Scorecard

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics v Heads & Tails on Sun 01 Oct 2017 at 1.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 7 wickets

Match report George Cockburn reports...

The Erratics’ first pilgrimage of Tedburn-tober was all about *Stokesey. Already the Desperate Dan figure among the England team (the foil to Joe Root’s Milky Bar Kid), with feats of strength and solid dependability to rely on, Stokesey is certainly a jenga piece in his teams. He made his debut for Erratics and took full responsibility as the captain.

*Stokesey captained expertly and guided the Erratics gently in his (open) palm. I’m certain he was here entirely because of the Erratics’ sound standing in both ‘Gloucestershire’ and the ECB. Besides, his presence in Tedburn would likely not be seen from a drone, or by the Western Morning News.

It’s now obvious that the game was temporarily put on hold for a while in order to arrange sufficient security checks and safe transport for the big man – and not actually for the thorough pitch inspection (though injuring Stokes’ other hand with a fall in the mud would certainly make for tough questioning back in Bristol).

(Readers will notice that I sometimes digress.)

Before I made my own debut at Tedburn, two of Erratics’ best players told me “it’s horrible.” I assumed they were just trying to put me off so they could be sure to play – but neither of them did. So which came first...were they already better players, who sneer and choose not to play at Tedburn to protect their reputation, sensibilities or averages? Or did they play through the testing conditions in the past that forged them as better players now, but inflicted a heavy, scarred burdens?

To the game. There was a careful ground inspection, but the bog at the top of the hill under the trees, the greasy lawn in front of the pavilion and the squelchy run-ups all passed – and so they should: this was a great game and we had a beautiful mound of tea to earn!

Stokesey arranged to bowl first and fantastic tight lines by Ben, Nigel and Siva meant the Heads & Tails batsmen struggled to settle. The first wide came in the 13th over, and when the ball was hit away, the slow infield gave them little return...just as well for the well-placed fielders, picking their way across the turf with their boots sucking at the mud. Together Ben and Nigel returned 11 overs for 15 and 3 wickets. The Heads & Tails no.3 battled hard and deserved better than 47 – Stokesey knew exactly when to bowl his secret weapon and Martin Weiler picked up three quick wickets to hurry the innings to a close and hot tea. After 29 overs, Heads & Tails had set a target of 103.

Learning from the first innings, Erratics began tentatively, with one run struck from the first over before Andrew was stumped in the second. Either this was karma and Andrew had unwittingly stumped out his opposite number just before the sandwiches…or the H&T ’keeper has a grudge against the Wicketkeepers’ Order.

Such is Stokesey’s ability to read the game, he had predicted this would happen. Therefore during tea, he had chosen another regular Erratics’ gloveman at no.3, to be sure of avenging either Andrew’s fall, or his own.

And it certainly became ‘sure’. Stokesey (31) and Jonathan (37) played without giving a chance for more than a dozen overs and only the slow outfield prevented them from scoring the winning runs. One eager flash of the legs from Jonathan flew towards the pavilion wall but landed two inches short and stopped dead; a perfect hemisphere plugged in the mire that afforded him just one run. The regular big-hitters Martin Wright and Krupaker pocketed the final 20 runs to reach the target in 22.1 overs.

So, was it ‘horrible’? No. There is nothing to object to about cheerful friendly cricket in October. Yes it was muddy, but I chose Devon partly because of the mud! So I’ll be back at Tedburn, whether it makes me a better player or not. I hope *Stokesey enjoyed it too, I don’t think he will relinquish the captaincy without a fight.

** To the best of my knowledge and following due journalistic research, Danny Williamson has never risked a bar in Bristol. He also does not ‘altercate’, especially after a win.

Heads & Tails Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 9 wickets
0
102 (29.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Ben Youngman6.01919.001.50
Nigel Rutherford5.01623.001.20
Sivaraman Subramanian6.0220120.003.33
Jayakrupakar Nallala6.0023123.003.83
George Cockburn3.003000.0010.00
Martin Weiler3.00632.002.00

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 3 wickets
0
103		        
Andrew Forrester Caught  1 1
Danny Williamson Bowled  31 2 1
Jonathan Kirby Run out  37 3
Martin Wright Not Out  13 2 1
Jayakrupakar Nallala Not Out  8 1 1
Nigel Rutherford   1
Martin Weiler   1
Sivaraman Subramanian  
George Cockburn  
Ben Youngman  
Penny Price  

Heads & Tails Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.