Clyst St George v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sat 24 Apr 2010 at 14.00

Forgot password?
Register
Login

Scorecard

Clyst St George v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sat 24 Apr 2010 at 14.00
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 54 runs

Match report [Photos not yet uploaded; Peter Thomson Capt and WK]

Match Report by Peter Thomson

It was on this ground that I played my first game for the Erratics in the early autumn of 1974. That was 36 years ago, and I was 36 years old at the time – which means that I’ve now, for the first and only season, been an Erratic for exactly half of my life (time and maths have their symmetries, which reason knoweth not). The great thing about this particular Saturday was that April was in happy disguise as July, and the game was played, for the most part, in sunshine. (It was, I think, in an April of the 1970s that our match against Newton St Cyres was snowed off.)

We didn’t so much toss as negotiate for first innings. Given an unusually accomplished Erratics line-up, wisdom dictated that we should bat; so Duncan Chave and Chris Mellett went out to set our season on its way. This is probably the point at which to record the fact that the three Christophers in our team – Mellett, Ferro and Squire – contributed, between them, 40 runs, of which Chris Ferro scored 40. Chave and Martin Wright carried the score, serenely enough, to and beyond 50 before Duncan was improbably caught (back to front and over his head) by an elasticated Clyst sprog called Nick, at which point I muttered to Chris Ferro – about to bat – that we could do with a few runs. ‘Yes’, he said, ‘ we want 200’.

It was during his partnership with Martin Wright that we started taking singles. (I’ve long suspected my son-in-law (Duncan) of a disdainful attitude to the humble one.) Watching Martin Wright bat is like reading P. G. Wodehouse on cricket. I half expect to see Bertie Wooster on the boundary. We could pass him off to unwary members of the opposition as a love-child of the Duke of Norfolk. Not so much when he’s convulsively lofting the ball over mid-on as when he’s lunging forward in a defensive push that ends in a flourish as elegant as Sir Plume’s with his amber snuff-box. He’d notched up 41 before he was inadvertently out. That brought in our welcome ringer, Pete Weatherhead, a man so tall that both his bat and his legs have difficulty in reaching the ground. Opting to leave the scoring to Pete, Chris Ferro guided a catch into the hands of a pig-tailed pirate on the boundary, and Chris Squire, unwilling to deny an innings to Armaan Malhotra on his Erratics debut, obligingly avoided making contact with a straight one from an undeniably promising youngster on the Randall Johnson production line of Devonian cricketers. So it was an Anglo-Indian partnership that took us through to the end of our 40 overs, with Pete thumping four sixes on his way to 44 and Armaan doing his level best to complete a three that initially looked beyond him.

What an excellent tea! Now what? Well, James Burrows conceded one run and took one wicket in his first five overs, and I couldn’t afford to bowl Pete Weatherhead for more than four overs because he threatened the Clyst batsmen in a way that’s very rare on Devon wickets. The ball with which he bowled their skipper carried a bail right out to the boundary, and he was regularly getting it to lift off a length as if we were playing on the WACA pitch in Perth. Thank God James Burrows had bought a new pair of wicket-keeper’s gloves: in the old pair, I’d have felt like a man trying to hold back a tornado with a raspberry jelly.

It was John Curtis who provided the light relief. Bowling from the bottom end in dark glasses (so as to prevent the batsman from knowing that he keeps his eyes shut from the moment he starts his amble-up until he’s delivered the ball), he embarked on eight overs of what, in theatrical circles, is known as improvisation. At the highest level – and this is the level at which John operates – improvisation replaces thought with impulse. The skilled improviser never decides what he’s going to do until he’s done it. So it is that John is always surprising himself and sometimes the batsman. What’s chiefly notable about our performance in the field is that all the six bowlers we used took at least one wicket (Armaan Malhotra took 3), that we held on to four good catches (two to Pete, one to Armaan and a blinder to Duncan at slip) and that we dismissed Clyst well inside the 40 overs.

After the game, my two sons-in-law took me to the Mount Radford to listen to a scar (sic) band. (I’m not certain what this is, but they wear hats.) Meanwhile I’m adjusting myself to the information that Chris Ferro, like Duncan Chave, Chris Cook and the two sous-chefs, will be playing league cricket for Clyst St George on Saturdays. What’s that saying about beating and joining?

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting

Player Name		Runs
extras TOTAL :	7nb 24w 6b for 5 wickets	37 198
Duncan Chave	Caught	28
Chris Mellett	Bowled	0
Martin Wright	Caught	41
Chris Ferro	Caught	40
Pete Weatherhead	Not Out	44
Chris Squire	Bowled	0
Armaan Malhotra	Not Out	8
Nick Birbeck
James Burrows
John Curtis
Peter Thomson

Clyst St George Bowling

Player name	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	Average	Economy
No records to display.

Clyst St George Batting

Player name		R
extras TOTAL :	3nb 9w 6b 5lb for 10 wickets	23 144 (31.2 overs)

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player Name	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	Average	Economy
James Burrows	7.0	4	13	2	6.50	1.86
Pete Weatherhead	4.0	3	3	2	1.50	0.75
John Curtis	8.0	1	47	1	47.00	5.88
Armaan Malhotra	7.0	0	43	3	14.33	6.14
Duncan Chave	3.2	0	12	1	12.00	3.60
Chris Ferro	2.0	0	6	1	6.00	3.00

Photos and video of Clyst St George v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sat 24 Apr 2010 at 14.00

Scorecard