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2nd XI Home
17th June 2000
Against:  Albury 146-5

Result: 

 Lost
Batting Bowling
1  Parkin D Caught  0  
2  Boultbee R Caught 1  
3  Patel M Caught 1
4  Norcross D * Caught 13
5  Dingwall I Caught 21 9-3-30-1
6  Hanna J Caught 6 4-0-13-1
7  Ryder P Caught 65
8  Cockett B Bowled 0 4-1-17-0
9  Baker R Bowled 17 12-1-36-1
10  Cannon A Not Out 5 16-7-43-2
11  Eyles A † Caught 0
Scorer:  Lynda Total 142
51.3 		All Out
overs
If you can keep your heads when all around are losing tails,
If you can bear the sound of telephones ringing on a Friday afternoon,
If you can smile whilst feckless dopes have sudden appointments
Or fail to be downhearted when all you trusted turned out to be
The shimmering mirage of pretended loyalty.
If you can stop everything you're doing and deal with another crisis
Of availabilities, and go a week without thinking about anything pleasant,
And still not shout or moan or cry or jump;
If you can still want to repeat the exercise despite what everyone promises
Week after week with no end in sight,
Then, my son, you shall be a captain at the Old Alleynian Cricket Club.

    This week began badly. After our convincing performance against Horley six of the players were unavailable. Ansbro was taking his last vacation, Clarke was snapped up by the 1sts, Thomas headed off on a romantic weekend to Copenhagen, Nabil didn't proffer an excuse, and Doud needed to get away after the exertions of the previous week. We thus lost most of our batting and our most consistent bowlers (Walker and Ansbro). We were playing Albury who were down near the bottom of the table and there was no contingency plan. Dollin Baker was keen to make a comeback, Parkin was showing great form for the threes and Tony Tampiyappa had impressed and was drafted in. Things were not pretty but a losing draw would be possible. On Thursday, Yappa decided he hadn't been told despite six witness accounts to the contrary and all of them, with the exception of Ryder, reliable sources. We were down to ten. On Friday lunchtime, Ramon called his skipper at work to tell him the bad news that father Dollin would also be unavailable due to "important appointments". Apparently he had tried very hard to get hold of Norcross earlier in the week but despite the fact that Norcross had been on a sofa watching Euro 2000 constantly for five days, and had taken a host of other calls in that time, it had been "Impossible" to make contact. Oh well, at least he had been given 23 hours notice; it should be no difficulty roping in two players on the day of the England Germany showdown which he himself naturally didn't give two hoots about and would far rather be humiliated somewhere near Hampshire with no chance of getting back in time for the game.
    At the party Norcross attended that Friday night good news reached him as he took two hours out to make phone calls from the loo. The mighty Zoob had secured the services of Ditch and John Hannah, returning after a two year absence. What we lacked in pure cricketing quality we would more than make up for in tactical wizardry. So finally, at 11.15, Norcross put his pieces of paper with names crossed out, re-written, crossed out again and cross referenced by mother's sister's mobile number, away and snatched a couple of hours of normal life. Naturally he was punished for such hubris the next morning when he discovered he had left his book of numbers at the party and would now have no way contacting Ramon or Ryder in case they got lost. Ridiculous, he thinks. You are just being paranoid. Not everything will go wrong. OK so your team deserts you, your replacements turn out to be unreliable and thoughtless and you've lost the book of numbers, but Ramon has been to Albury twice before and his father has given him detailed instructions; oh yes, and he has your mobile number. Chill out.
    Norcross arrived at the ground in good cheer. It was the hottest day of the year and Albury looked beautiful. The deep greens of the trees were picked out spectacularly against the dazzling blue of the sky. The hills undulated more than ever like Joan Simms' arse and our opponents weren't a bunch of vile yobs. If nothing else we would enjoy the day.
    Eyles, Dingwall, Boultbee, Parkin, Hannah and Cannon were all present and correct. Mikshu and Cockett were in the back of Norcross' car so that only left Ryder and Ramon with thirty minutes to kick off. The toss was immediately effected and yet again Norcross incorrectly called tails; not ideal under the circumstances but not necessarily catastrophic. As the clock gradually ticked round to 1.30 it became clear that Ryder would not be ready to start the innings so yet another new opening paring of Boultbee and Parkin strode to the crease. Whatever you do Dave, said Norcross, stick around. Our batting is thin and Dingwall is coming in at five. It's up to the top order to bat all day. With these words of encouragement ringing in his ears, Parkin took guard and followed his skipper's instructions to the letter for the opening exchanges. Having played himself in he then wafted at his third ball and was caught at gully for nought. A brief spate of cursing from Norcross was followed by similar instructions to Patel. He showed greater application before leaving his bat out to dry in the third over. 1-2, Patel nought.
    Now I don't know how the rest of humanity deals with these trifling disappointments but Norcross tends to weep, inwardly, deeply and for about four days. Boultbee at the other end was a surprisingly cogent voice of sanity amidst the mayhem and was defending his body bravely from bowling that was exploiting a terrible pitch. As ball after ball spat and jumped, Boultbee leaned forward and angled his bat down or took the ball on his sturdy frame. There was a brief moment of alarm when he turned the ball off his thigh for a single which hadn't been part of the script, but soon he retrenched. With such unruffled calm for company Norcross was almost able to tear his eyes off the drive way which he had been fixated with from the beginning of his innings. It's an odd thing you see, but when you're 1-2 with no batting to come except your opener and its 1.50 and you're playing your relegation rivals and two players have still not arrived, it can be hard to concentrate on the next ball. In fact you find yourself concentrating on the very delicious image of Dollin, Yappa, Ryder and Ramon all working as holiday reps for club Old Tory Git being let down by coach operators, Greek hotel managers and flight cancellations. As time passes and still no Ryder or Ramon emerges the images change to firing squads in Guatemala with Norcross pulling his bandana and beret down just above his eyes before delivering the chilling order to fire at their scrotums.
    Runs were far from easy to come by but Norcross was making a brave stab at it. Five times he struck the ball to within an inch of the boundary. But then it all became too much. Having been hit just above the heart and twice on the left index finger he assayed a mighty off drive and feathered it behind; 16-3 Norcross 13, Boultbee 1 not out, 13 overs. Dingers now joined Boultbee and suddenly appearing across the horizon was Ryder. His boiler had exploded and Beth needed him to sort it out. The excuse seemed plausible and he looked genuinely distraught. Ryder's balls would be saved. Boultbee's concentration was clearly affected by this sudden upturn in our numbers and he uncharacteristically got the bat to the ball, which subsequently ballooned to hand. 22-4. Hannah flattered to deceive briefly before Ryder finally made it to the wicket at about the same time Ramon arrived looking sheepish. "My dad gave me terrible directions. He sent me to Sevenoaks. Sorry Dan." That's alright then.
    Now things started to go weirdly right. Dingers and Ryder struck lusty blows, the Albury fielders began looking tired and we even managed to injure one of their better players, sending him to hospital and resulting in us having more players than them. Just as we began to dream Dingers was out to a woeful arial drive, and Cockett was bowled first ball. 66-7, Ryder 21 not out. Now Ramon joined Ryder and Norcross watched on forgivingly as they compiled a stand of 62. Ryder played excellently, hitting out discriminately and decisively. Ramon cleverly picked the right balls to drive and the ones to defend. They even ran between the wickets, and Norcross felt a mild twinge of guilt at having wished them both such ill only 40 minutes previously. Eyles it was who broke the partnership with a crass piece of declaration speculation. Within minutes Ramon was bowled by a very slow, Marchant-esque, looper. Ryder and Cannon proceeded sensibly to 142-8, then Ryder smashed a full toss to midwicket. His innings had saved us from humiliation and even put us in with an outside chance of victory. Eyles promptly wafted irresponsibly and was caught for his customary but hugely amusing duck and we were dismissed for 143 in 51.3 overs. This represented unimaginable riches and prompted the thought that Ryder and Baker should be excused duties for the first hour of matches henceforth.
    As usual we now convinced ourselves that the pitch was so spiteful that our poor opponents would not stand a chance against our devastating pace attack of Cannon and Ramon. Sadly they looked rather comfortable for the first eight overs as our erstwhile opening bowlers sprayed the bowl both sides of the wicket. Indeed all early optimism had evaporated in the sun when Cannon unleashed an over of such terrifying hostility that even Michael Holding at Barbados in 1981 would have been hard pressed to better it. Two spiteful kicking deliveries rapped the batsman on the gloves before a genuine bouncer whistled past his dilated nostrils. Then he was brought forward only to be struck again and finally a full length fast one outside off stump jagged back in, caught the inside edge and rattled into his off stump. 21-1 but with a man in hospital. Cannon was buoyed by the scent of blood and now produced his best spell of the year bowling unchanged for 12 overs. Though unable to recreate quite the magic of that monumental over, he was nonetheless hostile and hard to get away. At the other end Dingwall was having a nightmare. Albury had sent on their secret weapon; a pompous buffoon with more than a passing resemblance to Emlyn Hughes who insisted that his atrocious LBW decisions (i.e. lack of them) were entirely justified because he was a registered umpire (Javed Akhtar and Shakoor Rana were not I take it), and if Dingers continued to appeal in that way (boing boing, grimace snarl) he would be getting no decisions. The beauty of this logic and boldness with which Emlyn presented it ensured that Dingers had to be replaced. Cockett tried manfully but with so few runs to play with Ramon was summoned back for a second spell. Hanna replaced Cannon and took a wicket with an awful long hop and was swiftly replaced by the towering Cannon. Throughout we were picking up wickets but never with sufficient regularity and Albury limped to victory with two overs and four wickets to spare but not before Hanna pulled off stunning catch and Ryder a couple of excellent ones. Relations between the teams soured somewhat after the intervention of Emlyn but all in all the game had been played in a decent spirit.
    Our failure to bat out the last 3 and a half overs of our innings seemed to have cost us dear, but humiliation had been avoided. The sadness is that we are better than them, and with anything approaching reasonable commitment from grown men who should know better, we would have at least secured a losing draw, probably better. We are in danger of relegation now, this loss putting Albury 15 points clear of us and two go down. If we are banished to the Belching Fumes Croydon and Ugly Places District League we will have only ourselves to blame. For this there is a collective responsibility and it really is up to the people who care about playing to pull their fingers out, say no to another day pottering about some lousy craft fair with their girlfriends, or seeing their grandmothers off at airports, and commit themselves. For this particular debacle special thanks must be given to Tony Tampiyappa and Dollin Baker who are suspended from league duties until such time as the rest of the squad's unreliability forces me to grovel again; but the situation generally is unacceptable. We have used nearly thirty players this season and very few are playing regularly enough to find any sort of rhythm, with the notable and thankful exception of Dingwall, Eyles, Ryder, Ramon, Patel and lesserly Cannon and Thomas. Next week the team is looking much stronger, and Paul Kane finally returns from injury, but if we are to get out of this mess we have to have our best players playing week in week out starting now. Time is running out and I will not play at Purley Electrics next year.
    On a brighter note, we beat the Germans in the evening and I got wasted in the woods. If any of you absentees have developed agonising stomach pains and prickly eyes, voodoo works.

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