Scorecard

Bridford v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Wed 01 Aug 2018 at 6.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 6 wickets

Match report Mark Hailwood reports…

As I hopped in the Ford Focus and set a course for the Teign Valley, I wondered to myself whether Elrond had originally hoped to send a full 11 into Mordor? A strong, well-balanced, fully-fit unit, selected from a large squad of candidates. Was he simply relieved in the end – after emailing around a few of the friendlier races asking for ringers, and getting Frodo and Sam to drag a couple of mates along – to have scraped together a Fellowship of 9? Just enough to make it a viable quest. If so, he would have been able to relate to this, and indeed all, Erratics selectors.

Of course, the moral of the story is that the 9 were a willing bunch, and they got the job done in the end. As did our rag-tag Fellowship. I opted to bowl first, and when Martin Wright had to leave the field in the 3rd over after an out-of-the-sun catching chance had not only evaded his grasp but split open his eyebrow, I briefly had just 7 fielders to marshal, and I only knew 4 of them.

But we all bonded quickly enough: after Siva and myself had delivered a steady opening, guests James MacGregor (of Lympstone) and Kishan Menghrajani (a friend of Siva’s) took over the reins, and both bowled with vim and vigour, with right and left arm respectively, and both had claimed 2 debut wickets before they were done. With Ferro and Trebs on to see us to the close it looked like we were going to restrict Brids to a shade under 120, but a late flurry from the hard-hitting wicket-keeping Scotsman, Staniforth, took them up to 137. Exactly what Crediton had scored against us the week before. When we had 11.

So, we had survived a potential disaster on a typically quick Bridford outfield, and 7 an over seemed plausible if Ferro and Wright could do most of the damage at the top of the order (no retirements made this possible). Chris batted with supreme technical efficacy, and as several cover drives – cut ‘n’ pasted from the textbook – raced across the outfield, we eased to 55 off the first 7 overs. But when one spat at Chris off a length and he was caught off his glove, and Martin holed out looking to go big, Brids were suddenly interested again.

MacGregor came in to bat at 3, but it turned out he had a fairly serious calf strain – making his willingness to turn out for us at short notice, and to send down 4 overs, all the more admirable. Bridford were happy to allow a runner, but with our shortage of men the only option was the just dismissed Martin, who himself was nursing a sore achilles (and that cut). As we know, he’s made of tough stuff too, and put in the leg work for what turned out to be a match winning 42 from MacGregor. When he was finally out in the penultimate over, the two wounded, bloodied warriors hobbled back to the Sir John Hole Pavilion to receive a heroes’ welcome from their small but already firmly bonded band of brothers.

Meanwhile, at the other end, Jack Heslop was taking his turn to make a memorable debut. He works with Matt Crawford – in flood engineering – and came along on the basis that he liked running and throwing, but had never actually played a game of cricket. Those long-suffering would-be swashbucklers who have never hit a career six, look away now. Jack’s stance looked ok, but after a couple of early swishes – and an understandable mix-up about what exactly a runner was that nearly saw him run out – Bridford’s skipper Johnny admitted in the pub later that he had Jack tagged as a walking wicket. But after easing himself in with a couple of well timed straight 4s, Jack quickly advanced to the status of big hitter, launching 3 huge and well-timed 6s back down the ground. He was eventually caught, but not before he had accumulated 30 runs. On debut. And hit more career sixes than all the Erratics watching on from the boundary combined.

There was a final twist, as James and Jack were both dismissed in the final few overs, and the run rate started to slow up as we approached the finish line: and we needed 3 to win from the last over. But the new boys came good again, with Kishan despatching a full toss for 4 with 3 balls to spare – exactly the same finish as at Crediton last week. It was fitting that the winning runs should come from the bat of one of our debutants.

Bridford were, as ever, good sports throughout, and a mound of ham and trough of chips back at the Bridford Inn rounded off their fine hospitality – and we reflected on the fact that this game, which had been within minutes of being called off when we were still 5 short on Monday night, had turned into a last over thriller that had a bit of everything. Mother Cricket had smiled on us – and especially our star reinforcements – for getting the game on.

A.N. Other was James MacGregor
A.N. Other1 was Kishan Menghrajani

Bridford Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 5 wickets
0
137 (20.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Mark Hailwood3.0016116.005.33
Sivaraman Subramanian4.001700.004.25
A.N. Other4.0031215.507.75
Kishan Menghrajani4.001728.504.25
Matt Crawford3.0040140.0013.33
Chris Ferro2.011300.006.50

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 4 wickets
0
140		        
Chris Ferro Caught  38 7
Martin Wright Caught  13 1
A.N. Other Bowled  42 8
Jack Heslop Caught  30 2 3
Kishan Menghrajani Not Out  6 1
Matt Crawford Not Out  0
Sivaraman Subramanian   1
Paul Molins   1
Mark Hailwood  
N.O. One  
N.O. Two  

Bridford Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.