Scorecard

Clyst St George v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sun 22 Jun 2014 at 2.30pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 4 wickets

Match report Report by Mark Hailwood

501 and all that.

Well, well – it turned out to be another unexpectedly memorable afternoon besides the A376. For the second time in a fortnight the Erratics chased down an opposition total with just one ball to spare. Apparently, we are becoming specialists in 'clutch' situations, as baseball terminology would have it. At Nomads the previous week the winning runs were met with relief as much as anything, as we scraped home with a scampered single to chase down a meagre 85 for our only 20 over win so far this year. It was a rather more glorious moment at Clyst on Sunday when Nigel Rutherford drove through the covers to take the Erratics total to a match winning 251. Broad grins, rather than sheepish ones, were the facial expression of choice on this occasion.

There were plenty of smiling faces at the start of the afternoon too as we arrived at a ground baking in sunshine. Just two weeks earlier at Kentisbeare we had played through the rain showers on a damp pudding of a pitch – most definitely spring cricket still – but the rapid onset of the English summer meant this game felt more like a parched Oval Test Match, with a hard , fast and bouncy wicket to match. With the ball coming onto the bat and a fast outfield it was a rare treat for the perennially disadvantaged Devon batsman to get appropriate remuneration for his or her scoring shots. It was an invitation that Clyst's openers – who were batting first after 'negotiations' between the captains – greedily accepted.

It could have been so very different. Early on Nigel Rutherford induced a mistimed drive from Harry Attwater which sailed straight to mid-off. Captain Ferro was in position, but to the shock of all the chance inexplicably went down. But as we wandered between our fielding positions at the end of the over, with heads still shaking in disbelief, all became clear: Ferro dashed off the pitch to fetch a bowl of sand and a pint glass, and proceeded to fill in a rabbit hole at mid-off that had clearly distracted his attention from the catch. It was particularly unsporting, he noted after the game, for the rabbit to have shouted 'drop it' at the crucial moment…

As time wore on the skipper may have wished he had disappeared down the rabbit hole instead, for Clyst built an opening partnership that seemed to last for an age. As the sun beat down upon us the bowlers toiled away, but the copious sweat of their brows secured little reward, with Attwater and Middleton offering powerful drives and well-judged singles respectively to keep the scoreboard rattling along. Suhaib – making a welcome appearance despite having two babies due this summer, a real one and his thesis – eventually made a breakthrough bowling Attwater for 84 with a leg stump yorker. And as anyone who listens to Fiery on TMS often enough will know, 'wun brings tooo', and so it was, as Ben Youngman got a well-deserved wicket for an excellent spell of back of a length quick stuff, with Middleton driving to Ferro at mid-off – unimpeded by leporine interference this time making a smart catch of a dipping ball – agonisingly out for 49. Ben followed up with another wicket shortly after, and it looked as though a quick mop up of the middle order and tail might just reign Clyst in. Instead another aggressive half-century followed from Clyst skipper Dan Takle, and by the time we finally took tea at 5.20 we were hot, tired, and 250 runs behind.

Just 3 wickets and 250 runs conceded was a cruel return for the gutsy efforts of our bowling attack, and Nigel, Varun, Ben, Suhaib and Rob all earned their slice of swiss roll. Your humble narrator, however, had endured a rather chastening bowling spell, and whilst rather grumpily shovelling down an egg sandwich put a dampener on the optimism of Varun and Suhaib by declaring to them that 250 was too much for the Erratics to chase. But it's a funny old game.

Refreshed by a slice of pineapple and some hay fever medicine, your narrator took to the field with Martin Wright to set to work on building what was to become an epic Erratics innings. The required rate was a shade over 6, and as it was a 40 over game rather than timed we had no option but to chase it. What followed was a pleasingly collective effort, built around a series of archetypal cameos: Hailwood made a trademark 'promising start' of 16 before edging behind looking to press on; Martin Wright added a useful 23 playing 'tip and run' before falling to an unlucky run out; Danny Williamson played with exuberance, hitting some flourishing back foot drives before top edging to the keeper for 16; Martin Weiler hit 15 of the most sweetly and characteristically timed runs to keep things moving; and Jonathan Kirby performed some pirouette pulls and bottom hand smashes to add 19 before, like Weiler, being caught out trying to keep up with the rate. It was almost like watching an Erratics 'Best Bits' DVD.

And as all these cameos played out at one end, there was another quintessentially Erratics innings taking place at the other. The master craftsman was at work, carving out another monumental knock. Chiselling out single after single, moulding the field to suit his designs, and decorating the scene with regular boundaries crafted from precise timing rather than aggression, Captain Ferro provided the sure hand on the tiller to keep the Erratics on course.

If you will excuse the clumsy transition between clunky metaphors, it looked at one stage that for all this effort the good ship Erratics would run aground, as young Freddie Creer – one of a pair of 12 year old twins turning out for Clyst – bowled an excellent spell of leg break that proved difficult to get away. The storm was weathered, but by the time he was withdrawn from the attack the rate, which had been maintained for much of the innings, had crept up to 9 an over. The equation was 90 off the last 10. The Erratics kept scampering singles and finding the boundaries though, and when Kirby departed for the 5th wicket there were 56 needed off 6. Enter the hero of the hour, Nigel Rutherford.

When Nigel dead batted the first few deliveries the Clyst fielders might have wondered if he was aware that the rate was still 9 an over. They were not left wondering for long, and soon he was on the attack, bludgeoning the ball to all corners. If Ferro is the medieval master craftsman, Rutherford is the Saxon warrior: strength, aggression and a cool head in the heat of battle. He put Clyst to the sword. Looking to plug the gaps their left arm seamer, S Cooper, suggested taking out mid-off as he 'hadn't hit one straight yet' . The next ball soared back over his head and thwacked into the sight screen for 6. Suddenly the equation was 18 off 18 balls. Just a run a ball needed, and for the next 9 balls they came.

Of course, as soon as it looked like we were home and dry there was another twist. In the penultimate over Ferro popped up a caught and bowled, and was on his way back to the pavilion for 88. Two dot balls followed, and 9 were needed off the final over. As palms sweated and bums squeaked, Rutherford took a moment to wipe the perspiration from his spectacles with the umpire's coat – 'that's better, I can see now'. With his vision cleared he drove the first ball of the over for 4, the next for 2, the third for a single. 1 to tie and 2 to win. Suhaib, having only faced 2 balls previously, did remarkably well to time the next shot perfectly to get through for a single to level the scores. 500 runs had been scored in the match, and all that was left was for Nigel to stroke a glorious drive through the covers to seal a memorable Erratics run-chase.

I'd like to say there were scenes of jubilation in the dressing room, but high-fives, whooping and champagne-spraying are not really in the spirit if Erraticism, so we politely congratulated each other with smiles and hand-shakes, before enjoying a round of shandies and J2O's on the pavilion porch as a purple sun slowly set over the Exe estuary. It had, Chris recounted, turned out to be a rather different Erratics v Clyst fixture to that of 1984, when David Salter had killed cricket. After this sun-soaked, ebullient run-fest it felt like we had gone some way to making amends for that dark day in our history.

Clyst St George Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 3 wickets
0
250 (40.0 overs)		     
Attwater b  Mohammed 84
Middleton ct  Ferro b Youngman 49
Takle Not Out  67
Cox b  Youngman 11
Welsh Not Out  17
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Varun Kothamachu7.013600.005.14
Nigel Rutherford8.003700.004.62
Suhaib Mohammed8.0143143.005.37
Mark Hailwood5.004900.009.80
Rob Scott4.002700.006.75
Ben Youngman8.0044222.005.50

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 6 wickets
0
251		        
Mark Hailwood ct  Welsh b Cooper, S. 16
Martin Wright Run out  23
Chris Ferro ct  and b Cooper, S. 88
Danny Williamson ct  Attwater b Creer, F. 16
Martin Weiler ct  b Takle 15
Jonathan Kirby ct  b Takle 19
Nigel Rutherford Not Out  40
Suhaib Mohammed Not Out  1
Varun Kothamachu  
Ben Youngman  
Rob Scott  

Clyst St George Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.