Scorecard

Ipplepen v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Wed 06 Jun 2018 at 6.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Lost by 56 Runs

Match report Erratics vs Ipplepen 2018

In recent years my perspective of “the Ipplepen game” is one of a game played on a nice ground in which we are crushingly defeated in a 20/20. I wanted to go back into the annals of history to see if this was always the truth or was there a time of an alternative destiny.

According to its website Ipplepen cricket club was founded in 1890, they played on the same ground, which apparently “had a very sharp slope,” until 1963 when the club folded. In 1973 the team unfolded themselves and returned to action with a different ground without a sharp slope problem. In 1986 they moved out of the village playing field and moved into their current ground, officially opened by Charlie Griffiths (West Indies and Barbados) – who was there on a tour with his team from the Cayman Islands (presumably they got lost).

But when did their history first become entwined with the history of the Erratics? My first port of call was the first Erratic book “Fifty Not Out” which covers the years 1934 to 1984, inside which I found no reference to Ipplepen at all. The two opposition teams in the index beginning with “I” were Ide (played 5 lost 4, typical) and Ilsington (who don’t seem to exist anymore… I mean the village is still there…). Onto the second book “The Glory Decade” which covers the 1984 to 1994 decade considered to be gloryful (by which I mean full of glory and not similar to the classic heavy metal underground band formed in 2010 by Johnny La Bomba and Jens “Shredmaster JB” Basten, although there are similarities). I digress.
The index of The Glory Decade shows that we’d played 4 matches against Ipplepen during the decade of glory, winning two and losing also 2. What does this tell us? Not very much. Was there more information in the rest of the book? I shall check right now (now being at the time of writing and not at the moment that you read this). Yes! There is a match report from the 1994 season written by Stephen Fisher: (Erratics v. Ipplepen. At Ipplepen, Sunday 1 May, 2.30pm. Ipplepen 132 (Hale 7-48, Robbins 3-26); Erratics 61. Lost). It seems that little changes (Apart from 7 wicket hauls). In the report Fisher notes that Ipplepen is “a relatively new fixture” and the day was accompanied by the “reappearance of (Fishers) favourite cricket flannels.” Apparently “the tea was ranked upon the best in the memory of all” but the game culminated in “a decisive defeat.”

From there we move on to the current website to see what happens when the Glory Decade came to a close:

• 1995: Game Drawn (Erratics falling short by 18 runs chasing 258 but with 4 wickets intact – Chris Cook got 105 not out).

• 1996: Game Won (It says game won by 5 runs but according to the scorecard Ipplepen scored 184 and the Erratics scored 179 so who knows).

• 1997 (Game One): Game Lost (Another close one this, Erratics lose by 4 runs, possibly like the last one).

• 1997 (Game Two): Game Won (Hale for 6 for 22 this time and the Erratics chased 120 for only the loss of two wickets, could be described as a decisive victory).

• 1998: Game Won (We bowled them out again, but Hale got just 2 for 35 this time, disappointing).

• 1999: Game Won (Almost the mirror of 1997 Game Two).

• 2000: Game Won (Ipplepen were 9 wickets down this time and the Erratics used 8 bowlers, maybe our success is due to a lack of 20/20s at this point – alternatively maybe we’re worse/they are better then we/they were back then).

• 2001: Game Won (We bowled them out again, this time for 106. Maybe our recent crushing defeats are revenge for the times we refused to stop bowling them out).

• 2002: Game Won (Ipplepen scored 99 for 6 off 35 overs in this game, forward to 2018 when they’d be scoring 99 off under 8 overs).

• 2003: Game Lost (Apparently “the scorebook was inadequately kept,” but it shows enough to know that this time it was the Erratics that were bowled out trying to chase 179).

• 2004: Game Won (Back to the way it was as Ipplepen are bowled out for 160 and the Erratics succeed in chasing it for the loss of few wickets).

• 2006: Game Won (A more competitive game as the Erratics chase 186 without even bothering to bowl Ipplepen out first, notable for two things: firstly that Chris Cook inexplicably retired not out for 28 and Matt Cook’s somewhat confusing match report that finished “How long can the winning streak last?” – this was the second win in a row, the Erratics were truly unstoppable).

• 2007: Game Lost (Somewhat of a slaughter as Ipplepen scored 258 for 3 of 40 overs and the Erratics scored 150 for 9 of their 40 overs (50 of these runs scored by Paul Molins batting at number 9), also “the report for this match was not submitted by Al Brunt,” the Erratics were truly stopped)

• 2008: Game Drawn (Ipplepen 267 for 3, Erratics 209 for 4, a high scoring game. Chris Ferro scored 100 in this high scoring draw. My favourite part of the match report says this: “Davies running was bought into question as on a number of 3’s run in the partnership Ferro almost lapped him.”)

• 2009: Game Lost (The Erratics scored 151 in 46 overs and Ipplepen chased it down in less than half that. It seems the tide is officially turned in favour of the opposition. Again the quality of the tea is referred to: “Chris Ferro was heard to say it was the best tea he’d had all season, but perhaps he was just chatting up the tea ladies.”)

• 2010: Game Won (I spoke too soon, both teams were bowled out this time. Jonathan wrote this match report so his words will explain to our victory: “’Wow, guys, what a fielding display that was!’ said the Ipplepen captain as we returned to the pavilion after the final wicket of the day had fallen. Erratics reading this might assume that he was referring to the Ipplepen fielding, or that he was making an ironic reference to Erratic capers on the greensward. Such an assumption, while understandable, would be wrong. We were massive. But you probably had to be there.” – well I wasn’t there so I’ll let it pass).

I assumed the 2010 game marked the final afternoon game played at Ipplepen, the 2011 and 2012 games were both cancelled 20/20s, but then something unusual happened in 2013:

• 2013: Game Tied (I’ll let Chris Ferro’s notes from the game describe the events: “I remember that I broke my thumb failing to take a return catch, which went for 4 up the hill, then bowling the batsman next ball. I also remember Chris Cook's brilliant innings - his acceleration was amazing. We needed a handful of runs off the last over, I was on strike but wasn't striking the ball well, and Chris Cook tried to get on strike by running when I hit the ball straight to short cover. I didn't move and Chris was run out. Then Varun must have been run out without facing. I'm not sure if we won or tied. I think we needed two off the last ball to win as I remember thinking that the only place that we might get a two was to a fine fine leg, and I think I did manage to work the ball there and get the two runs, but I might be completely wrong.
Another feature of this game was the extended tragi-comedy afforded by the unexpectedly long opening stand between McRae and Abrahams snr. Ipplepen fluffed about half a dozen run-out chances in the first few overs. CF”)

• 2014: Game Lost (I dimly remember this game myself, but Martin Weiler’s match report is expectedly doused in history: “Regular fixtures with Ipplepen only started in 1993 but there is no doubt that it is now one of the most looked forward to games of the year. Particularly on a beautiful blue sky sunny day like this one. Friendly opponents, a neat compact ground, a fabulous tea and even an electronic scoreboard to play with.”

The 2014 game was the final afternoon match played at Ipplepen, upon researching the past I find that I mourn the convergence from afternoon to evening.

• 2016: Game Lost (It seems that the image I have if Ipplepen was entirely based upon this game, it was noted in Danny’s match report that the opposition captain was quoted having said: “we have a T20 final at the weekend and we’ve put out a strong batting side to give the lads some practice.” Well the lads had their practise and my impression of Ipplepen was somewhat tarnished as a result)

• 2018: Game Lost (This is the game that I was meant to write about all along, in the end it was a natural progression of Ipplepen’s improvement as a team (they’re in division B now), and our steady ever faithful erraticness. In short the strong Ipplepen batsmen were too strong for our most dangerous bowlers, our fielding wasn’t quite up to the level that Jonathan talked about as “massive” in that 2010 game, the first ball of the game was miss-fielded in the outfield, fumbled on the pick up before being fumbled by the bowler with the return throw and we went from there. I managed to drop two (please say difficult) difficult catches and other chances fell short or fell long. We actually managed to keep them contained for a while but as soon as they were able to attack, they did and they got away with it.
It was a similar story with the bat, we in fact got off to a very good start, Ben Pullan and Matt Crawford scored well and quickly in those first few overs. And, ironically enough, we were undone in later overs by what I observed to be Ipplepen’s attempts to make it a more even game, I assume that Ipplepen had league bowlers amongst their team that they didn’t bowl, I might be wrong. But what I do know that myself, Jonathan and Krups all have a vast preference for medium/faster bowlers to very slow but accurate (or even very slow and inaccurate) bowling. But maybe Ipplepen knew this of us and it was actually a work of a tactical brain to put on the bowler described by the team as “this could go anywhere and do anything.” In the end the loss of wickets led to the drying up of the runs and the run rate rose ever higher to the point of being beyond reachable. We went down fighting and there were of course positives to be gained, for example Siva didn’t lose his whites, George discovered that the bat that the club seems to have stolen from some poor unknown is quite good, Danny turned up to observe what we’ve become without him and Ben Youngman spent much of the evening in the net (he claims to have got back some rhythm). And since it is required to talk about the weather, I assure you that the weather could be described as ‘mighty fine’, the sun was shinning and it was very warm, in that regard it was a perfect evening.)

I don’t know about you dear reader, but I am thankful for my foray into the past of this game, my opinion before doing so was an undeserving dislike of this fixture based upon one poor experience. I now believe that this is a fixture against a team we used to know well and used to be well matched against, that in recent years has lost a lot of that history and they’ve also got a bit too good. I hope that in the future we can form new bonds with the Ipplepen team and that either we get better or they get worse. In short, I hope it continues (whatever ‘it’ may be).

Fraser Chave

Ipplepen Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 2 wickets
0
186 (20.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Mark Hailwood4.002300.005.75
Chris Ferro4.01700.001.75
Jayakrupakar Nallala2.003800.0019.00
Fraser Chave4.0034217.008.50
John Curtis2.003600.0018.00
Ben Youngman4.004500.0011.25

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 7 wickets
0
130		        
Ben Pullan Lbw  39 6 1
Matt Crawford Lbw  20 2
George Cockburn Stumped  4
Jayakrupakar Nallala Caught  8 1
Sivaraman Subramanian Stumped  7 1 1
Fraser Chave Caught  16 3
Jonathan Kirby Not Out  17 2
Ben Youngman Stumped  0
Chris Ferro Not Out  8 1 1
Mark Hailwood  
John Curtis  

Ipplepen Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.