Scorecard

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics v Metronomes on Sat 09 Aug 2025 at 11.00am
Erratics Cricket Club Won By 80 runs

Match report Erratics vs Metronomes report by Jim Thomson
Saturday 9th August, 1100
According to their website, The Metronomes are “a motley crew of disparate cricket fans from Twitter, mostly complete strangers with a huge range of sporting abilities and experience” who have formed “a charity club to play in aid of autism.” The team take their name from the metronome that Jacob Coleman, the autistic son of two of the players, will often set ticking as a calming influence in times of stress. In 2022, Jacob’s mum Bex was invited to set up a charity game by Heaven Help Us CC. She had a fixture but no players. She posted a call for help on pre-X Twitter and was “bombarded with responses”. That match three years ago resulted in an enjoyable defeat where everyone got a chance to embarrass themselves.

And so, inevitably, to the game against the Erratics. A Metronomes team had been assembled from across the country – mostly from the south west, but also from Yorkshire, Wearside and the Home Counties. There was a lot of discussion through the day about how Luton were faring at Peterborough (they won two-nil) and how Jimbo Himsworth’s (and, of course, Chris Cook’s) beloved Middlesborough would handle the visit of the Swans (one-nil home win).

We started shortly after eleven o’clock, aiming to get the fixture completed in time for several of the Erratics to get to Jonathan and Gabriel’s ruby-wedding party in town. The Erratics batted first, with Fraser Chave and Rik Lindsay quickly settling into a grove against youngsters Nick Ollis and Mia Fitt. There was a fair amount of Fittness and Ollisity in the Metronomes side, with more than half of the team having one or other of those surnames. Graham Fitt, Mia’s dad, bowled flat off breaks, hurrying the batters at times, while Mia bowled seam-up and left-arm over, with control and a fair bit of that shape into the right handers that a left-arm seamer needs to succeed at levels way above what most of us will ever see. Nick Ollis started bowling right-arm outswingers and then came back later to bowl leg breaks. From the scoring table, the leg breaks looked as if they were the more effective.

Rik was still in good touch after the previous Saturday’s 147 not out, and hurried to a run-a-ball fifty and to retirement. Ginhoy Joseph, a Stokeinteignhead loan, came in at three and picked up a fifty of his own. Bernie Wilson was now bowling, having Fraser caught at wide mid off (for 44) and creating panic among the next-to-bat Erratics. He has an aura, does Bernie, an inexplicable one. He’s a gentle soul bowling gentle off breaks; but he seems to strike fear into the heart of batters. A year or two ago, Somerset’s Tom Lammonby was asked to name the bowler he least liked facing and he named Bernie. Not Mark Wood or Jofra Archer, not Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad. But Bernie Wilson. Makes you think.

Colclough came and went, but Chris Cook stuck around and, with help from Dhruba, Matt Crawford and Syed, another of the Stoke loans, helped the Erratics up to 260 off our 40 overs. It was a big score – skipper Duncan worried that it might be too much – but, as the Mystics had discovered a week earlier, it’s not easy to defend scores at Teign Valley.

Tea was excellent, with plenty for both sides and lots (especially lots of flapjacks) to spare. It was a slightly sluggish Erratics eleven that took the field. The third Stoke loan, Syam, opened the bowling. Syam and Ghinoy are Keralans, while Syed hails from Hyderabad. The three of them conversed mostly in Malayalam, the official language of the state of Kerala, though Syed’s first language is Telugu. I asked him how many languages he speaks and he counted (I think) seven, most of which were ones that I was only dimly aware of. It’s another reminder, if any were needed, of how linguistically limited and linguistically complacent most British people are. I sometimes feel quite proud that I can have a conversation in German, ask for directions in French (even if I don’t always understand the answer) and order two beers in Spanish and Italian. After talking to the Stoke polyglots, I felt rather less full of myself.

Anyway, the game. Syam bowled at a good pace, getting decent bounce through to Ghinoy behind the stumps. He bowled a few too many short balls, though, and Graham Fitt took full advantage. At the other end, Izzy Ollis looked like a well organised player, playing with care at Duncan’s Fisher-like gentle outswingers and occasional off breaks. Graham punished some bad balls from both opening bowlers, and Izzy hit some good boundaries of her own. After eight overs, I remember seeing that the score was 61 for none, and that the visitors were ahead of the required run rate. In truth, though, our score rarely felt as if it might be overhauled. The retire-at-fifty agreement meant that a team with only two or three likely high scorers would struggle to keep going at over five an over.

Hoping to maintain a high run rate, Duncan asked me to replace Syed at the far end. And I promptly removed both openers, which wasn’t the plan. Graham Fitt, who looked a decent player, hit a short ball straight at short extra, where Syed did everything right except hold the catch. A few balls later, another short ball drew a cut shot from Graham. Unfortunately for him, he went so deep into his crease to try to generate some power – the gentle delivery had none of its own – that he managed to dislodge the bail with the toe of his bat. Hit wicket bowled Thomson for 46.

Izzy Ollis then played an absolutely superb reverse sweep off me and then top edged an easy catch behind. It was starting to feel like one of those days where the wickets fall at one end while the better bowling is at the other. And Dhruba, at the sheds end, was bowling nicely without luck. Eventually, however, things started to go his way, and he picked up a couple of wickets. Matt came on to replace Dhruba and then Fraser in turn replaced him. Eventually. Duncan cajoled Peter Colclough into bowled. Peter’s first ball wasn’t promising, slipping out and ending up rolling towards where a backward short leg with a death wish might have stood. After that, though, things settled into a good rhythm reminiscent of his salad days as a bowler in the eighties. To this observer, who was there for both iterations of Colclough the bowler, there wasn’t really much to choose between the old and the new. The deliveries had a similar arc and the bowler a similar lack of belief in his right to be involved in this way. Cricket is for batting he implies with his bowling. The other similarity to my memory of Colclough the glory-decade bowler was that he took and kept taking wickets. In fact, he ended up with figures of 5-19 off five overs: his best analysis for the Erratics (including his 150th wicket for the club) and his first five-for almost 40 years. He finished off the innings by having Mia’s mother caught behind after I’d dropped her in Peter’s previous over.

The match was over by about half past four, which was too early for the Manor Inn to be open on a beautiful Saturday afternoon at the height of the summer. And so most of us made our way to the Teign House, where the Metronomes decided that they liked the look of the camping field. Ambitious plans for a two-day game in 2026 were hatched, fledged into talk of a multi-day “test match” and then were mercifully slaughtered by the realisation of how ancient backs might feel after a night or two facing the lure of the pub and the spartan conditions of a tent. The pub would have done well out of it, as would local osteopaths, chiropractors and physios; but a few slowly fading careers might have faded a bit faster.

Regardless of reality, however, I’d claim that the mere fact that players of both sides were earnestly talking about the idea of a longer game bears testimony to what a bloody good day this was. I strongly suspect that nobody was saying “let’s make this a two-day game in 2026” over a beer after the match covered in Mark Hailwood’s most recent match report. Hooray for the Erratics, for the Metronomes and for all of us still being sober and sensible enough not to commit to a two-day game and tents at the Teign House.

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
10nb 10w 5b 1lb 
for 4 wickets
26
260		        
Fraser Chave Caught  44
Richard Lindsay Retired Not Out  51
A.N. Other1 Retired Not Out  52
Peter Colclough Lbw  1
Chris Cook Bowled  36
Matt Crawford Not Out  20
A.N. Other2 Bowled  18
Dhruba Jyoti Goswami Not Out  13
A.N. Other3  
Duncan Chave  
Jim Thomson  

Metronomes Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Metronomes Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
8nb 14w 1b  
for 10 wickets
23
180 (35.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Duncan Chave4.003200.008.00
Dhruba Jyoti Goswami5.0021210.504.20
Jim Thomson8.0051225.506.38
Matt Crawford6.002900.004.83
Peter Colclough4.101953.804.56
Fraser Chave3.01616.002.00