Wednesday xi vs Worcester Park

Wednesday xi vs Worcester Park

Scorecard

Who Stitched Who Up?

Kennedy, Hirsch, Norm, Kammy, Dutchy, Amooray, The Lord Culhem, Marfleet, Clarky, Il Presidente.

Those of you who enjoy the gentle rhythms of Wednesday cricket missed a special sunset yesterday.

The Lord told an amusing tale as we watched it. I’ll cut out some of the detail to save space but essentially Sisso used to run a book on The National. The Lord instructed Mrs Lord to get a tenner on a horse called Seagram. It won. But the Lord made an error. He called Sisso to enquire not how much he had won, but whether Mrs Lord had got the bet on. Sisso said she hadn’t and told him that she’d placed an each way bet on the horse in third place. Sisso produced a tenner with a flourish and the conversation was closed. A week or ten days passed. The Lord was not able to leave the subject alone and made further enquiries of the part-time bookie. Sisso told him that The Lord had seemed like a person that wanted to be stitched up, and he, Sisso, had a policy of never letting an opportunity to do so pass up. Snigger.

Not so much later Sisso, The Lord, Smudger and others were in a country pub just before Smudge’s wedding. It was April and snowing. Horizontally. The pub was a mile from the church. Sisso’s lift left without him. The Lord asked Sisso how Sisso was going to get to the church. Sisso intimated that he was rather hoping to get a lift with the Lord. The Lord replied “Ah yes. I thought so. But you looked like a person that wanted to be stitched up, and I have a policy…”

Wickman brings this up because yesterday felt like a giant stitch up and he couldn’t quite tell who was doing it to whom. Firstly the opposition skipper (who is a true character of the game) dithered over whether or not to bat. Seeing as he always bats when he wins the toss this seemed unnecessary. Sisso stitched us up shortly afterwards because he only provided us with nine players, two of the xi claiming they couldn’t make it and had never been intending to. The Lord was late. ATS.

So the game was started with eight of us in the field. Clarky began by grassing a regulation first slip chance by diving in front of Kam and flapping a glove at it off the deserving Norm first ball of the match. Norm then bowled six or so overs of fast medium away swingers without much reward. Not much else happened as the openers decided us only having six outfielders was a licence to make runs. They picked gaps and made us run a lot. Kammy bowled some respectable offspin. They hit it up in the air occasionally but into helpful gaps.

The Lord arrived and blow this correspondent down if he didn’t first open the boot of his car and bring out two comfortable looking camping chairs as much as if to say “I’ll put one at long leg and the other at third man, and I will be fine thank you”. Having had a crafty look at numbers in the outfield he then spent a light year getting changed. At one point as he walked back to his car for the third or fourth time Wickman thinks that light may have bent round the carpark and time travel forwards may have happened as it seemed to take him a good five overs to lock his car and trundle out to the middle.

The Lord’s services were called upon soon after and he managed to supply the breakthrough pinning their No1 in front. Marfleet bowled some lovely loopy offspin (and some nasty full bungers too) and eventually cramped the other opener for room and bowled him. A South African with a very unfashionable mullet came to the wicket and hit the ball hard and ran at twice the speed of Mackie (or 2.5 Soppitts) and began to make us pay for only having nine in intense heat.

Culhem removed an excitable Number 4 bowled and Norman did the same to Mullet Boy. This brought to the wicket McFarlane who scored an unflustered 30 odd in good time before perishing to a good catch by Kennedy. There was enough time for Marfleet to catch one off his own bowling to end an impressive second spell. It also brought to the wicket an extraordinary bat who used his feet badly to every ball he faced and was lucky he had a good eye. A very decent bat, Hill, who is averaging 60 in Division II First xi of the Surrey Champ then smashed a quick 20 odd. They had amassed 242 from 45 at almost 5.4 an over.

Tea. 9. Dave had provided us with mini-hotdogs, buns and cooked onion (with that weak assed American yellow mustard that is so essential) plus most of the usual stuff. Tempted to give it more but the bread wasn’t quite there and it needed something like meringues, strawberries and cream to bring another half or full point. But certainly the finest tea Wickman has seen from Dave. He claimed it was always better on a Wednesday. Hmmmm.

So it was up to us to bat. Hirschy had turned up right at the end of their innings and now opened the batting so that he could open the bar. A typical brisk innings with some lovely shots followed before he was castled by an excitable dwarf. The same dwarf then removed Normy who snicked one after having looked like a million Pakistani Rupees (about £7,987.01 in case you ask). Kammy was caught behind too off the impressive Marshall and Kennedy in his first hit for five years was just beginning to look good before also offering a catch. It was clear at this point that we had taken over the role of stitching ourselves up from Bobby. To confirm the feeling Dutchy then waited until the ball before drinks to fire one to Mullet Boy at cover who hung on.

After drinks Amooray played increasingly brightly and reached 20some before smashing one back to the bowler. The Lord looked Lord like and biffed and cudgelled away the bowling with a look of wrinkled disdain. Marfleet used the long handle and made 17 from seven balls. With Clark and The Lord at the wicket we needed 100 of 13 overs. It was an unlikely equation which the oppo skipper had no intention of trying to get us to solve. And then we realised who was really being stitched up. It was Worcester Park, by their skipper.

This most strange individual had brought himself on with the asking rate at 11s and 12s before bowling absolute filthy filth so filthy that if it was in a porn film it would be double penetration with bondage thrown in. And it was slow filth too. He then set a field with 7 on the boundary, four of them fanned out from square leg to long on via midwicket and cow. What a waste of time. The challenge was this: you need more than 10. You need to hit boundaries. I am going to toss this stuff up because I don’t believe you can hit it over the boundary on the full. You will try though because I am bowling this terrible left arm filth. Jack perished accepting the bait. The Lord almost stranded Clarky with the old Yessssssss. Er no. Er… Clarky was not amused but the weird skippery fellow bungled collecting the fielder’s throw and allowed the original single to be taken.

The Lord and Clarky put on some together but Clark was not in fine form and was unable after his earlier keeping exertions to hit the ball the necessary distance. In fact he was finding it rather difficult to time and fully deserved to be in at 9. Eventually the Lord propped forward to one of the filthy dobbers and was stumped when he fell asleep waiting for it to arrive. There were a few scares as the President and Clarky navigated the last few overs but seeing as the skipper insisted on continuing to bowl the shite Wickman mentioned earlier the biggest threat was the ball arriving so slowly that it crept under horizontal bat shots.

The President declared himself not bothered by the result after having been adjudged not out to a ball that would have hit middle and delegated the decision to Clarky to decide whether we lost or not. But with Filthy McNasty on Clarky could not bring himself to be out and milked a few runs as the balls ticked away. With no sign of the openers returning to break the partnership the game fizzled out into a draw as the Worcester Park fielders too became less and less interested in the spectacle and the antics of their skipper in not mopping us up.

Those assembled retired to the balcony to discuss other games with more positive outcomes, to drink beer and to assess bruising and muscular aches and pains. Another fine day in Wick Wednesday cricket. Unfortunately 8 in the field is a not a great recipe for winning cricket and nor is it advisable to lose all your best bats before you have made 70. But what a tea…