Scorecard

Stokeinteignhead v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sat 16 Apr 2022 at 1.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 115 Runs

Match report Match report by Martin Wright

Our traditional curtain-raiser to the season has two climatic moods: freeze-your-socks-off or seek-out-the-sun-cream. This year, the weather gods were smiling on us: a soft south-east wind without a hint of a chill, with the added bonus of wafting away any traffic noise.

Under the benign, bespectacled gaze of Skipper Hailwood, Erratics underwent some gentle warm-ups (none of your Harry Everett twice-round-the-boundary-and-look-lively-about-it-lads here), displaying varying degrees of athleticism / arthriticism, according to age and appetite, and then entered the fray. Or at least Rick Lindsay and myself did, as Skipper won the toss and elected (of course) to bat.

The most charitable description of the opening overs, from both a bowling and batting perspective, was that the unsung hero of many an Erratics innings, Extras, had clearly been putting in the hard yards on the training circuit: they displayed considerable flair on both sides of the wicket, helping get us off to something of a flyer.

Inspired by their example, Rick, too, unfurled some powerful shots, and I followed suit by aiming to launch Roger Putnam’s fourth ball back over his head and into Sunday. That brought Krupakar to the crease, soon joined by Chris Ferro, and the serious business of our innings got underway.

Chris opened his account by displaying precisely how I should have played Putnam’s slower one (stroke it calmly past mid-on for a couple, don’t lunge at it like an arthritic wildebeest), and there followed a relatively quiet period: with Extras off to make daisy-chains somewhere in the outfield, the bowling tight and on target, and the batters watchful, a sedate air settled over proceedings.

On the boundary, Annie took the opportunity to interrogate Fraser on his recent trip to Bristol. In considerable detail. “So what flavour was the ice-cream… OK, one scoop or two?”
Duncan, like father, like son, sought solace in stats. “Krups has now scored six twos…”.

Bees buzzed drowsily in the balmy afternoon.

The scoring rate slipped below four an over…

Then came drinks. Perhaps it was something in the fruit squash, or just a threatening gleam behind Skipper’s specs, but it was a different Krups ‘n’ Ferro who resumed, with the former signalling intent with one of his mighty trademark cover drives. Ferro too was more forceful, albeit gracefully so as ever, although he did (whisper it) loft a few over the infield.

Such brakes as there were, were applied by a succession of athletic subs, generously provided by Skipper (honourable mentions to Matt Crawford, Siva and Ben Yarde-Buller, among others).

Krups sent one skier dangerously close to ‘Bucket Hands’ Ben, who thoughtfully stepped aside to allow someone else to drop it. Eventually he perished to a fine catch from Putnam; Jonathan Kirby followed soon after, undone by an off break as excellent as it was unexpected, and Ferro, on reaching an unblemished fifty, wandered down the wicket to waft with such vagueness that all agreed it was a typically unselfish act of cricketing hari-kiri.

With time running out, Siva hammered his first ball for four, but soon perished to a sharp caught and bowled, while Matt was just plain bowled going for a pull shot that, on a wicket this slow, was optimism personified.

Fraser Chave held firm, stroking the ball into gaps for ones and twos before peppering the boundary, as did Oscar Cammack on the final ball of the innings, lustily dismissed to the fine leg rope.

And so we reached tea (yes, tea! – and plenty of it) with a healthy 211.

Well-refreshed, we took to the field, with an opening attack which was was a study in contrasts. Oscar was pacey and, like his batting, belligerent, but (unlike his batting) increasingly focused, progressing from testing the keeper to testing the batter. He bowled Hill with a beauty that moved late, and was unlucky not to pick up a second when Keeper Krups tipped an edge over the bar, so that a leaping (all right, slightly stretching) Wright at slip could only get his fingers to it.

At the other end, Hailwood was economy personified, delivering ball after ball of such nagging accuracy that a succession of Stoke batters found impossible to get away, and finishing with the ridiculously good figures of six overs, five maidens, three wickets for one run.

Ben rolled through his eight overs calmly as ever, and Matt, after a few balls that weren’t so much loose as positively debauched, found his line, getting some impressive turn which cleaned up Thakkur (or ‘Chacko’ as the scorebook records him, for all I know, accurately).

But the real stars of the innings were the fielders. Everyone was sharp, and the catching was superb. Rick took a blinder at cover off Hailwood to dismiss the dangerous looking Thornton-Clarke, and Jonathan Kirby flung himself to his right to account for Payne off the bowling of Ben – an achievement which Fraser kindly pointed out was all the more impressive considering the cumulative ages of bowler and catcher.

Head and shoulders above his peers, though, was Siva, with not one but four catches to his name. The man was a magnet: wherever the ball went aerial, there was Siva, ready to pounce and pouch. The cream of his crop was an excellent forward dive to dismiss the cream of Stoke’s batting, Hugo Longrigg, who’d made a fine 56 and was still threatening to take the game deep despite wickets tumbling at the other end.

It was fitting, then, that the coup de grace came from another Siva catch, with Stoke-in-T finishing on 96 – a brave effort, considering they were two men down, and had come up against Erratics in something approaching their pomp.

Annie Chave summed it up: “Weather; cricket; people – all good.”

And so to the Wild Goose, and, to the delight of my grand-daughter, Orelie (6), whose first cricket match this was....chips!





Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 33w 10b 2lb 
for 7 wickets
48
211		        
Richard Lindsay ct Putnam 18 31 2 58.06 1
Martin Wright b Putnam 11 30 1 36.67
Jayakrupakar Nallala ct Hayes 42 62 4 67.74
Chris Ferro b Longrigg 51 57 7 89.47
Jonathan Kirby b Hayes 7 13 1 53.85 1
Fraser Chave Not Out  22 17 3 129.41
Sivaraman Subramanian ct Payne-Hunt 6 9 1 66.67 4
Matt Crawford b Payne-Hunt 0 9 0
Oscar Cammack Not Out  6 7 1 85.71
Ben Yarde-Buller  
Mark Hailwood  

Stokeinteignhead Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
A Payne6.002900.004.83
B Payne-Hunt8.0038219.004.75
Chacko7.011700.002.43
R Putnam8.0039219.504.88
F Hill5.012800.005.60
P Hayes4.0027213.506.75
H Longrigg2.0021121.0010.50

Stokeinteignhead Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 6w 2b 1lb 
for 8 wickets
10
96 (26.4 overs)		     
F Hill b Cammack 2
P Hayes ct Siva B. Hailwood 3
A Thornton-Clarke ct Lindsey B. Hailwood 2
H Longrigg ct Siva B. Crawford 56
R Putnam ct Siva B. Hailwood 0
A Payne ct Kirby B. Yarde-Buller 7
Chacko b Crawford 12
B Payne-Hunt Not Out  3
T Treeby ct Siva B. Kirby 0
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Mark Hailwood6.05130.330.17
Oscar Cammack5.0020120.004.00
Ben Yarde-Buller8.0042142.005.25
Matt Crawford7.0129214.504.14
Jonathan Kirby0.40111.001.50