 49 and Hibberd was on 99 at the other end – a statistical joy which turned to mild dismay as he miscued the off spinner to mid on. There was time as we strove for an early declaration for Golby and Clark to disappoint fantasy team managers and Soppitt to smash and dash. Golby ended the off spinner’s afternoon at approximately four o’clock by absolutely thrashing a return drive at his knee. Ice was sought and he would play no further part. Eventually we declared with 245 in the bag and gave them 50 to get them. There will be a discussion of carrots and how to dangle them later, but this seemed to be a fair equation at the time given that Ripley had descended from the league above last year and must have a strong suit somewhere…

Tea, produced by the admirable and hospitable couple of earlier (Wickman was particularly captivated by the way in which she displayed her wares through the hatch) was excellent. By far the best presentation of the year, a pineapple top, reminiscent of a Zimbabwean strike bowler’s hairstyle or Curtley Ambrose in retirement, became a green centrepiece in a medly of fresh fruit. The sandwiches were freshly prepared, moist when they needed to be, bursting with fillings at other times. The tea was strong and served in vast quantities. There were no home produced cakes but the selection was imaginative and included a delightful cherry cake and jam roll. These were not out of date numbers purchased for economy. Fresh, simple and to the point. An 8. Leading the field this year.

Their reply began and continued in confusion, the occasional moment of outright rancour and calamity. First their opener was caught top edging a pull against a Donnelly full toss. Unsworth had drifted in from the boundary and suddenly found himself having to back peddle and take a quite breathtaking catch diving backwards. Unfortunately for the oppo opener whether the ball was above waist high or not did not matter because the umpire at the bowler’s end had no idea of most of the rules of the game so was unable to help him out. The extraordinary decision to have this fella umpire was further exposed when he called a no ball from square leg for one that pitched and bounced above waist height. Bizarre. Much coaching ensued along the lines of "only when its a full bunger you idiot". Didn't really give us much confidence...

The skipper put himself in at number three and managed to get caught from a Donnelly no ball quite quickly although there was some conjecture here given the lack of knowledge of the rules. He then managed to get himself caught by Kennedy at point later in the same over, this time from a legitimate offering. There was still time for the other opener to get himself bowled by an absolute pearler from the same bowler which defeated an ambitious and expansive drive. It was the sort of drive which was the equivalent of Hitler invading Russia. A grand gesture which would eventually result in a nasty siege (Stalingrad).

So a nasty siege ensued here. Imagine us as the Russians fighting for every inch of territory and them holed up in basements wrapped up warm against the cold. Only without actual bullets, -40 degree temperatures and death. It is, after all, just cricket. Unsworth bowled beautifully, his away swing defeating both the new batsmen regularly. He was unable to supply a breakthrough. Quick switches of bowling brought Powell and Kennedy into the attack. But very little happened. No one even attempted to score runs off Powell. The No 5 – one of the Cliff brothers - a very decent bat and by the look of him the best player on show – mixed attack with defence and made the most of the carrots that were dangled. He made a valiant 39 before eventually holing out at point to one of the worst balls of the day. Sadly with him went our last chance of victory because stuck at the other end was a fellow of limited ambition who spent his afternoon blocking it out and mixing defence with defence. Really, really, dull. A half chance was put down at short leg (would have been catch of the season overtaking Golby’s gully effort in the first game). A dolly escaped point towards the end. Nothing much else happened apart from a close run out attempt.

So we get to carrot dangling. There was talk in the changing room about us dangling more carrots after Kingstonian’s stonewalled their way to a couple of points and here Ripley earned a mighty two points from an afternoon of negative cricket. When you dangle a carrot of course, traditionally you do it to encourage a donkey to plod its way to its destination. The carrot is attached to the end of a stick by string and is dangled just far enough in front of the beast’s nose so that the beast thinks he can get to the carrot if he moves forwards. This doesn’t immediately work but the beast has no plan B because it is unimaginative and has appalling problem solving skills. So it plods on relentlessly, never getting closer to the carrot. Eventually the beast drags its burden to the destination determined by the carrot dangler.

So let’s assess the carrot dangling potential here shall we? Certainly Ripley were plodding. They scored at a pedestrian 2.25 runs per over. They would have needed all 95 overs to get to our target. It was extraordinary given the short boundaries in every direction that they mustered so few runs. So perhaps we should have declared on 180 and given them sixty overs to get them? Then we would have played all the cricket and put them in the driving seat. Having got the runs then what could we do? Well, keep extraordinarily attacking fields (7-2 most of the time with a gap from mid one round to fine leg) at one end so that halfway competent bats could score at will and get Delboy to throw some grenades up at the other end, again with ridiculously attacking fields (one man, Unsworth, at midwicket) to let them simply pick which part of the boundary to smash them. But the donkey has to want at least to plod in the right direction. Only Cliff saw the opportunity and hung around long enough to exploit it.

The rest of the donkey became hopelessly bogged down treating the 7-2 field as less of an opportunity and more of a threat – perhaps something like an ass walking across a tightrope, burdened with a pile of sticks, between the twin towers with Al Qaeda circling in packed Boeings. Del’s grenades were assumed to be less hand propelled ordnance and more hideous minefield which could remove limbs and have Princesses and rock stars campaigning against it. So that was that. It eventually sat on its bottom and refused to move. Finally Del stopped throwing them up and broke through as the medium bowling colt played some shots but glanced one into Clark’s gloves down the leg side. The limited No 4 of earlier who had laboured for what seemed like two hours for about 17 or 18 of the most constipated runs (can you have constipated runs???) charged down the wicket swished like D’Artagnan faced by the massed hordes of 10 Cardinals and missed allowing Clark to rearrange the stumps.

And really that was that bar some increasingly frustrating French cricket by numbers 7 and 8 who spent 15 overs assembling the 25 runs needed to drag Ripley to one solitary batting point. Rubbish. One of them got 2 not out from 10 overs. Wickman can’t actually remember how he got two. Because he simply moved across in front of his stumps a foot inside his crease and moved his bat like a pendulum to get in line. Even Trevor Bailey would have blanched. Anything not on the stumps was left. He seemed to enjoy his lack of ambition. There was a certain amount of groaning heard. Not from The Wick - it was the sound of Ripley cricketing ghosts turning in their graves.

That Ripley’s vanquished 1s returned to cheer each single and without a moment’s irony cheered the advent of 120 to the rafters was an indication of how things went. Dear oh dear. The Wick managed one final wicket in the last over to take one extra bowling point. Getting called Pricks made Wickman wonder. Maybe we were, maybe we weren't. But we certainly played the most attractive cricket and it will be some time before we play such a negative side again.

Nothing however will diminish the memory of Paul’s staggering innings here. MOM Hibberd.