Scorecard

Tedburn St Mary v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sun 12 Oct 2008 at Unknown
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 9 runs

Match report The artificial wicket at Tedburn is set at an angle to the pavilion, and the effect of that angle is to put pavilion spectators at risk of having their heads knocked off by a right-hander’s pulled six from the bottom end. It’s a very short boundary there, and a very long one down the hill on the other side of the wicket. The other drawback is that the pavilion is positioned in the only part of the ground that’s shielded from the October sun (it was a glorious enough day to tempt Al Brunt, after his comparatively early dismissal, to betake himself to a bench in the children’s playground in order to catch up on his Book Club reading of V.S.Naipaul’s A Bend in the River – he’s under threat of expulsion from the Club if he falls short in yet another item of assigned reading).

Chris Ferro won the toss and sent Al Brunt and Sid Thomson to open the innings. Sid set us off with a cover-driven four in the first over and Al struck a sudden six over extra cover in the fourth. But the bowling was always accurate. There aren’t many among our opponents who can supply up to eight bowlers who seem to know how to bowl straight. Tedburn had the edge over us in that department. It was the partnership of Matt Cook and Sid which set us up with a decent score. Matt was in cracking form, and Sid knows how to give his partner the strike. We were scoring at above six an over while the two of them were there, and Paul Molins kept up the momentum after Sid was bowled. But we wobbled quite a bit after Matt became the third of our batsmen to be clean bowled. Martin Weiler surrendered to one of the Tedburn skipper’s lobs (I didn’t see this, as I’d just retreated to the changing room to don my whites, but Jonathan Davies alerted me to it by coming in with a cheerful face and an ominous ‘the collapse begins’ – a bit harsh, I thought, with Chris Ferro on his way out to bat). As things turned out, even Chris was finding it tough to get the ball to the boundary, and our new man, Andrew Crawford, seemed entirely disinclined to score runs. He’s invented a new way of batting, which involves leaving the feet stock still and lightly pivoting the hips to enable the bat to swing to and fro like an autumn leaf about to fall in a gentle breeze. Having, at one stage, looked like reaching 240, we ended up with a scoring rate of 4.75 and a recognition that we’d have to bowl well.

And did we bowl well? Half and half, I’d say. Chris Ferro had a lot of juggling to do. From the top end, with the pavilion boundary a spit away from the right-handers, he started with James Burrows for five overs, following him with Matt Cook for four, himself for eight and then James again to bowl the last three. Meanwhile, from the bottom end, he bowled Jonathan Davies (fresh from two months off to complete his PhD on the causal effects of Mazur’s taming of Alexander’s wild-horned sphere) for his full eight overs, then John Pearson for his eight and Matt Cook for the last four. That’s what a PhD in statistics can do for you. It was the only way we could have won. Jonathan and John mingled good-length deliveries with unseemly aberrations, and I have the impression that their combined overs went for over a hundred. [I should confess that I haven’t the scorebook with me, and I’m writing this from memory. I think Matt and John took two wickets, James took one and Chris probably three – and there was one run-out neatly managed by Martin Weiler and Jonathan.] As for me behind the stumps, against the setting sun and with the dark ball coming out of the trees, I was keeping blind to the last six overs from the top end.

It was a hard-earned victory and a splendid game of cricket, played in the best of spirits. The Red Lion opened early to accommodate the cricketers, and sandwiches were supplied along with a fine pint or two of Cotleigh’s Tawny, and I drove Chris Ferro back through a mist that deepened at moments into genuine fog. It put Chris in mind of the road to Inverness, and reminded me of the evening approach to Kenilworth, when I walked in front of my father’s car to guide him to the Methodist chapel where he was scheduled to preach.

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 11w 5b 4lb 
for 7 wickets
23
190		        
Al Brunt b N Lewis 11 1
Sid Thomson b Barlow 20 1
Matt Cook b Faraday 68 11
Paul Molins ct Faraday 24 2 2
Martin Weiler ct Baker 0
Chris Ferro b Coren 36 4
A.N. Other ct Coren 2
Jonathan Davies Not Out  3
James Burrows Not Out  3
John Pearson  
Peter Thomson  

Tedburn St Mary Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
N Lewis4.0033133.008.25
G Lewis5.002100.004.20
Branton8.012600.003.25
Barlow5.0132132.006.40
Faraday6.001929.503.17
Baker2.0019119.009.50
Dowle6.011800.003.00
Coren4.001728.504.25

Tedburn St Mary Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 12w 2lb 
for 8 wickets
17
182 (40.0 overs)		     
A Coren Run out  17
G Lewis b Cook 24
Fereday st Pearson 36
Branton ct Ferro 33
P Coren b Ferro 3
Baker b Ferro 1
Leach b Pearson 2
N Lewis ct Burrows 13
Risdon ct Cook 15
Barlow Not Out  7
Dowle Not Out  3

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
James Burrows8.0025125.003.12
Jonathan Davies8.015200.006.50
Matt Cook8.0024212.003.00
John Pearson8.0041220.505.13
Chris Ferro8.0030310.003.75