Norcross was on a high after the remarkable Maori result, even allowing himself a brief daydream in which we won every remaining game, and remarkably snaffled the second promotion spot after Richmond Town came down with Scabies following over exposure to the ear-ringed twat from Streatham. The team looked pretty settled, the batting was coming together and a quiet week was predicted. Branson would come in for Eyles, strengthening the batting, Evans for Satchit Shah. Clark needed a break so Mikshu was summoned for a recall, but all in all things looked good. What with the game being against our fierce rivals away on Burbage Road and with the BBQ to follow, Norcross felt a sort of excitement usually reserved for European Cup Finals or Test Match deciders. Fortunately the midweek passed quickly as he was still moving into Tooting. This task was being interminably extended owing to his lack of a van and pointless desire to eke every last available hour out of Pimlico. Then the inevitable happened for which he was quite unprepared. On Thursday an e-mail arrived from Phyllis Ryder. “Am loathed beyond words to say so but I regret that I don't think I will be able to play on Saturday. The barbecue is the thing and I have to go shopping, organise the music, diddly daa, everything.” Of course both Phil and Norcross had realised that it was the BBQ and he was organising it. Indeed they had known this for a year, but out of collective hysterical denial, they had hoped that things would resolve themselves in such a way as to allow Phil to play cricket from 1.30 to 7.15 despite the need to set up chairs, buy food, make salads etc.. Quite how things could have done, short of a deus ex machina containing a pre-fab BBQ kit replete with cooks is unclear. Norcross was distressed, Ryder was distraught and Ralph would be virtually unconsolable following the revelation that Phil was his dream date at the top of the order. Meanwhile the Jerks, who had faithfully promised Mayers earlier in the week were reneging quicker than Mel from Eastenders, and Norcross could feel himself sucked into a deep mire composed of the sludge of available players and the compost of a balanced attack. When Doud rang in the evening to complain that his side was still sore from Saturday and he wouldn’t be able to play, the picture was looking bleak. Fortunately Andy Cannon was available so the bowling attack was back to strength, though lacking the two pronged spin element that Norcross had become so fond of of late. As for an eleventh, with Zoob struggling also, it came down to stealing Andy Kojima from the Sunday team and promising to find a replacement at the BBQ. So yet again it was Friday night before the team was finalised. This has surely become a tedious refrain for my readers, but is getting more fascinating to me by the minute. In the middle to late 19th century it was common for better sides to play handicap games against, for example, 22 of Kent. How was this possible? For the only conclusion I can draw from my experiences is that cricket is quite deliberately designed for 11. The batsman will never average 100; that is an immutable law of cricket that not even Bradman could break. Bowlers will concede runs. And captains will struggle to find 11, usually not succeeding until 12 hours before the designated start of the game. It is the challenge that is set him, just as the bowler must defy the pitch, the batsmen and the fallibilities of his fielders, and the batsman must defy the pitch, the bowlers and the voices in his head. At any rate all was sorted and Norcross settled into his new pad at 10.30 and drank himself to sleep with a bottle of Croft Original (it was the only thing in the house).
The following morning, a little tired and slightly listless, Norcross awaited Ralph and Danika as usual. Upon their arrival he broke the bad news of Phil’s absence to Ralph who took it on the chin but could scarce hide his disappointment. “Who’s opening then?” “Me I’m afraid,” said Norcross. I assured him it would only be for today and to look at it as a kind of one night stand; Phil would forgive him this indiscretion and we could all forget about it the moment I got out for nothing, bowled round my legs attempting a leading edge to mid-on. In the car I primed Ralph about our opponents. Alleyn Old Boys, being from the same foundation as us, are pretty much the same sorts of people. Generally well-heeled and public schoolish with the arrogance and charm that goes with that territory but with one fundamental element added. They went to school with girls and thus we hated them. We went to school with boys, lots of them. If we wanted a girl we had to hang around with JAGS girls who were notoriously difficult and suspicious. They after all went to school with girls, lots of them. Furthermore Alleyn’s pupils behaved as if we thought ourselves superior to them. It is true that the academic records of the respective schools were markedly different, but who gave a toss about academic records when you were 15. You just wanted to go to school with girls. Or at least most of us did. Consequently there was a huge amount of mutual misunderstanding going on between the two schools which Norcross had every intention of single handedly sorting out. There is no need for this jealousy and animosity. After all we’re all in the ruling class exploiting the poor bastards and getting reasonably well remunerated for it. On arrival at the ground this view was supported by a car park gradually filling with BMW’s and Mercs. True, the clubhouse was still locked up and our hosts were congregating conspiratorially in one corner, eschewing all contact. Why should they extend the warm hand of friendship after all they’d been through? Cooped up in a terrible public school with girls and smoking de rigeur while we looked down our noses because we got two more grade A O’ levels than them. Leave them on the grass and offer no explanation. Norcross was getting slightly concerned that they had come to the wrong ground despite all signs to the contrary, but an attempt to discover what was going on was greeted with grunts and a complaint about their captain not arriving yet. Looking around the ground it occurred that they also had a better ground, surrounded by tennis courts and a bar with pool table, massive screen TV, fruit machines, the works. Maybe he’d got it all wrong. Perhaps it was a bizarre subjective perspective and in fact the reason we hated Alleyn’s was because they got everything. We were the oppressed come to do a job on our feudal overlords. Politically bemused Norcross was finally introduced to his tardy opposite number and they went out to toss. In this spirit of confusion he decided to call heads for the first time in his life. After all, if you can discover that you are in the underclass, why not become a royalist to boot. Amazingly he was rewarded and the Alleyn Old Boys were inserted on a grassy looking, slightly damp pitch. The clouds were high and the air was warm and muggy. Ditch then arrived to say that he couldn’t trust Ryder and thus would not be umpiring as he had to follow him around all afternoon barking orders at him. Sadly he was probably right, and no amount of frantic persuasion could animadvert the stout Boultbee. Furthermore he informed that Kojima would be late because he had to collect his kit from Shah. One day it will be different, but when I cannot imagine. Presumably when I’m captaining a team of inmates at a mental hospital who are locked up all day and thrown in straitjackets into the back of a minibus. Fortunately Kojima arrived at 1.25 but without any money for his taxi. So amazingly we took to the field with eleven players present but mostly incorrect. Caspar had done 9 or 10 circuits of the field but that apart we were pretty much unprepared and distracted. Clearly an evil ploy on the part of our opponents.
Andy Cannon and Ramon opened the bowling and the first four overs were pretty ugly. The pitch was slower than we had become accustomed to of late and anything short was being put away with ease. Just as Norcross was contemplating a record early change of bowling, Cannon snaffled the impressive looking openeer, caught by Evans at cover-point and we were back in the game; 20-1. But the situation did not improve much. Cannon was producing some excellent deliveries interspersed with long-hops and Ramon couldn’t find his length. In addition, whenever the batsmen were trapped plum in front, the umpires were deaf to our appeals. Branson was looking on behind the sticks with barely disguised concern, motioning via the Hardy semaphore which consists of a blood curdling simulated throat slit reminiscent of Bernard Bresslaw in Carry on Up The Khyber, which is meant to convey the sincere belief that the bowler could do with a rest, or summary execution. To cap it all the Alleyn Old Boys had a new face at number three who had been dropped from their “Jerks”, and he was looking worryingly steady. After 14 overs with the score on 57-1 Norcross decided it was time for a radical change of emphasis and so summoned Dingwall into the attack to replace Ramon. This was a risk, as Dingers had been having a torrid time of late. He had recently become a grandfather which is no fun for anyone, and ever since turning 50 his line and length had gone to pot. The Dobber We Never Had was in crisis, radiating an uncertainty, morbidity and inner turmoil that would make King Lear look like Ainsley Harriot. It was a risk certainly, but did Brearley blanch from tossing the ball to Willis at Headingley in ’81? Norcross moved himself to mid-on and awaited developments. The handy number three was on strike and it was make or break time. Off his fourth ball the Dobber produced a piece of pure magic. He floated a straight ball up into the blockhole, the former Jerk drove over the top of it and rattle went the stumps. The relief was palpable and Norcross thought he saw a ghostly mirage of the former tortured Dingers, an UberDingers if you will, arise from the celebrating beau Dingers and float off into the ether. A weight had been lifted. We had our Dobber back.After two more good overs of Cannon it was time to turn the screw big time, so Nige was called forth to get twirling. Immediately he had a straight forward catch dropped by Norcross at mid-on, but unphased he just kept dropping the ball on the spot and the batsmen were powerless. The more miserly Nige became, the more reckless the Old Boys of Alleyns became against Dingers. But the Dobber was loving it. Over after over he bowled, and just when it looked like he was going to collapse on the pitch he would pick up another wicket. In fact wickets were falling at four over intervals and very few runs were being scored. The field was seldom brought in, so the batsmen were having to work hard for everything, and bar the odd lapse the fielding was efficient and tight. From 61-1 after 15 overs, the Alleyn Old Boys struggled to 124-8 off 45 overs. Dingers had got five for the first time this campaign and Nigel had picked up two. Nothing spectacular was happening and one couldn’t help feeling that it was all rather like watching us bat at the beginning of the season. You could almost hear their batsmen saying “you can’t get out to this stuff”, but neither could they score runs, and the pressure to post a challenging target was all too much for their fragile temperaments. Dingers picked up his sixth to make them nine down but was beginning to look very white, and the obligatory slap on the back wass becoming a less and less pleasant experience for his compadres as his Guiness t-shirt was now sodden with thick northern sweat. It was time for a drier shirt to come into the attack, especially as the last wicket had put on 20, advancing the total to 146-9 off 52 overs. Ralph was hailed from the covers. His rapid over rate would also help. Off his third ball he got the number 11 caught behind and another brilliant piece of captaincy was instantly rewarded. Alleyn Old Boys 146 all out, but our batting line-up was a bit thin today with Clark, Khan and Ryder missing. It would be a tough total, but if we got off to a good start, it would certainly be within our capabilities.
Norcross and Ralph briefly discussed their tactics and agreed that staying in and scoring the runs without taking undue risks was the best plan of action. Thus it was that the first over yielded six runs from Ralph, and the second over ten runs from Norcross including too airily wafted cuts down to the third man boundary; 16-0. This rapidly became 16-1 when Ralph caught leading edge disease from his skipper and a huge blow to our hopes of victory had been struck. Now Branson appeared at number three. Norcross and Branson at the wicket together is one of the more comical sights in world cricket. Caspar is hugely fit and very proud of it. He works out, keeps himself very trim and derives great pleasure from running and sweating. Sadly he has had little opportunity to do that for the Jerks, batting at nine or ten and seldom with enough time to make an impression. He is largely a correct batsman as one would expect, but had never made a fifty for the club. A shocking waste of a decent talent. Norcross has scored plenty of fifties but not in the last couple of years, and shows very little taste for the physical rigours of the game. Had he wanted hard physical exercise the chances are that he wouldn’t only play games that can be enjoyed motionless (see Darts and Bridge). His style varies between the occasionally classical, the headlong hurtle towards the ball, and the limp dismissal. If we were to win, this couple of opposites, short-arse and lanky, would have to contribute the lion’s share. At first it didn’t look overly likely. Norcross had barely been at the wicket for more than 20 minutes at a time this season and was feeling the pace on a warm afternoon. Caspar was looking assured and playing very few false shots, but rarely was he reaching the boundary and Norcross, after his early flourishes, was being forced to look for twos and threes with unseemly regularity as the strength was being sapped from his weary limbs. Nonetheless they were both playing solidly (Branson the more so), and Norcross was concentrating hard on not getting out. As the score began to advance through the forties and into the fifties the Old Boys of Alleyns began to get slightly more tetchy. Their captain was trying to summon up some fighting spirit and this was being manifested in appealing for anything. Norcross rather enjoys that sort of thing, especially if it’s done in a good spirit and things progressed much like this for about an hour and ten minutes, with Norcross and Branson accruing runs at about 3.3 an over and the Old Boys accruing appeals at a rate of about 1.9 per over. Nearly all the appeals were atrocious, the ball either hitting outside the line or the bat and then the pad. Occasionally they would slip in a ludicrous one for caught behind, and the closer we got to their total the more screeching and desperate became the appealing. Then, as if from nowhere, the game boiled over. The former Old Boy Jerk was now bowling and was proving to be by far the best bowler in the side. He was angling his off spin from wide of the crease into the batsman’s legs making scoring very difficult. Branson in frustration went onto the back foot and aimed a pull behind square. He missed the ball and was hit above the knee roll on the back foot. He takes a leg stump guard. Predictably the whole team, square leg, cover point included, went up in a wild banshee shout. The score, after all was 85-1, only 62 shy of victory. Ralph pondered for a while before giving not out. It may have hit the stumps but more likely would have snaked down the leg side if it hadn’t gone over the top. There then followed some of the most bewildering and shaming scenes I have witnessed on a cricket field in a long while. Middle aged bourgeois landowners openly called our umpires c***s and a consistent muttering now accompanied every ball bowled. The wicket keeper, the most respectable, bourgeois and middle aged of the lot, though undeniably a tory, led the way with a series of appeals off every ball regardless of where the ball ended up, or what had happened to it on the way there. The captain tried in vain to keep a lid on this puerile behaviour, but when you get 11 people who are used to being given everything on a plate all their lives, I suppose the prospect of impending defeat to the Old Alleynians, a side like you in mid table of the 3rd division, is about the most awful thing imagineable; except maybe a hose pipe ban or your daughter marrying a socialist. The whole atmosphere was now irredeemably poisoned. Norcross and Branson continued their partnership through the drinks break but with the score on 95, Norcross assayed one tired cut too many and the ball shot along the ground and hit the base of off stump. He had made 35 scratchy but vital runs and we were in a very comfortable position. 52 runs to win off 16 overs. Richard Evans now went out to join Branson and the scoring rate picked up. Caspar reached his fifty and was looking in great touch. Unlike Norcross the longer he bats the better he looks. Presumably just reward for his superior fitness. But suddenly and without any warning things went catstrophically pear-shaped. With 16 runs to win off 7 overs with eight wickets in hand, Evans got out, swiftly followed by Branson, caught at mid-wicket showing a touch of over-confidence. The Old Boys were now quivering with an excitement that suggested little else of pleasure must permeate the thick crust of mundanity which encases their tawdry lives. The appealing got more farcical and Mikshu’s rapid dismissal caught behind only served to initiate pandemonium. Andy Kojima, who had fallen asleep during the mammoth but none too exciting 2nd wicket partnership, now hurriedly arrived at the wicket to join the phlegmatic and very calm Aps. He had rather disconcertingly asked for instructions and Norcross tried to explain basic arithmetic and how it relates to a game of cricket in re runs required and overs remaining. Presumably he was hiding some sort of eyesight defect and this impression was confirmed when he failed to make meaningful contact with his first three balls. Off the last of these the wicket keeper held on to the ball until he left his crease to prod the pitch before throwing the stumps down. He could well have still been in his crease anyway but the raucous appeal that followed culminated in eight Old Boys charging to Andy Cannon at square leg to scream in his face, and was so laughable that the tension was strangely eased. Hitherto we had been struggling to square the circle. There was even a small part of us that thought the Old Boys’ behaviour could be understood as childlike over enthusiasm. This latest episode simply confirmed that our opponents were insane and pitiful (with the notable exceptions of the captain and opening bowler who had tried to maintain dignity throughout this absurd farrago). They didn’t have long to wait before claiming there next victim however. On this occasion Aps hit a perfectly decent drive down the ground to long-on and called for a run. Kojak who was losing his senses one by one, failed to respond at all and Aps was run out without Kojak leaving his crease. The rate now was 6 an over from the last two overs with four wickets in tact but Ramon unable to move his neck owing to a mystery injury he had picked up in the field and which he had diagnosed as incipient death syndrome. Nigel and Dingers made brave efforts but with no time to play themselves in it was always going to be unlikely and we ended up 8 runs short of the target. It was a wholly abject collapse, on a par with some of the worst excesses of our season to date. To have blown victory in that way was hard to take, and even harder given the behaviour of our opposition. Norcross tried to put a brave face on it and even managed a drink with his opposite number after the game but it was hard going. To think we were contemplating merging with these monsters hardly bears thinking about. And to think I had approved of such a plan! It was a great shame because so many had contributed well to our performance. Nigel and Dingers with the ball had been quite superb. Dingers’ 6-38 was a trully magical effort. Caspar had batted marvellously for his first club fifty and deserved better than a winning draw. Even Norcross had shown some pluck for once, and Evans cameo had offered promise, but we let ourselves down in the end. It was hard for the middle order having to come in in conditions marginally more unpleasant than a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and chasing anything can provide its own pressure. What we really lacked was Paul Kane ramming his kiwi insults back down their throats, but no matter. As Bill Woodfull once said to Plum Warner “there was only one team playing cricket out there today” and for not rising to the considerable bait we must take some pride. But next time boys, we’ll have the bastards good and proper; truss them up, rip off their heads and dig deep down into the foul putrifying morass of their torsos before waving their intestines and vital organs in front of their dying eyes. Suitably incensed we trouped off to the BBQ which was a magnificent success. Phil Ryder, Beth and Tina Clark had laid on a massive spread of salads and BBQ’ed meats and fish. The turn out was impressive and the atmosphere hugely convivial. Thanks to everyone for making such a great evening of it, and especially to Ditch who laboured for hours in the bar and the kitchens. Everyone got plastered and bitten to buggery by mosquitoes and it wasn’t until 1.30 that Norcross finally got home with a smashed Ralph and Danika. An amazing day, yes indeed!
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