Erratics Cricket Club Erratics v Mystics and Magicians on Sat 06 Aug 2011 at 2:40 PM

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Erratics Cricket Club Erratics v Mystics and Magicians on Sat 06 Aug 2011 at 2:40 PM
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 4 wickets

Match report Match Report: Peter Thomson

This was the 27th game between these two teams. Jim Thomson and I generally try to figure out the likely shaping of the match before we start; how do the teams compare? how can we best make it close? who’s getting the extra food to feed the hoards of mystic children? where’s the Chairman’s Cup? where’s the Chairman? will Sam Cook get to the ground?

The Mystics, we agreed, should bat first. There was a danger that the Erratics might not score enough to set a decent target. If Sam failed, who would get big runs? Is this unknown James Fox the stalwart Geoff Fox’s lovechild? (I didn’t dare ask him, but they’re not look-alikes.) How good is the nameless Indian Penny’s scraped up in Broadclyst at the last minute? (The answer, after the match, is that Vetri Shivakumar is very good – but I’m not sure how to spell him.) Can the Kirby/McRae lightning be expected to strike twice in a week? If only Douglas Haig had planned his battles as meticulously as Jim and I do..

The batting was opened by the father and son team of Duncan and Fraser Chave. Fraser had put on 80 with Matt Cook at St. Neot on Thursday, and Duncan was fresh from yesterday’s century at Lanhydrock, so I wasn’t optimistic. But the new ball was hooping about like a mating curlew. Dominic Prosser’s second ball to Duncan started off towards first slip, but veered late and was heading to fine leg when the stumps intervened. What a start! Dominic was on fire, and from the Moretonhampstead end, John Nagel pounded away unhittably – his action an uncanny, side-on reminder to ancient Erratics of the no-longer-inimitable John Rudlin. But it was Dominic who, having conceded a leg-side boundary to Fraser, bowled him and then the Mystics Chairman, Professor Matravers. Here’s an unusual thing: every mystic wicket to fall was clean bowled, one by Sam Cook and three by the relentless Vitray Kumar. (My left arm, as I write this report, is stained by a mottled bruise caused by his only loose ball.) The outstanding innings was Sid Thomson’s. Over 60 if my memory is accurate. I haven’t a scorebook to hand. There were some fine features among the Erratics’ fielding: Al Brunt absent-mindedly dropping a sitter like a man whose wife would never let him hold the baby; Andrew McRae stopping one at extra-cover, probably because he couldn’t think up yet another way of missing it; Jonathan Kirby missing one at backward point, for no better reason than that he’d stopped everything else.

Glory be, there was enough tea to feed the 45 assembled. I don’t know whether it was a good tea, because I didn’t have any. I can’t eat when I captain. It’s worse than that. I can’t eat when I play. But I had a batting order to determine. McRae and Heaton to open, Thistlethwaite at 8. That was the skeleton to be fleshed out. It went fine for a while, Jan Heaton elegantly cutting Chris Squire and Andrew exploiting the leg side, but when Jan went, soon to be followed by Al Brunt and Jonathan Kirby, I skulked off with my dog (or was I umpiring?) and thought of swallowing cyanide. What I hadn’t anticipated was that Andrew would bat better than I’ve ever seen him bat (pity his family had been driven off by wild dogs) and that Sam Cook would smite six 6s in a match-winning knock. By the time they were out, the game was effectively ours, and it was left to Dan Thistlethwaite to strike the winning runs. (It has to be said that it was generous of the Mystics and Magicians to see the event through to its end in a downpour that had driven Noah into flurried activity and the spectators into the pavilion. But it was sunny again by the time we got to the Royal Oak. It was generous of the Mystics, too, to complete the clearing up that the Erratics had forgotten about in the rain!).

[Note: The fifth Erratics bowler was James Fox, but the website won't let me enter his name for some reason.]

Mystics and Magicians Batting

Player name		Runs
extras TOTAL :	3nb 15w 10b 4lb for 7 wickets	32 184 (39.0 overs)

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player Name	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	Average	Economy
Dominic Prosser	9.0	2	41	3	13.67	4.56
John Nagle	10.0	0	25	0	0.00	2.50
Jan Heaton	5.0	1	25	0	0.00	5.00
Vetri Shivakumar	8.0	0	39	3	13.00	4.88
A.N. Other	2.0	0	8	0	0.00	4.00
Sam Cook	5.0	0	21	1	21.00	4.20

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting

Player Name		R
extras TOTAL :	1nb 3w 5b 1lb for 6 wickets	10 185
Andrew McRae	Caught	56
Jan Heaton	Caught	13
Al Brunt	Bowled	0
Jonathan Kirby	Bowled	12
Sam Cook	Caught	87
James Fox	Bowled	3
Vetri Shivakumar	Not Out	1
Daniel Thistlethwaite	Not Out	3
Dominic Prosser
John Nagle
Peter Thomson

Mystics and Magicians Bowling

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

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