Scorecard

Tipton St John v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sat 11 May 2013 at 2.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Lost by 6 wickets

Match report Mark Hailwood reports

This was my first visit to Tipton St John, and it makes its way straight on to my list of ‘pen it in the diary’ away fixtures for future years. Congenial opposition, a striking variety of tree specimen lining the boundary on one side, the ambling River Otter hugging it on the other, swifts and swallows aplenty, and a premium tea. The coffee and walnut cake gets the special mention: I’m sure it has accounted for many a below-pace first over after tea.

The sun refused to gild the lily by making an appearance, and it was under grey skies and in a stiff breeze that the Erratics lost the toss and were sent in. The pitch was a bit of a sponge, the ball played hard to get – refusing any invitation to come onto the bat – and attempts to force it over a slow outfield yielded meagre returns for the batsmen. Tipton knew the drill, and kept the pace off the ball and the line tight.

The Erratics laboured for little reward (your humble narrator, in early at number three, batted for over an hour for a paltry 10 runs – which brought to mind this classic piece of cricket journalism quoted in the Guardian this week: “he was not obviously thinking of runs, which came to him by a sort of interest on the time accumulated at the wicket.”) This could perhaps be dressed up as holding up an end, but there was little progress being made at the other to compensate for my slow rate. The most common dismissal was to pop the ball up to a fielder when trying to force the issue, although Lucky found a far more original way to fall. The ball squirmed off the inside edge of a defensive block, heading in the general direction of the stumps. As it happened the ball trickled harmlessly past off stump, but as Lucky made an instinctive attempt to kick away the danger his bat clattered the timbers and he was out hit wicket.

Martin Weiler looked as though he could provide some much needed impetus, but just as he began to find his rhythm with a couple of boundaries that oozed his characteristic class his innings was abruptly interrupted: adjudged out leg before by an umpiring team-mate who refused to let a big stride save him from a ball that hit the pad on the full (sorry Martin… I hope the ‘characteristic class’ comment serves as some compensation).

At drinks there were just 33 runs to show for 20 overs of toil, and not long after it looked like a truncated afternoon was on the cards (or a long one in the pub…) when we slid to 60-odd for 9. It was only then that Captain Kirby’s masterplan to reverse the batting order became apparent, and a rousing tail-wag by Molins the Younger and Suhaib added a remarkable 40-odd extra runs to our tally, thanks in part to some lusty sixes from the latter, and we were finally all out in the last over before tea, with 105 scored and some dignity and hope to go with our egg sarnies.

There was quiet optimism at the resumption – runs were not easy to come by, and we were armed with a strong pace attack. Trench warfare ensued. To a man the Erratics bowled fast and straight, and with Captain Kirby martialling his fields effectively (memorably instructing debutant Sooty to sweep) Tipton had to grind out every run. Most of which came courtesy of a more embracing disposition towards the quick – and often risky – single than we had managed to display (although had one of your humble narrator’s half a dozen shies at the stumps hit it might have helped to put the brakes on). Tipton were happy to tick along at just above the asking rate of 2.5 an over, presenting few chances off the bat, and in the end used up 36 of their overs to glean the necessary runs. The two metaphors that were doing the rounds had us ‘pecked to death’ and ‘submitted to Chinese water torture’.

Our hosts had plenty of praise for our fruitless efforts in the Golden Lion. Phil Tully was heard to say that his patient match-winning 50 was the hardest he had ever made, and if our batting won few plaudits our bowling attack was rightly commended – as Sooty quipped, it was a good job we hadn’t had to bat against ourselves.

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 10 wickets
0
105		        
Sooty Singh Caught  5
Nigel Rutherford Caught  9
Mark Hailwood Caught  10
Lucky Bandhu Hit Wicket  2
Mark Phillips Lbw  0
Martin Weiler Lbw  23
Jonathan Kirby Caught  6
Paul Molins Caught  1
Prakash Kripakaran Caught  0
Harry Molins Bowled  11
Suhaib Mohammed Not Out  29

Tipton St John Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Tipton St John Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 4 wickets
0
106 (36.1 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Suhaib Mohammed8.021427.001.75
Nigel Rutherford8.021300.001.62
Harry Molins7.0021210.503.00
Lucky Bandhu6.101900.003.08
Sooty Singh4.002300.005.75
Prakash Kripakaran3.001000.003.33