2006 Season - Rolleston - 2006/08/13
Rob recalls:
Rolleston on Dove is a picturesque village just west of Burton, where Swallows criss-cross the field all day caring not a jot about the serious cricket going on around them, and last year we had an excellent game, culminating in a close loss. Rob made history in his first game this season by arriving the first of the convoy, including a wrong turn, down the Hilton road. Unlike the Vicar last year, Rob realised his error and turned up at the right ground, in good time.
Previous correspondents have compared DCC to a �well oiled machine� but the only obviously well oiled thing in the dressing room was Richard Brown. After a night on tequila and Aftershock, I�m surprised he made it at all. Kids today, eh?
Paul and his oppo walked the walk and talked the talk, and batting we were. Jez was a bit late due to a nasty contact lens related trauma, so playing in glasses, for all you trivia fans out there. The pitch was dry after being covered, save a great puddle right on halfway (good job Dean wasn�t playing) but the rest of the square a bit damp. We thought the pitch would be lower and slower than a geriatric Python�s arse, and how right we were. You could have almost got away with not wearing a thigh pad, let alone a helmet.
Bradley walked in the dressing room, and incredulously remarked �Smudger�s got his pads on!�, with the kind of inflection normally saved for �Why is that sperm whale driving that tractor?�. The order was decided, as is customary in late ish season DCC games, by the batting averages; the higher yours is, the more certain you are to open. As Smudger hasn�t even got an average, he was always a shoo-in for number one, with Jez at two. Nick was absent, and only the closest members of Rob�s family or the seriously delusional would argue that the �Nick out, Rob in� swap was an improvement.
Off we went, to face the Rolleston openers, a youngish briskish chap, and a trundler of Vicar like proportions. Smudge was looking for that elusive first out of the year, and the writing was on the wall in the 3rd over when he chased a wide one, nicked it to first slip, and there it stuck, the despairing fielders looking at umpire (and coincidentally, brother in law) Andy Gaunt with his arm outstretched, and �No ball!� reverberating around the country air. The assembled masses in the pavilion just laughed uncontrollably, as a sheepish Smudger took guard again�. Jez, glasses and all, made batting look easy, as he has done all year, with an excellent array of shots to all parts, and was quickly onto 31 before what can only be described as �an incident�. Jez�s side of it was that he went to flick one to leg, nearly middled it but hit it into his pad. Andy Gaunt at the other end saw Jez shuffle in front of middle, miss it by miles, and the ball hit him on the shin. One appeal later, Andy�s finger was still smoking as he reholstered it, the gunshot sound reverberating along with the previous no ball call. Jez, departed, mumbling heinous things.
Crossy is in decent nick. Five 50s in his last five innings of all descriptions is testament to this. He didn�t make it six though, preferring to pick the young sprightly, dead eye fielder on his second ball, and was tragically run out without troubling the scorers, 3rd umpire not required. Mention must go Crossy�s bats, now numbering more than a half set of golf clubs, with seemingly a weight for every eventuality. He�ll soon need a coffin just for his bats. In walked Paul, fresh from a bit of form, but soon departed for four, after playing back to one he may well have wished he�d gone forward to. Rob then came in, and after a slow start, nurdled and nudged, and occasionally stroked, his way to 24 before, with around 10 overs to go, and the hurry up around the corner, attempting a pull to a ball that hit the base of leg stump. Pants.
Meanwhile, Smudger was quietly getting on with the job in hand, and reached a well deserved 50, his second of the year, and then kept going to 61 before finally getting out to an uppish drive straight to mid on. He trudged off to rapturous applause, surely knowing that bar miracles or catastrophe, the batting award is his, what with an average of 211 with four games to go.
The rest of the innings belonged to Jamie, in at six, who clubbed an impressive 46, only for it to be upgraded at Richard Brown�s expense due to an unprecedented Berresford scoring error. Richard definitely hit a four but it never made it to his score. Ever magnanimous, Jamie gracefully didn�t offer to give it back. Kiwi looked like he looked 10 years ago, which was no coincidence given that he�d resurrected his 20 year old or thereabouts Kippax bat for the occasion. Clearly it suited him like a pair of old slippers, as two huge sixes went straight back over the bowler�s head, in what is surely his signature shot. (Try saying that, Kenny Callender). Some quality swipes from the family Brown finished it off, and we came in for tea on 198, and we hoped it would be enough.
Tea was a pool table full of cobs, cakes, cheesecake, sausages and all manner of things, and if it weren�t for Broomleys last week, surely a contender for tea of the season. Anyone who cooks me onion rings for my tea is a hero in my book.
Rolleston�s openers quickly showed their intentions. One looked like he wanted to bat all day, the other was ferocious on anything with any width outside off, and the ball sped to the boundary with frightening velocity during RB�s first over. At slip, Smudge informed Rob that, to keep tradition up, as Nick wasn�t there, his duty was to fart for 40 overs. The first overs passed with a few moments of interest, but unfortunately mostly to do with fetching the ball. However, the more limpet like of the two batsman was surely wearing wooden pads, as one from Rich Brown was tickled with a decidedly wooden noise into Smudger�s waiting gloves early doors. The umpire was sadly not moved, despite every fielder, and even Colin, going up for the appeal. At Andy�s end, Crossy was soon removed from his short cover position in favour of Paul, as two sped close by him, leaving Paul with the long chase. It didn�t happen a third time.
Rolleston�s Wakefield hit 50 out of the first 61, but Widdows was his only real support, and as the game got darker and darker, the wickets fell and we came home by 40 runs in the drizzle. Numerous bowling/fielding tales warrant a mention in despatches including the man with the silver gloves (�Silver Gauntlet� as Benno christened him) Smudge, who kept well and took a tremendous catch wide late on (although he did make the ball look as though it was alive when keeping to Kev Brown), Andy Gaunt�s beamer first ball to the number four, which hit him right in the egg sandwich, Rich Brown�s excellent catch out at long on, off his Dad, naturally, for a big 35 pointer for the family, although he did make a monumental effort to get to a Benno induced slog earlier on, in what would have been a repeat of his catch the previous week if he�d have hung on, Jamie�s very tidy spell of 3-8 at the end, the Vicar�s tidy spell of pace bowling, and Rob�s catch at long off, which looked for all the world like he�d run under it, only to snare it over his head, fingers skywards, with a mixture of disbelief and relief. Paul said it looked like Stephen Fleming. Bob Fleming may be closer to the truth. Kev Brown also bowled a very tidy spell at the end, as did Jez, getting a rare bowl.
In Norm�s absence, the umpiring points were shared out six ways, and a special mention must go to Rolleston�s young bowler Henderson, who, after some ill advised hair highlights the week before, had to endure such taunts as �Crossword head�, �Surfer boy� and �Badger�. Marvellous stuff.
PS After his super hero �Silver Gauntlet� moment, Benno suggested to me that I should be the Robin to Smudger�s Batman, as it were. He also suggested I could go by the name �Blobby Boy�. My reply wasn�t recorded for posterity although it did involve two water boiling kitchen accessories, sex and movement.