Scorecard

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics v Dartington on Sun 24 Jul 2022 at 2.30pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 111 Runs

Match report Mark Hailwood reports...

Cricket. It’s a funny old pastime. What other leisure activity would see a civil engineer and a university lecturer spend an hour of their weekend willingly picking up sheep shit? Due to an ovine invasion from the neighbouring field, that was the ground preparation task facing us as we arrived early at Teign Valley for the visit of Dartington.

Sheep produce a remarkable variety of ‘outputs’, from rabbit-style droppings, to cow-pat-esque splats that adhere to the grass and then break up to reveal a lurid green when disturbed. And this variety goes hand in hand with productivity; the entire outfield was liberally topped with deposits.

It was a relief when the rest of our team arrived and ‘mucked’ in, so to speak. And to the credit of all, but especially Matt, the playing area was pretty much completely cleared by the time we started: no cricket whites-sheep shit interfaces were reported by any fielders.

Anyway. Those expecting a repeat of the run-fest witnessed in our opening home game against Newton Pop were to be disappointed today, with the surface playing much more like a treacherous Teign Valley wicket of old, offering unpredictable bounce of both the low and high varieties.

Not an easy set of circumstances for an opening pair, but Forrester and Hailwood were willing to be heroes. The latter, however, proved unable. After taking a blow to the neck from opening quick Nikeel (no damage done – not even a showy bruise) I edged a cut to an unfairly athletic slip fielder. Andrew persisted though…

***
Here follows a homage to old school opening:

A glance at the scorecard doesn’t do justice to his contribution to our total. He made just two, and it was a very slow two at that. But it was a difficult track, and he met with highly accurate bowling, which took no little skill to negotiate. As the scorecard shows, we had to use a lot of our wickets to battle our way to our total, and no one was ever safely in. An early dismissal of Andrew and things could have gone downhill fast. As it was, by the time he perished – also cutting to slip – a good portion of the best bowling had been nullified, and those who followed would benefit from the opener’s earlier restraint. A timely reminder that averages ain’t everything.
***

One of the great things about the Erratics current run of good form is that contributions are coming from a wide cast of characters. This was another decidedly team effort. All of the remaining batsmen were judiciously aggressive, chipping in with a few boundaries and scampered singles before the ball-with-their-name-on inevitably came calling. Matt filled his boots with hooks and pulls behind square; Chris buried a satisfying six in the hedges; Oscar hammered a mighty blow that heralded his growing powers. After an eventful 40 overs of shooters, spitters and smashes we were quite pleased to reach 167.

Tea had been rather hastily procured that morning, but it didn’t show – the Cammacks in particular made sure hosts and visitors alike couldn’t possibly go hungry. What a pleasure it is to be scoffing teas again.

Despite the first innings totalling precisely 40 overs, this was a timed game, so we had to bowl Dartington out to be victorious. This was a pitch that made that seem entirely possible. Inside intel from Chris – both he and Phil ‘play away’ for Dartington, the latter doing so for this game – made it clear that they had 3 or 4 batsmen who could nonetheless take this game away from us if they got going. On top of that they had Jon Bev playing for them, making a guest appearance on a visit home from Colorado. It was a brief visit, sadly, as his pull shot was set to ‘Colorado bounce’ – too high for Oscar’s top-of-off delivery that duly skittled him. It set the tone for what followed.

Anuj and Oscar’s tight opening spell piled the pressure on, and first change bowlers Chave and Hailwood then reaped the rewards, picking up regular wickets as the visitors struggled to adjust to the wiles of the Lower Ashton track. The exception was Dartington’s wicket-keeper, who had taken a leaf out of Andrew’s book – was he tipped off by a fellow member of the keeper’s union? – who battled away to carry his bat through the innings as partners came and went. It took just 17 overs to dismiss the 10-men of our opponents, with Phil the last to fall unable to resist the urge to try and launch Fraser into the bushes, only for another one to keep low.

We pottered around to the Manor, as you do, which seems to have the effect of cheering up even the most heavily-defeated of opponents. We’ve got two visits to them coming up later this season, so they will have plenty of opportunity for friendly revenge when home advantage is in their favour. But it is a novel thing to be able to write in an Erratics match report that home advantage underpinned one of our victories. I’ve been waiting a long time to write that, and it does feel mighty good, sheep shit ‘n’ all.

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
7nb 25w 18b 1lb 
for 8 wickets
51
167		        
Mark Hailwood Caught  5 1
Andrew Forrester Caught  2
Fraser Chave Lbw  26 4 1
Peter Colclough Lbw  10 2
Matt Crawford Bowled  26 6
Chris Cook Caught  20 2 1
Jonathan Kirby Caught  16 2
Ben Yarde-Buller Not Out  9 1
Anuj Tiwari Stumped  0
Oscar Cammack Not Out  4 1
N.O. One  

Dartington Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Dartington Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 8 wickets
0
56 (17.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Anuj Tiwari4.01800.002.00
Oscar Cammack4.0022211.005.50
Fraser Chave5.021142.752.20
Mark Hailwood4.01723.501.75